Fight for Compensation: Newspaper advertisement “Mercedes-Benz. Design. Performance. Slave Labor” in the New York Times, October 1999
Who placed this newspaper advertisement and in what context?
In the autumn of 1998, the German government decided to set up a federal foundation with the participation of German industry to compensate former forced labourers. This later became the Foundation for Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (EVZ). At the beginning of October 1999, B'nai B'rith International, the Association of Polish Slave Labourers in the Third Reich and other organisations protested against the level of funding of the Foundation and the amount of compensation offered so far. With a joint advertising campaign in the New York Times, they put public pressure on companies such as Mercedes-Benz and Bayer to increase payments.
What can we see?
The advertisement shows the Mercedes-Benz logo with the words “Design. Performance. Slave Labour”. Below this is a quote from Irving Kempler, a Jewish concentration camp prisoner who was forced to work for Daimler-Benz at the age of 15.
The text sheds light on the scale of forced labour and exploitation of concentration camp prisoners by the Nazis. It makes clear that companies were not forced to use forced labour, but did so of their own free will and even competed with each other for workers. Daimler-Benz is said to have been particularly aggressive in this regard. The text criticises the fact that the exploited are still waiting for compensation payments from German companies, while their former Nazi bosses are receiving salaries and pensions.
Two photos show Adolf Hitler being driven in a Mercedes-Benz and a man who is a Soviet prisoner of war assembling a car in a Volkswagen factory.
At the end of the ad is the demand “Justice. Compensation. Now”.
What does the advertisement reveal about Nazi forced labour and what should be taken into account when dealing with documents relating to the struggle for compensation?
Using Mercedes-Benz as an example, the ad highlights the complicity of German industry in the crime of Nazi forced labour. Companies did not shy away from collaborating with the SS and exploiting tens of thousands of concentration camp prisoners.
At the same time, the advertisement is a snapshot of a moment in the decades-long struggle for personal compensation. As early as the late 1940s, former forced labourers made the first demands for recognition of their suffering and financial compensation. But the German government and German companies rejected these demands. It was not until protest campaigns, calls for boycotts and class-action lawsuits were launched against German companies in the US in the late 1990s that the government and the companies finally agreed to pay. The advertising campaign of October 1999 is further evidence of the struggle of former forced labourers and the reluctance of German companies to pay compensation and come to terms with their Nazi past.
What do we not see?
After being subjected to increasing international public pressure, the federal government and the companies increased the amount of the foundation’s funding to EUR 5.2 billion (10.1 billion Deutschmarks), of which half was contributed by the German State and half by the companies. Former forced labourers were able to get a one-off compensation payment from this fund. The amount of the payment depended on the form of forced labour the person had been subjected to. Civilian forced labourers in the agricultural sector received the lowest payouts at a maximum of €2.235. Forced labourers in industry received €2.556 and former forced labourers concentration camps and ghettos received up to €7.669.
The compensation payments came too late for many former forced labourers, as they had already died. In addition, groups such as the Italian military internees and Soviet prisoners of war were excluded from the payment of compensation.
Literature
Hopmann, Barbara; Spoerer, Mark; Weitz, Birgit und Brüninghaus, Beate: Zwangsarbeit bei Daimler-Benz. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1994.
Jelpke, Ulla und Lötzer, Rüdiger: „Geblieben ist der Skandal – Ein Gesetz zum Schutz der deutschen Wirtschaft“, in Winkler, Ulrike (ed.): Stiften gehen. NS-Zwangsarbeit und Entschädigungsdebatte. Cologne: PapyRossa Verlag, 2000, pp. 235-250.
Spoerer, Mark: Zwangsarbeit unter dem Hakenkreuz. Ausländische Zivilarbeiter, Kriegsgefangene und Häftlinge im Deutschen Reich und im besetzten Europa 1939-1945. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2001, Chapter „4 Verantwortung und Entschädigung“, pp. 233-251.
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