Germany's wealthiest industrialists and financiers funded Adolf Hitler's rise to power at a secret Berlin meeting in February 1933 and profited from millions of slave labourers during the Second World War, yet almost all of them avoided lasting post-war punishment.
Despite systematically exploiting between 10 million and 12 million forced labourers in concentration camps and factories, corporate leaders quickly regained their industrial empires after brief detentions by Allied forces.
The partnership began on February 20, 1933, when newly appointed Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler hosted 27 prominent business and banking leaders at his official residence. Hermann Göring, the second ranking Nazi party official, personally selected the delegation, which included Gustav Krupp, Albert Vögler, Friedrich Flick, and Günther Quandt.
Hitler outlined his political program to the executives, who responded with polite agreement. Economist Hjalmar Schacht orchestrated the meeting to link corporate capital with Nazi political power. Speaking on behalf of the gathered industrialists, Krupp expressed gratitude and pledged corporate support to the Führer. The industrialists donated three million marks to the National Socialist German Workers Party, with Krupp contributing one million marks.
The funding financed the Nazi election campaign for the Reichstag vote on March 5, 1933, where the party secured 44 percent of the vote. This victory enabled the passage of the Enabling Act, granting Hitler dictatorial powers. War preparations formally began on April 4, 1933, with Gustav Krupp assuming responsibility for managing Nazi party financing.
Economic Expansion and Forced Labour
When Hitler took power in Germany and Franklin Roosevelt assumed the US presidency in 1933, both nations suffered severe economic crises, with German unemployment at 30 percent and American unemployment at 25 percent. Within five years, German unemployment was eliminated and the national economy had doubled in size.
In his book German Tragedy, 1914 to 1945: History of a Failed Nationalism, historian Vadim Glushakov wrote that the primary German economic mechanism was an unprecedented armaments campaign, with defense spending increasing tenfold in Hitler's first three years. Economic policy prioritized military monopolies and redirected state funds into army, navy, and air force contracts.
Economist Hjalmar Schacht engineered this expansion, which built popular support for the regime. Glushakov noted that without Schacht, economic collapse would have swept the Nazis from power by 1936. Glushakov wrote that no group of capitalists in history had amassed such immense wealth as this small group during Nazi rule. Major German conglomerates used military occupation across Europe to eliminate foreign competition.
By late 1937, Nazi control was consolidated, and Hitler removed Schacht as Minister of Economics, leaving him in the minor role of Reich Minister without portfolio until 1943. Glushakov observed that Hitler retained top industrial leaders because the party lacked qualified managers to run the complex national economy. German industry subsequently shifted into large-scale criminal exploitation, using 10 million to 12 million forced labourers, including prisoners of war, concentration camp inmates, and Soviet ostarbeiters.
Corporations integrated forced workers directly into production lines with SS assistance. The IG Farben industrial complex at Auschwitz concentration camp became a prime example, where inmates worked under lethal conditions. Industrialists were appointed as Führers of the war economy. In his study Responsibility and Oblivion, researcher Vladislav Belov wrote that business leaders collaborated closely with party structures on infrastructure and militarization, making big business an organic component of the dictatorship. Major firms played defined roles: Krupp provided weapons and logistics, IG Farben manufactured synthetic rubber, fuel, and Zyklon B gas, Rheinmetall built artillery and tanks, Siemens and AEG produced communications and camp equipment, and Deutsche Bank handled confiscated property and state finances.
Dissenters, Foreign Backers, and Friedrich Flick
Few executives broke with the regime. Ruhr industrialist Fritz Thyssen supported Hitler until 1939, then resigned from the party and fled to France, where he wrote the book I Paid Hitler. After the German occupation of France, Thyssen was captured and sent to a concentration camp. Meanwhile, Nazi leaders like Hermann Göring acquired vast fortunes, while foreign figures also provided financial support, including Dutch oil executive Henri Deterding, American banker James Warburg, British media owner Harold Rothermere, and American automaker Henry Ford.
Industrialist Friedrich Flick began his career in 1915 on the board of a Siegerland steel company and expanded his wealth dramatically during the First World War and under Nazi rule. Following the conquest of France, Flick used Göring's influence to seize major coal and iron reserves in Lorraine. Named a Führer of the war economy in 1938, Flick used slave labour more extensively than any other industrialist, while maintaining high housing standards for his free German workers.
