GUYSEN
http://www.guysen.com/topnews.php?tnid=4305&titre=Usines-Schaeffler-
Usines Schaeffler :
2009-03-06 11:38:00
D’après des historiens travaillant sur les camps d’extermination d’Auschwitz en Pologne, l’équipementier automobile allemand Schaeffler a utilisé des cheveux de prisonniers pour fabriquer des textiles durant la Seconde guerre mondiale.
Les chercheurs ont affirmé avoir trouvé des rouleaux de tissu dans une ancienne usine du sud de la Pologne, faits à partir de cheveux de plus de 40.000 détenus.
Le docteur Jacek Lachendro, historien travaillant au musée d’Auschwitz, a de son côté expliqué au journal allemand ‘Der Spiegel’ que 1,95 tonnes de vêtements fabriqués à partir de cheveux d’êtres humains ont été localisés dans d’anciennes usines de textile et d’armement dans la ville de Kiertz.
Ces découvertes auraient été faites après le retrait des Allemands à la fin de la guerre.
Toujours selon J. Lachendro, des traces de Zyklon B (gaz utilisé pour exterminer en masse les détenus des camps) ont également été retrouvées dans les usines.
Par ailleurs des anciens ouvriers de la fabrique de Kiertz, interviewés par ‘Der Spiege’ ont assuré se souvenir de deux wagons chargés de cheveux humains arrivant à l’usine en 1943.
L’entreprise Schaeffler a dores et déjà rejeté les accusations des historiens arguant qu’il n’y avait pas de preuve tangible pouvant les confirmer.
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ACTU.CO.IL
Shoah : Scandale nauséabond en Allemagne
[Mercredi 03/04/2009 17:58]
Un chercheur polonais spécialisé dans la Shoah accuse formellement une entreprise allemande encore en activité d’avoir utilisé des cheveux de déportés dans sa production textile durant la guerre.
Jachek Lachendro, sous-directeur du Département de Recherche du Musée d’Auschwitz affirme que les usines « Schaeffler », qui fabriquent aujourd’hui notamment des pièces de rechange pour automobiles, ont participé à l’effort de guerre nazi, et utilisé des cheveux de 40.000 déportés gazés au camp d’Auschwitz dans l’une de leurs entreprises en Pologne. A la fin de la guerre deux tonnes de cheveux auraient été trouvées dans les entrepôts de l’usine qui se trouvait à Kietzr, à trois heures de route d’Auschwitz.
Dans une interview accordée au journal « Der Spiegel », Lachendro cite également les témoignages d’ouvriers de cette usine, qui indiquent qu’en 1943, deux trains de marchandises contenant des cheveux de déportés avaient été livrés à l’usine « Schaeffler » de Kietzr. Les chercheurs polonais y avaient d’ailleurs décelé des traces de « Zyklon B » les gaz de sinistre mémoire utilisé par les nazis dans les chambres à gaz.
Certains de ces cheveux sont « exposés » aujourd’hui au Musée d’Auschwitz, et Lachendro affirme posséder des documents officiels attestant les livraisons de cheveux à cette usine dénommée auparavant « Davistan AG», rachetée ensuite par les frères Schaeffler.
Suite au scandale qui a pris de l’ampleur, la dirigeante actuelle de « Schaeffler », Maria-Elisabeth Schaeffler, veuve de l’un des deux frères, a engagé un chercheur afin de retracer l’historique des événements et d’éclaircir le rôle de Wilhelm et Georg Schaeffler par rapport au IIIe Reich: « Davistan AG » appartenait à l’origine à une famille juive, qui avait dû fuir l’Allemagne après l’arrivée d’Hitler au pouvoir. Elle avait alors ouvert une nouvelle usine textile à Kietzr en Pologne. Après l’invasion de la Pologne par l’armée allemande, l’usine fut confisquée et rachetée à très bas prix à une banque allemande en 1940 par Wilhelm et Georg Schaeffler, qui en élargissaient le domaine d’activité avec la fabrication d’armes et de munitions. Ceux-ci, à l’instar de nombreuses autres entreprises allemandes, employèrent pendant la guerre des travailleurs forcés français, polonais ou russes. Après la guerre, les frères Schaeffler avaient transféré leur usine de Pologne vers la Bavière, et avaient transformé leur société familiale en puissant groupe international.
