Agency Report
German flagship carrier Lufthansa has vowed to further investigate the company’s ties to the Nazi regime, acknowledging responsibility for this dark chapter in the airline’s history on the 100th anniversary of its founding.
“Lufthansa was clearly part of the system,” the airline group’s chief executive Carsten Spohr said in remarks released on Wednesday to mark a century since the first Lufthansa enterprise was established.
During the rule of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler from 1933-45, Lufthansa was integrated into the war economy and unscrupulously exploited forced labourers in workshops and armament factories, Spohr noted.
“Lufthansa was a company of National Socialism,” said German historian Manfred Grieger, co-author of a new corporate history commissioned by the airline.
This symbiosis proved fatal for Lufthansa at the end of World War II, Grieger said. “The company went down completely with the regime to which it had chained itself.”
The first Lufthansa company was founded in 1926 and forced to liquidate following the war, as it was considered by the Allies to have been part of the air force, or Luftwaffe.
A new company was founded in 1953, and previous management consistently stressed that the only link between the two was the name, colours and the logo.
Chief executive Spohr distanced himself from past attempts to disregard the company’s Nazi past, adding the new approach has received wide backing among employees.
As part of this year’s anniversary celebration, Lufthansa has commissioned a new company history which is to explicitly shed light on the airline’s “active role” during the Nazi era.
The book by historians Grieger, Hartmut Berghoff and Jörg Lesczenski is set to be published in March.
