West German Industry and the Challenge of the Nazi Past

Download or read book West German Industry and the Challenge of the Nazi Past written by S. Jonathan Wiesen and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2004-02-01 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this groundbreaking study, S. Jonathan Wiesen explores how West German business leaders remade and marketed their public image in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust. He challenges assumptions that West Germans - and industrialists in particular - were silent about the recent past during the years of denazification and reconstruction, revealing how German business leaders attempted to absolve themselves of responsibility for Nazi crimes while recasting themselves as socially and culturally engaged public figures. Through case studies of individual firms such as Siemens and Krupp, Wiesen depicts corporate publicity as a telling example of postwar selective memory.