Mais tant la direction de la compagnie que l’historien allemand, Gregor Schöllgen, nient formellement l’utilisation de cheveux de déportés dans la fabrication de produits textiles durant la guerre.
Ces relents de passé nazi ou pro-nazi des frères Schaeffler, arrivent à un très mauvais moment pour cette immense compagnie aux nombreuses ramifications, qui emploie aujourd’hui quelque 200.000 employés à travers le monde, mais qui est dans une situation financière catastrophique depuis son rachat l’an passé du géant du pneu « Continental », et vient de demander des aides urgentes auprès du gouvernement allemand.
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TIME
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1882866,00.html
Thursday, Mar. 05, 2009
German Company Seeking Bailout Is Tied to Auschwitz
By William Boston / Berlin
Germany’s Nazi past continues to unsettle its present. Privileged clans and mighty industries alike have subjected themselves to public scrutiny and painful mea culpas over activities and associations before and during World War II. But the latest controversy links the poisoned mementos of Auschwitz to the ongoing global financial crisis in a still unraveling tale of leveraged buyouts, corporate hubris and financial humiliation. (See Auschwitz and other gloomy tourist destinations.)
At the center of the drama is Maria-Elisabeth Schaeffler, 67, the grande dame of one of Germany’s richest industrial clans. Last year she spearheaded her car-component company’s dramatic 12 billion euro ($16 billion) takeover of a larger rival that left most of Germany breathless — but not quite with admiration. Such buyouts had more often been associated with predatory foreigners (e.g., Americans) than with fellow Germans. The audacious bid smacked of hubris to many Germans and angered labor unions, who warned that the Schaeffler Group was biting off more than it could chew. Indeed, it soon came under immense pressure as the global financial crisis slammed headlong into the German car industry and orders dried up almost overnight. By the end of 2008, the once proud matriarch was seen in tears on German television, leading employees in a demonstration to prod the government to bail out her hapless clan and save thousands of jobs. But given the Schaeffler Group’s “greed is good” image, it was no surprise that Chancellor Angela Merkel said nein.
Now come charges that Schaeffler’s kin profited from Hitler’s gassing of Jews in Auschwitz. Jacek Lachendro, deputy director of the Auschwitz Museum’s research department, told Spiegel TV, a German program associated with the weekly newsmagazine, that bales of human hair, which are still on exhibit in the Auschwitz Museum, were found at a factory in Kietrz, Poland, at the end of World War II. The hair, allegedly from victims gassed at the infamous concentration camp, was supposedly used to manufacture upholstery and carpets. The factory’s name was Teppichfabrik G. Schoeffler AG. “Our historians say Schoeffler is Schaeffler,” the museum spokesman says, adding that the difference is due to a mere misspelling in the documentation. That, according to the museum, links Auschwitz to Wilhelm and Georg Schaeffler, the brothers who founded the company that is now the Schaeffler Group. (See Hitler’s rise to power.)
Lachendro says tests conducted on the hair turned up traces of Zyklon B, the deadly pesticide used to gas Auschwitz prisoners. Lachendro presented the Spiegel TV reporters with a bale of cloth that he said was made from human hair. He said former workers at the alleged Schaeffler factory in Kietrz testified that at least two train-car loads of human hair were delivered to the factory from Auschwitz.
What makes the Schaeffler case particularly interesting is the timing of the Auschwitz allegations. It may be part of the negative reception of the controversial corporate buyout, originating from a source who may want to damage the Schaeffler family, spreading rumors about its activities during the Nazi period. Indeed, the clan seemed to have been prepared for the arrival of such charges. In early February, after rumors began to appear on the Internet that the Schaeffler clan had Nazi skeletons in its closet, the family made public a study it had commissioned in 2004 on its history during the Nazi period. (The move is not unusual. Over the past few years, perhaps to defuse or control potential controversies, many German industrial families have commissioned independent historians to document their family histories and to look into the activities of family members during the Nazi era.)
