Lufthansa is re-examining the Nazi previous | EUROtoday

As of: February 4, 2026 11:18 a.m

Germany’s largest airline needs to be extra trustworthy about its historical past. Before 1945, Lufthansa was a significant beneficiary of National Socialism and exploited pressured laborers.

Lufthansa is planning new analysis into its historical past through the Nazi period. In explicit, the employment of hundreds of pressured laborers ought to be investigated. This was introduced by CEO Carsten Spohr.

The present analysis reveals that Lufthansa promoted the rise of the Nazis, it benefited tremendously from the regime and it was considerably concerned within the conduct of the warfare and the exploitation of pressured laborers. “It was a National Socialist enterprise,” stated Manfred Grieger, honorary professor on the University of Göttingen. The outcomes of the brand new analysis undertaking ought to be obtainable subsequent 12 months.

Report on the seventy fifth anniversary was stopped

Grieger is co-author of a richly illustrated e book with scientific requirements: “Lufthansa – the first 100 years”. On the event of this 12 months’s one hundredth anniversary, it is going to be stocked in shops in two months. The managing director of the Society for Corporate History, Andrea Schneider-Braunberger, praised Lufthansa for having “faced the issue early, for a long time and now again.”

25 years in the past, Lufthansa celebrated its seventy fifth anniversary with a trend present of historic stewardess uniforms. First, a report on pressured laborers within the Second World War also needs to be offered. When the Bochum firm historian Lutz Budrass was completed, the publication was canceled. The report was solely printed in 2016. It was included with out remark in a technology-loving illustrated e book with sparse texts. It was stated there that cooperation with the Nazi regime was pressured on Lufthansa.

Corporate Archives remained closed

In 2016, the writer of the pressured labor report Budrass offered a complete scientific research: “Eagle and Crane, Lufthansa and its history 1926 – 1955”. Deutsche Lufthansa AG didn’t help this work and closed its company archives.

Carsten Spohr, who has been a member of the Lufthansa board since 2011 and has been CEO since 2014, described himself because the “successor of those who were responsible for this”. Lufthansa historian Grieger stated his new analysis didn’t produce “that terribly much new” in comparison with Budrass. However, Grieger connected nice significance to the assertion that there was no one-dimensional continuity between the “Luft Hansa”, which went underneath after the warfare, and the brand new “Lufthansa”, which was created in 1955.

Founded as State-owned enterprises

In the sunshine of analysis, the historical past of Lufthansa will not be a mannequin instance of a severe business firm. Founded in 1926, the corporate was imagined to covertly exchange the German Air Force, which had been banned after the First World War.

The then “Luft Hansa” largely belonged to the state and was closely sponsored. The British historian Harold James wrote 30 years in the past that the corporate had paid members of parliament who acted of their pursuits – together with the National Socialist Hermann Göring.

Embedded within the Nazi state

Lufthansa board members grew to become concerned with the Nazis early on. Adolf Hitler’s high-profile marketing campaign flights in 1932 had been organized – for a price – by Lufthansa. When the navy underneath the later dictator Francisco Franco staged a coup in Spain, Lufthansa used an airlift to make sure that the putschists’ troops had been relocated.

The “Legion Condor”, with which Nazi Germany supported Franco from the air, was additionally organized with Lufthansa’s participation. The firm made cash from the Nazi armament in addition to from the warfare, through which it carried out repairs for the Luftwaffe and employed hundreds of pressured laborers – together with twelve-year-old kids. When Lufthansa was re-founded within the Fifties, previous managers performed key roles.