Nazi Billionaires: The Dark History of Germany's Wealthiest Dynasties

A groundbreaking investigation of how the Nazis helped German tycoons make billions off the horrors of the Third Reich and World War II--and how America allowed them to get away with it. In 1946, Günther Quandt--patriarch of Germany's most iconic industrial empire--was arrested for suspected Nazi collaboration. Quandt claimed that he had been forced to join the party by Joseph Goebbels, and the courts acquitted him. But Quandt lied. And his heirs, and those of other Nazi billionaires, have only grown wealthier in the generations since, while their reckoning with this dark past remains incomplete at best. In this landmark work of investigative journalism, David de Jong reveals the true story of how Germany's richest business dynasties profited from the Third Reich. Using a wealth of untapped sources, de Jong shows how these tycoons seized Jewish businesses, procured slave laborers, and ramped up production to equip Hitler's army as Europe burned around them. Most shocking of all, de Jong exposes how America's political expediency enabled these billionaires to get away with their crimes, covering up a bloodstain that defiles Germany's and the global economy to this day.