"Choco Leibniz firm apologises as report reveals scale of forced labour under Nazis," 15 August 2024

Germany’s Bahlsen biscuit empire has apologised for the “painful” findings of a report showing that it used several times more forced labourers than previously thought during the Nazi period... The report was commissioned [by the company and family]...

The study by two historians published this week... puts the number of forced labourers, most of whom were from Nazi-occupied Poland and Ukraine, at closer to 800. It also said the forced labour was used for a longer time than previously thought, from 1940 until 1945.

In a statement the Bahlsen family called the findings “uncomfortable and painful” and expressed regret that the company “didn’t confront this difficult truth before now”.

“We as a family did not pose the obvious question of how our company was able to get through world war II,” said the statement, issued on Tuesday and reported by Agence France-Presse.

The Hanover-based company, founded at the end of the 19th century, used the forced labour to produce rations for German soldiers during the war. “Our ancestors … took advantage of the system in the Nazi period,” the family said, calling the company’s behaviour “unforgivable”...