Morristown Jewish Center

Feature – David de Jong

Sunday, November 24 from 11:00am — 1:00pm. Discussion with David de Jong, author of NAZI BILLIONAIRES: The Dark History of Gernmany's Wealthiest Dynasties.

This program is free and will be in-person and on Zoom. The discussion will be moderated by MJCBY member Julie Stone, followed by a Q&A session.

Book cover of 
NAZI BILLIONAIRS: The Dark History of Gernmany's Wealthist Dynasties

From the book's Amazon page:

In 1946, Günther Quandt—patriarch of Germany’s most iconic industrial empire, a dynasty that today controls BMW—was arrested for suspected Nazi collaboration. Quandt claimed that he had been forced to join the party by his archrival, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, and the courts acquitted him. But Quandt lied. And his heirs, and those of other Nazi billionaires, have only grown wealthier in the generations since, while their reckoning with this dark past remains incomplete at best. Many of them continue to control swaths of the world economy, owning iconic brands whose products blanket the globe. The brutal legacy of the dynasties that dominated Daimler-Benz, cofounded Allianz, and still control Porsche, Volkswagen, and BMW has remained hidden in plain sight—until now.

In this landmark work of investigative journalism, David de Jong reveals the true story of how Germany’s wealthiest business dynasties amassed untold money and power by abetting the atrocities of the Third Reich. Using a wealth of previously untapped sources, de Jong shows how these tycoons seized Jewish businesses, procured slave laborers, and ramped up weapons production to equip Hitler’s army as Europe burned around them. Most shocking of all, de Jong exposes how America’s political expediency enabled these billionaires to get away with their crimes, covering up a bloodstain that defiles the German and global economy to this day.