Private sector participation in Nazi crimes

[1] Corporations participated extensively in the process of Aryanization, in which Jews were removed from the economy, in particular by dismissal from employment and confiscation of property.

Following the invasion and annexation of other countries such as Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, German banks also helped to Aryanize the Jewish companies there, in close cooperation with the Gestapo.

[3] Companies also helped the SS sell gold and other property confiscated from Jews murdered by death squads and in the extermination camps.

This price included the clothing and food of prisoners as well as hiring SS guard details, but the companies had to pay for accommodation and medical care.

[7] Nederlandse Spoorwegen, the Dutch railway company, was paid the equivalent of 3 million euros (2019) for transporting more than 100,000 Jews from the Netherlands to concentration and extermination camps.

[8] Individuals and companies in the private sector faced prosecutions and restitution claims after the war for their wrongdoing; however, most were reluctant to take responsibility for their actions.

[12] Grietje Baars writes that the judges resorted to "absurd contradictions" in order to justify lenient verdicts in the context of the Cold War.

[13] All convicted industrialists remaining in prison were released by John J. McCloy, the United States High Commissioner of Germany, by 1951, and most confiscated assets were also returned.

[17][18] While pursuing claims of Jewish forced laborers against the Flick concern, Benjamin Ferencz observed the "interesting phenomenon of history and psychology that very frequently the criminal comes to see himself as the victim".

[19] Likewise, historian Jonathan Wiesen observed that the "language of self-victimization" was frequently used by companies in negotiations over restitution, as they carried out a "self-pitying" attempt to contain the corporate responsibility and liability for Nazi crimes.