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 now? Nothing,” he says.
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 Schöllgen: “The evidence is still missing that shows that Wilhelm Schaeffler was actually involved in these crimes.”
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. But Schöllgen says the company was not part of Hitler’s “Aryanization” program to transfer Jewish property to Germans.
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 ever brought up in Wilhelm’s trial.) The Schaefflers later settled in Bavaria and rebuilt the company, founding the textiles company INA, out of which grew the modern-day Schaeffler Group.
The 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 to her now.
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INDEPENDENT
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/german-firm-used-hair-from-auschwitz-to-make-car-parts-14210595.html#comments
belfasttelegraph.co.uk
German firm ‘used hair from Auschwitz to make car parts’
By Tony Paterson
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
One of the pillars of German industry, the giant but debt-crippled Schaeffler car parts supplier, was accused yesterday of using hair shorn from at least 40,000 Auschwitz death camp prisoners to make textiles at its factories in Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War.
The highly disturbing allegations were contained in new evidence unearthed by Polish historians at the Auschwitz museum, who said they had found rolls of fabric made from camp inmates’ hair at a former Schaeffler factory in Poland’s southern region of Silesia.
The discovery was the latest in a series of damaging blows for the ailing Schaeffler concern, which employs 200,000 people worldwide. The company is currently saddled with debts totalling €14bn (£12.6bn) and faces the prospect of bankruptcy.
Last month, Maria-Elisabeth Schaeffler, the concern’s flamboyant and usually fur-coated millionaire owner, appeared at a trade union rally and wept openly as she appealed to the government of the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, for a state-funded bailout. In an attempt to clear up rumours about the company’s wartime role, Mrs Schaeffler recently admitted to using slave labourers at its factories during the Second World War. However, the company’s officially published history still only begins in 1946.
The company’s own historian dismissed the allegations yesterday and said there was no evidence to support the theory that Schaeffler processed death camp inmates’ hair industrially during the Second World War.
But Dr Jacek Lachendro, a historian at the Auschwitz museum, told Germany’s Der Spiegel television channel that 1.95 tonnes of cloth made from inmates’ hair had been discovered at a former Schaeffler textile and army tank parts factory in the town of Kiertz (formerly Katscher) after the Germans withdrew at the end of the war.
The amount of cloth, which was pictured on Spiegel television as rolls of closely-woven brownish fabric, was said to have derived from the hair shorn from some 40,000 Auschwitz prisoners. Dr Lachendro said that subsequent analysis of the hair showed that some of it contained traces of the Zyklon B gas used by the Nazis to murder millions in the death camps.
Former workers at the factory in Kiertz who were interviewed on the programme said that they remembered two wagon-loads of human hair being delivered to the company in 1943. Kiertz is three hours’ drive away from the Auschwitz camp.
Hair was routinely shorn from prisoners, usually on arrival, at the death camps. The Nazi war machine used it to make army blankets and socks for U-boat crews. The Auschwitz museum on the site of the former death camp displays a store filled to the roof with inmates’ hair originally intended for so-called “human recycling”.
The Kiertz textile factory where the hair is alleged to have been processed formerly belonged to the Jewish-owned Davistan AG concern on which the Schaeffler empire was founded after it was taken over by the brothers Wilhelm and Georg Schaeffler. Their company made armaments for the Nazi war machine, but after the Second World War it re-emerged as one of Germany’s main suppliers of parts to the car industry, specialising in needle roller bearings.
However, the devastating impact of the credit crunch coupled with Schaeffler’s misjudged hostile takeover of the tyre giant Continental have since plunged the concern into its worst crisis since the war.
Maria-Elisabeth Schaeffler, an Austrian born former medical student, married into the concern and became its sole owner in 1996 after her husband, Georg, died. Last month she took the unprecedented step of joining a demonstration staged by 800 of her company’s employees to appeal for government help. Previously, the company’s management style had been called “feudal”.
Mrs Merkel’s government, which is currently being asked to provide state aid for Germany’s ailing Opel car company, has still to decide whether it will help Schaeffler with a bailout.
Source: Independent
©belfasttelegraph.co.uk
