Word: schaeffler
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After studying private family archives and public documents, Gregor Schöllgen, professor of contemporary history at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, concluded that Wilhelm Schaeffler, Maria-Elisabeth's brother-in-law, cooperated with the Nazis as necessary for personal gain, but that in this way he was not unlike many small entrepreneurs during the Nazi period. He says there is no evidence that Schaeffler was an enthusiastic Nazi or a supporter of Hitler's plans to annihilate Europe's Jews. What does Schöllgen think there is to the story about the Auschwitz hair? "Based on what we know...
Speaking for the family, Schöllgen says the Auschwitz Museum's claims are actually based on the records of another company that absorbed the Schaeffler's Kiertz operations, so there is no direct link to the family's company. Schöllgen says if the Schaefflers were involved in Holocaust crimes, then documentation should exist. The Nazis treated the material coming out of the camps like they were trading cotton rather than the remains of human beings, Schöllgen says, and he has come across no documents such as order forms or any receipts linking Schaeffler to the hair. Says Sch?...
Still, the history that Schöllgen uncovered is a reminder of the pervasiveness of Nazi policies. In 1940 Wilhelm Schaeffler acquired a company called Davistan AG in the town of Kietrz. Davistan was a former Jewish-owned manufacturer of upholstery and carpets that had gone bankrupt. In an interview with Schöllgen in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on March 2, Davistan is described as the "cornerstone of the current Schaeffler Group." The company belonged to a Jewish family named Frank that ran into trouble during the Great Depression and left Germany in 1933 as anti-Semitism began to spread...
Schöllgen shows that Davistan, which had 800 workers, also employed forced laborers. Although he is uncertain how many slaves worked for Davistan, Schöllgen says he believes the number was small. In 1943, Davistan also began producing armaments for the Nazis such as antitank weapons and aerial bombs. Schaeffler and his younger brother Georg, who would marry Maria-Elisabeth in 1964, fled Kietrz in 1945 as the Red Army advanced. Wilhelm was arrested by U.S. forces and served more than four years in Polish prisons after the war. (Schöllgen points out that none of the current allegations were...
...family thrived after the war, but now it faces diaster. Even without the Auschwitz allegations, the foundations of the Schaeffler industrial empire have been shaken. With the German government (and Germany's taxpayers) refusing to bail her out, Maria-Elisabeth Schaeffler will have to give up a significant stake in the company to pay off creditors and could lose control of the family business. She has gambled high before and - defying the odds - won. She once said in a rare interview, "You don't get anywhere in this world by being nice to everyone." No one is being nice...