Nazi Billionaires by David de Jong

Author:David de Jong
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

10.

Günther Quandt too thought it best to lie low after the war was lost. While his fellow moguls were being arrested in scores, in rural Bavaria he had miraculously evaded the Allies. He was considering a move to Hannover, where his elder son, Herbert, was based near the once-prized AFA battery factory, which the British now occupied. But while he was awaiting the Americans’ decision as to whether to indict him at Nuremberg, Günther also came under investigation by two German courts: one in Hannover and one in Starnberg, near the town to which he had fled. He nixed his moving plans in late 1945. It seemed more prudent to stay put in Bavaria.

By January 1946, Günther thought the upcoming midterm elections in the United States would herald a positive change for him in the American occupation zone. “The Republicans won’t share the view that money is theft. One can already feel a breath of fresh air,” Günther wrote to a friend. However, by the time the Republicans beat the Democrats by a landslide and retook Congress that fall, Günther had long since been arrested and placed in an internment camp.

In mid-March 1946, CIC investigators interrogated Günther for two hours in Starnberg. In his eyes, the CIC was nothing more than “the American version” of the Gestapo. When submitting his OMGUS questionnaire, Günther added a section titled the “Political Persecution of Dr. Günther Quandt,” detailing his supposed mistreatment at Goebbels’s hands. This didn’t impress the American investigators. In mid-June 1946, they placed Günther under house arrest at the mayor’s house on Leutstetten’s Tierkopf mountain. “Quite a few gentlemen” were taking an interest in him now. The Americans confiscated all his files and sent them to Nuremberg. Then, on July 18, 1946, ten days before his sixty-fifth birthday, the CIC detained Günther. There would be no lavish celebrations this year.

Günther was first taken to prison in Starnberg. In late August 1946, he was moved to an internment camp in Moosburg, northeast of Munich, where he was registered as “wanted” for Nuremberg’s industrialist trials, which were still under consideration. The Hannover inquiry into Günther had just finished. Investigators there considered him a “reactionary capitalist, early stormtrooper, and military activist. His influence against Nazi-ideology and War-economy had to have been more active in his position in economic life, in order to make his assertion to be a Nazi-opponent trustworthy . . . His private personal antagonism to Dr. Goebbels . . . can by no means be regarded as a political [exoneration].” The investigators also received “the urgent request” from AFA’s labor representatives to remove Günther and his son Herbert from any involvement with the battery company “once and for all.” Günther was deemed “NOT capable for any position” in Germany’s economy going forward.

Günther started working on his defense. In August 1946, he retained an inexperienced local lawyer from Starnberg. It was hard finding any legal representation at all — millions of Germans were seeking it — let alone securing an ace attorney.

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