Kühne+Nagel wants to investigate its role in National Socialism

Geneva. The board of directors of Kühne+Nagel wants to address the role of the logistics group during National Socialism. This is confirmed by a spokesman for the company. The long-time majority shareholder Klaus-Michael Kühne, who died in August, had resisted this throughout his life.

It has not yet been decided when exactly the issue will be addressed. The spokesman simply says: “The board of directors of Kühne+Nagel International AG will certainly deal with the issue within a reasonable period of time.”

According to reports, this is an independent investigation that will begin in the next few months. The forwarding company was founded in Bremen in 1890 and moved its headquarters to Switzerland at the end of the 1960s.

Until now, the company had always said that the company archives were largely lost during the Second World War due to the destruction of the office buildings in Bremen and Hamburg. In 2015, it said in a statement that Kühne+Nagel, like others, was "involved" in Nazi Germany's war economy and had to "maintain its existence in dark and difficult times." It was admitted that the company was involved in transporting confiscated goods from persecuted people.

“Kühne Nagel is aware of the shameful events that occurred during the time of the Third Reich and deeply regrets that it carried out its activities in part on behalf of the Nazi regime,” it continued. However, the conditions under the dictatorship must be taken into account.

The company also had a Jewish co-partner, Adolf Maass. He left the company in 1933. Under what circumstances is unclear. Kühne's father Alfred and his brother continued to run the company alone. Maass was later deported and murdered in the Auschwitz extermination camp. Klaus-Michael Kühne always defended his father. He wasn't a Nazi.