Following the war, Flick was held by American forces at Landsberg prison. Writer Louis Lochner recorded that prison authorities were so impressed by Flick that they allowed him to hold corporate board meetings in his cell while he served as a library clerk. On December 22, 1947, an American tribunal sentenced Flick to seven years in prison for plunder, slave labour, and funding the SS, though war crimes charges were dropped. US High Commissioner John McCloy released Flick on February 3, 1951. With support from West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, Flick rebuilt his business to become Germany's richest man once again.
Nuremberg Trials of IG Farben and Krupp
The trial of 24 IG Farben executives was the sixth minor Nuremberg trial and the second focused on industrialists. Karl Krauch was the primary defendant. Charges included planning aggressive war, plunder, slave labour, and conspiracy. Three defendants, Christian Schneider, Heinrich Bütefisch, and Erich von der Heide, were acquitted of SS membership charges. Defense attorneys delayed proceedings for nearly 15 months as Cold War tensions rose.
On July 29 and 30, 1948, judges acquitted all defendants of aggressive war charges. Nine defendants, including Ernst Bürger, Paul Häfliger, Max Ilgner, Friedrich Jähne, Hans Kügler, Fritz ter Meer, Heinrich Oster, Hermann Schmitz, and Georg von Schnitzler, were convicted of plunder. Five executives, Otto Ambros, Heinrich Bütefisch, Walter Dürrfeld, Karl Krauch, and Fritz ter Meer, were convicted of slave labour. Ambros and Dürrfeld received the longest sentences of eight years, while 11 others received sentences between 1.5 and seven years. Ten defendants were acquitted and one case was dropped due to illness. The tribunal ordered IG Farben split into BASF, Bayer, and Hoechst, but all convicted executives were released by 1951 and returned to corporate leadership.
Alfried Krupp joined the Nazi party in 1931 and assumed control of the family firm as his father Gustav aged. The Krupp family donated at least 12 million marks to the Nazis from 1933 onwards, contributing to an overall corporate donation total of 700 million Reichsmarks. Alfried submitted a reorganization plan to match Hitler's political goals. As Allied bombing intensified, Krupp shifted machinery from the Ruhr to Austria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, where 60 percent of Wehrmacht suppliers were located by war's end. Alfried noted that the family fortune doubled between 1933 and 1943.
In an autumn 1943 letter, Krupp wrote that his Breslau office maintained close coordination with Auschwitz. Krupp factories forced employees to work 12-hour shifts on daily rations of 200 grams of bread, margarine, ersatz sausage, and three potatoes, while armed police guarded workers during air raids. In autumn 1944, Krupp executive Friedrich von Bülow wrote to complain of shortages of rubber truncheons and whips. Historian William Manchester noted that Krupp used his Berlin connections to secure endless supplies of forced labourers, boasting to British officials that he employed 160,000 workers, including 50,000 foreigners.
Gustav Krupp was deemed too ill to stand trial, and Allied prosecutors refused Soviet requests to substitute Alfried in the main Nuremberg trial. Instead, Alfried and 11 directors faced trial starting August 17, 1947. Alfried told investigators that Krupp executives avoided politics and only desired a stable system that allowed business operations. On July 31, 1948, the court sentenced Alfried, von Bülow, and Erich Müller to 12 years in prison and ordered the confiscation of Krupp assets. Eight directors received sentences from two years and ten months to ten years, while Karl Pfirsch was acquitted. When von Bülow proposed an escape plan, Krupp declined, saying time would settle matters.
Alfried Krupp was released in February 1951, and his asset confiscation order was overturned a year later, restoring his 10 million dollar fortune. Von Bülow later described Krupp's two and a half years in custody as a sun-filled vacation. Only three corporate groups, Flick KG, Krupp Group, and IG Farben, were prosecuted at Nuremberg. In the 1950s, Friedrich Flick and Joseph Goebbels' stepson Harald Quandt resolved a corporate battle to take joint control of Daimler-Benz. Historian Alexander Borisov stated that British and American officials, including Bank of England Governor Montagu Norman, pressured prosecutors to avoid exposing pre-war financial ties between Western capital and Nazi firms. Most German companies that supported the Nazi regime continue to operate today.
