[双语(微博)] “宝马家族”承认曾用奴工为纳粹造军火

Herbert Quandt

　　The family that owns Germany's luxury car manufacturer BMW has ended decades of silence about its role during the Nazi era and admitted to taking over scores of Jewish businesses and using tens of thousands of slave labourers at its factories during Adolf Hitler's Third Reich。

　　历经数十年的沉默，掌控宝马汽车的德国科万特家族近日终于承认了历史上与纳粹的不光彩关系。在阿道夫·希特勒统治时期，“宝马家族”接管了数十家犹太人的企业，并在工厂中使用了数万名奴工。

　　The disturbing revelations about the Quandt dynasty, which became a major BMW shareholder in 1960, are contained in an independent 1,200-page study commissioned by the family in 2007 after its ruthless Nazi-era business practices were exposed in a German television documentary. BMW was not implicated in the report。

　　2007年，德国一部电视纪录片曝光了科万特家族在纳粹时期的累累罪行。随后，“宝马家族”对自己的历史展开了调查，并最终公布了这份长达1200页的独立调查报告。报告中并未牵涉宝马公司。科万特家族在1960年控股宝马公司。

　　"The Quandts were linked inseparably with the crimes of the Nazis," Joachim Scholtyseck, the Bonn historian who compiled and researched the study, concludes at the end of his report published this week. "The family patriarch was part of the regime."

　　此次调查的负责人、波恩历史学家乔希姆·斯科蒂塞克在本周公布的报告结尾写道：“科万特家族与纳粹的罪行密不可分，家族元老也参与了纳粹统治。”。

　　Mr Scholtyseck established that Günther Quandt and his son Herbert, who both headed the dynasty during the Third Reich, willingly collaborated with the Nazi regime by employing an estimated 50,000 forced labourers in its arms factories. An average of 80 slave labourers per month died at Quandt factories and many were executed。

　　斯科蒂塞克研究发现，在希特勒统治期间，家族领袖冈瑟·科万特及其子赫伯特主动与纳粹分子合作，在军工厂内雇佣了大约5万名奴工。平均每月有80名奴工死于家族工厂，很多奴工还被处死。

　　"We were treated very badly, we were whipped and had to drink water out of the lavatories," recalled Takis Mylopoulos, a former slave labourer who worked at a Quandt factory in Hanover during the Second World War. The family was also found to have taken over scores of previously Jewish-owned businesses that were "Aryanised" by the Nazis。

　　塔基斯·马勒泼勒斯在二战期间曾在科万特家族位于汉诺威的工厂里做工，他回忆说：“我们被虐待，被鞭打，还被逼喝厕所里的水。” 通过纳粹的“雅利安化”运动，科万特家族接管了几十家原本属于犹太人的企业。

　　Gabriele Quandt, Günther Quandt's grandson, responded to the study's conclusion by admitting his family had been "wrong" in trying to avoid confronting the truth about its Nazi past for so long。

　　冈瑟·科万特的孙子加布里埃莱·科万特对研究结果做出回应，承认其家族长期无视历史上的污点是“错误的”。

　　The study shows that Günther Quandt joined the Nazi party in 1933, the same year that Hitler became Reich Chancellor. Four years later, he was put in charge of the Nazis' so-called "armaments economy" supplying ammunition and military hardware from factories that used thousands of slave labourers from concentration camps. An execution area for disobedient slave workers was set up at at least one of the Quandt plants。

　　研究表明，冈瑟·科万特在1933年加入纳粹党，同年，希特勒出任德国总理。四年后，冈瑟开始负责纳粹所谓的“国防经济”，使用大量来自集中营的奴工为纳粹生产军火和装备。在科万特家族的每一家企业里，都有一处专门的行刑区，用来处死反抗的奴工。

　　The Quandts commissioned the study just five days after the showing of a 2007 television documentary entitled The Silence of the Quandt Family, which contained extensive details about its collaboration with the Nazis。

　　2007年，德国电视纪录片《科万特家族的沉默》播出5天后，科万特家族即宣布将对这段历史展开调查。纪录片曝光了科万特家族与纳粹合作的大量细节。

　　The family admitted in a statement at the time: "We recognise that in our history as a family of German industrialists, the years 1933 to 1945 have not been sufficiently accounted for."

　　科万特家族当时发表声明称：“我们认识到，作为一家德国家族企业，我们在1933年至1945年的历史还不够充分清晰。”

　　Günther Quandt was arrested and interned in 1946. But judges concluded that he was a mere Nazi "fellow traveller" who played no active part in committing the crimes of the Third Reich. He was released in 1948.

　　1946年，冈瑟被逮捕拘禁。但他被裁决为纳粹的“同路人”，也就是没有积极参与纳粹罪行的人，遂于1948年获释。

　　Prosecutors have argued that if today's evidence had been presented at the time, Quandt would have been charged with committing war crimes or crimes against humanity. However, he joined the board of Deutsche Bank after the war and was honoured by Frankfurt University in 1951. He died on holiday in Egypt in 1954.

　　检察官认为，如果现在的证据在当时能够呈交法庭，科万特家族成员将被判战争罪或反人类罪。然而二战后，冈瑟还加入德意志银行董事会，并在1951年被法兰克福大学授予荣誉称号。1954年，他在埃及度假期间去世。