August Oetker – the head of Dr. Oetker company – has revealed the family firm’s links to Germany’s Nazi party.
Company chairman August Oetker was speaking ahead of a new book that studies the history of the family’s links with the Nazis.
His father, Rudolf-August Oetker, was a member of Adolf Hitler’s Waffen SS.
Rudolf-August Oetker ran the company, based in Bielefeld, northern Germany, after World War II and died in 2007.
August Oetker revealed the family firm’s links to Germany’s Nazi party
“My father was a National Socialist,” August Oetker said in an interview with Die Zeit newspaper.
“He didn’t want to talk about this time. He said, <<children, leave me in peace>>.”
August Oetker said his father, who had joined the Nazi party in the 1930s, had been influenced by his step-father, Richard Kaselowsky, who was a staunch supporter of Hitler and ran Dr. Oetker before him.
August Oetker said he welcomed the publication next week of the book Dr. Oetker and National Socialism, written by a German historian and funded by the company.
“I feel now we know the facts, now the fog has lifted,” he said.
Over the decades, many German companies have come under pressure to come to terms with their links to the Nazis and their actions during the 1930s and 1940s.
Madonna was today threatened with legal action and accused of being an ageing self-publicist after she depicted Marine Le Pen, the head of France’s National Front, as a Nazi during a concert in Israel.
An image of Marine Le Pen with a swastika on her forehead appeared on a giant screen at the singer’s concert in Tel Aviv, Israel on Thursday.
Marine Le Pen has threatened to sue Madonna if she repeats the stunt when her tour reaches France in July.
The politician said: “We understand how old singers who need to get people talking about them go to such extremes.”
Asked if she was likely to sue, Marine Le Pen, 43, said: “If she does that in France, we’ll be waiting.”
Madonna, who will turn 54 in August, is due in France next month, when she will appear at the Stade de France in Paris and then in Nice on the Riviera.
Madonna was today threatened with legal action and accused of being an ageing self-publicist after she depicted Marine Le Pen, the head of France’s National Front, as a Nazi during a concert in Israel
Other sources in the National Front, which has frequently been linked with anti-Semitism and racism, said Madonna had offended all of its members.
“We are not a Nazi party, and object to being depicted as such,” said a source in the party, which won a fifth of the popular vote during the first round of presidential elections in April.
“If you accuse the National Front of being anti-Semitic and racist then you accuse a fifth of the French people of being anti-Semitic and racist.
“If Madonna repeats this slur in France then she will certainly be taken to court.”
Wallerand de Saint-Just, the National Front’s lawyer, confirmed he was looking into the possibility of legal action.
Marine Le Pen pledged to reform the party after taking over the leadership from her notorious father, Jean-Marie Le Pen last year.
He is a convicted racist and anti-Semite who has in the past denied that the Nazi Holocaust actually took place during World War II.
Despite this, Jean-Marie Le Pen came runner-up in the French presidential election in 2002, proving that he had widespread support.
Marine Le Pen has toned down the party’s extremist views, but regularly pledges to limit Muslim immigration, and to clamp down on Islamic culture in France.
Madonna’s depiction of Marine Le Pen appeared as she performed her song Nobody Knows Me in Tel Aviv last Thursday.
Madonna is well known for her provocative acts, and is currently dating a Frenchman called Brahim Zaibat who has a North African Muslim immigrant background.
Marine Le Pen won just under 18% of votes in the presidential election and is currently standing to become an MP in France’s National Assembly.
