2024-08-15 09:24:45
Bahlsen, a well-known German biscuit and cake maker, is apologizing after a study commissioned by the company revealed that it used far more forced labor from Poland and Ukraine under the Nazis than previously known.
According to the study, conducted at the request of the Bahlsen family by two historians, Manfred Grieger and Hartmut Berghoff, it was possible to identify nearly 800 forced laborers who worked for the Hanover company between 1940 and 1945. We learned this from the company on Thursday.
This number is significantly higher than previous estimates of 200 to 250 forced laborers.
“The truth about what happened during the (Nazi) era is embarrassing and painful,” the Bahlsen family commented in a press release.
The family-owned company, which was founded in the late 19th century, added in a press release that current research “shows that our ancestors and contemporary participants took advantage of this system during the Nazi era.”
Forced laborers were employed to produce rations for German troops at the front.
Balson’s heirs say that until now, they did not know many details of the company’s history and never questioned how it operated and survived during World War II.
The current study was commissioned after the company’s young heiress, Verena Bahlsen, sparked controversy in May 2019 by publicly downplaying the suffering of forced laborers employed by the company during the Nazi era.
“All this happened before me, we paid forced laborers like the Germans did, we treated them well” In the end, Barson “has nothing to blame herself for,” she said before apologizing.
She then left the company in November 2022.
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