These 13 brands have controversial, dark origins
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In addition to its €10 million donation, a JAB spokesperson told Business Insider that the company also plans "to provide €250 million to the Alfred Landecker Foundation over the next 10 years, which will become a rolling commitment in perpetuity."
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The Alfred Landecker Foundation's stated mission is to educate "current and future generations about the Holocaust and the terrible price paid when intolerance and bigotry reign." The foundation is named for Emilie Landecker's father.
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Fashion designer Hugo Boss was an active member of the Nazi Party during World War II. So it's no surprise that his firm produced uniforms for both the SS and the Hitler Youth, sometimes using the forced labor of French and Polish prisoners.
Source: BBC
L'Oréal founder Eugène Schueller was a member of La Cagoule, a fascist secret society bent on overthrowing France's democratic government in the years before World War II.
Source: Business Insider
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In 1925, Fred Koch Sr. founded Winkler-Koch Engineering Company, a predecessor to the modern-day Koch Industries. In her book "Dark Money," Jane Mayer wrote that Winkler-Koch went on to build refineries in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin.
Source: Business Insider, "Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right"
Koch Industries responded to Business Insider's request for comment with a statement saying that Ed Koch agreed to work on a Hamburg refinery "six years before Germany invaded Poland" and that the businessman quit dealing with Nazi Germany "when it became clear that Hitler's government was a tyrannical regime."
Source: Koch Industries
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Edwin Black's 2001 book "IBM and the Holocaust" alleged that IBM provided extensive technological support to Nazi Germany for 12 years, based on a trove of archived documents.
Source: HuffPost, "IBM and the Holocaust"
An IBM spokesperson said that Black's work has been "discredited by several reviewers and scholars" and told Business Insider: "We have been consistently clear: IBM and its employees around the world maintain that the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime are abhorrent and condemn any actions which aided their unspeakable acts."
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The spokesperson also cited Kevin Maney, who wrote that Thomas Watson Sr. likely didn't know what the Nazis were using his technology for, and said that IBM's German operations "came under the control of Nazi authorities prior to and during World War II."
Two biographies on iconic fashion designer Coco Chanel — "Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel's Secret War" and "Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life" — allege that Chanel became a secret agent for Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage, a German intelligence officer with whom she struck up a relationship during World War II.
Source: Business Insider, The Associated Press, "Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel's Secret War," "Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life"
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Today, the car brands Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi are all situated under the umbrella of the the Volkswagen Group. The trio of brands also share a dark past when it comes to World War II.
Source: Business Insider's Household Name, BBC, New York Daily News,
Ferdinand Porsche was a famous German engineer and Nazi Party member known for founding his namesake car company and inventing the Volkswagen Beetle on orders from Hitler. Audi's predecessor, Auto Union, also reportedly relied on slave labor during the war.
Source: Business Insider's Household Name, BBC, New York Daily News,
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The founders of shoe brands Adidas and Puma weren't just brothers — Adolf and Rudolf Dassler were also both members of the Nazi Party during World War II. The Dassler brothers worked together in the shoe business initially, but they ultimately broke up over some mysterious falling out.
Source: Business Insider, The Cut, Vice
Adolf went on to found Adidas, while Rudolf launched Puma. Vice reported that neither brother was particularly committed to Nazism, however.
Source: Business Insider, The Cut, Vice
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Adidas' founder's stated political leanings also didn't stop him from quietly sponsoring African-American athlete Jesse Owens during the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. Owens went on to win four gold medals at the Games.
Source: Adidas
An Adidas spokesperson told Business Insider that helping athletes "perform at their best was more important to Adi Dassler than politics," and that the company is "proud that Adi Dassler showed moral courage ... in this darkest phase of German history."
Source: Adidas
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Henry Ford was an innovative American businessman, but he used his status to spread anti-Semitic views in the early 20th century. PBS reported that by buying the newspaper The Dearborn Independent, Ford was able to print a 91-issue "series of articles that claimed a vast Jewish conspiracy was infecting America."
Source: PBS
The Quandt family, longtime powerful BMW shareholders, benefitted by "taking over scores of Jewish businesses" during World War II, according to the Independent. The New York Post reported in 2016 that the car company expressed "profound regret" for using slave labor and supporting the Nazi war effort by manufacturing aircraft and motorcycles.
Source: New York Post, Forbes
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