German firm 'used hair from Auschwitz to make car parts'
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
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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
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This article is simply more Jewish Media Propaganda.
We are all sick of "holocaust stories". Strictly hypocrisy.
Posted by Ferdinand | 05.03.09, 06:17 GMT
John, you really have nothing to say do you. you can only comment on others grammar, its embarrasing really, hopefully some day you'll move on to independant thought?
As to my claim, I didn't make it. surely an obviously very intelligent man such as yourself would recognise a very famous and direct quote of Hegel? you couldn't possibly be ignorant to it; could you, with your grasp of literature?
Or to be precise Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a German philospher from the early nineteenth century. i read a bit for my first degree after i finished school several years ago and apologies i never bothered watching Lost.
I also stand by my first statement, your localisation of global issues is reflective of how some people in our land and really very tiresome and hopefully in another generation or two will be gone; probably via natural selection.
Posted by Michael | 04.03.09, 11:28 GMT
you sad, sad people
Posted by d | 03.03.09, 18:57 GMT
I don't recall typing anything about death camps 'not existing'. I think some people here need to learn a little more elementary reading.
Posted by Brian | 03.03.09, 17:59 GMT
Eramus, I couldn't help chuckling. Mickey, you gotta hand it to him/her , game set and match
Jason Hayes
Posted by jasonhayes | 03.03.09, 16:42 GMT
Michael Erasmus - 'are your tucked up in your fifth columnist bunker waiting to take on the new world order'. I have no idea if, 'your', is tucked up or what what time you got out of school today and if you have been indulging in insolvent abuse or not but you seem a little upset.
You claim.
'History teaches us is that people and governments have never learned anything from history, i fear diversification and progress have passed you by; and much as humour has John.'
Who is, 'much', and how can history teach us that we have, as you claim, 'never learned anything from history'. I'm confused as to what on earth you are on about. Who are these, 'others', have we moved into the world of, 'Lost'?
Posted by John McBride | 03.03.09, 16:28 GMT
Let's make sure that we don't ask from where fetal stem cells come.
I mean we're more civilized now than those filthy Nazis (right?)
We are hypocrites if we don't feel the same outrage...
Posted by jv | 03.03.09, 15:58 GMT
John McBride - are your tucked up in your fifth columnist bunker waiting to take on the new world order. what sort of vitriolic nonsense to spout, 'petty local' people like you hoping for any excuse for a scuffle with the 'others'.
This time it is about money, you have systematically taken the current global credit crisis and brought it down to the level of 'them uns are up to something'. reading between the lines of your post, (which you seem determined to do with others), i'd say you're a rather dangerously ignorant sort.
History teaches us is that people and governments have never learned anything from history, i fear diversification and progress have passed you by; and much as humour has John.
Posted by Michael | 03.03.09, 15:10 GMT
Erasmus - hilarious.
Posted by markr | 03.03.09, 14:41 GMT
Erasmus - This piece is not about Auschwitz so I would advise you take a closer look at your computer screen. You may have noticed, if you looked a little closer it's about the spoils of war. I would however point out that when the money runs out the petty local squabbles will no longer be, 'petty local squabbles'. We are supposed to learn from History yet few master the skill to read never mind understand. Is the door open?
Posted by John McBride | 03.03.09, 14:17 GMT
I've done you your favour. Here's one for you. Return the computer you're using. The rightful owner is not happy at having had it stolen. Ask Mummy if she'll drive you round. Don't forget to apologise profusely.
Posted by mickey | 03.03.09, 13:44 GMT
Very good Eramus.....gave me a great laugh!!!
Posted by Baron Stefan von Heinrich | 03.03.09, 13:39 GMT
Mickey - this piece is about Auschwitz. Not about petty local squabbles. You really are quite worrying.
Please do me a favour: Raise your eyes from the computer screen, nice and slowly now... that's it.
Now, look over to the door. Well done so far. In the middle of the door, at about eye level is there a little slat that opens and closes several times a day. Good lad.
We're nearly there. Now, is the door locked. Excellent.
Posted by Erasmus | 03.03.09, 13:02 GMT
Are you too for real Mickey? Being a Catholic doesn't make me hate Jews or Spaniards.
Posted by Bren | 03.03.09, 12:50 GMT
Brian, if you don't believe the death camps existed I suggest you consult our own James Molyneaux, Baron Molyneaux of Killead. He was one of the liberating soldiers who saw the full horror of the Nazi efforts to wipe out the Jewish people.
Posted by Centaur | 03.03.09, 12:35 GMT
People of a certain persuasion here in NI really have it in for the Jews and Israelis in general. My understanding is that this originates from some half-baked allegiance with the people of Palestine and their 'plight', because of some perceived parallels in their "struggle". These people aren't too fond of the Spanish either and much prefer the Basques for similar reasons.
Pathetic.
Posted by mickey | 03.03.09, 11:05 GMT
Brian the soap was also an issue which turned out false. There is a big cell phone company in Sweden that was taken to the cleaners and made to pay up. As the company prior to making mobiles had something to do with helping the Reich during its occupation in WW2. The Russains and Chinese killed more civilians than the Nazi's did, but i guess because they are commies its all a fad at the moment.
Posted by Bryan Rosenwicz | 03.03.09, 10:41 GMT
Are you for real Brian?
Posted by Bren | 03.03.09, 10:21 GMT
Are you a holocaust denier, Brian? Or possibly a member of the Society of St Pius X? Catch a grip, son. Catch a grip of yourself and when you have done that, take a trip to Auschwitz and see the collection of human hair that is on display and form the obvious conclusion.
Posted by Plum | 03.03.09, 09:57 GMT
This is obviously continued Zionist propaganda against the German people. Remember the old stories about the pillowcases that were supposed to be stuffed with human hair and even the stories that death camp victims were rendered down to make soap?
Catch a grip.
Posted by Brian | 03.03.09, 06:39 GMT