CULTURAS IN VITRO
Bertelsmann Acknowledges Nazi Role in Its History
German media company Bertelsmann AG acknowledged that it collaborated with Hitler's Third Reich and benefited from the use of Jewish slave labor. But its past is likely to face further scrutiny after it failed to address why the myth of the company's World War II resistance remained unchallenged for more than half a century.
The revelations are part of Bertelsmann's long-awaited wartime history, which details how the company used the war to transform itself from a small provincial publisher of religious tracts into the largest supplier of wartime literature for Hitler's troops. That success helped provide the foundation for the group's postwar renaissance and its evolution into one of the world's largest media groups.