Dutch airline KLM to probe flights for fleeing Nazis
May 9th, 2007 | 4 responses
H/t Holly
Reuters reports:
Dutch airline KLM will probably seek an independent investigation into whether it flew Nazi fugitives to Argentina after the Second World War, the national airline said on Tuesday.
Questions over KLM’s past surfaced last week after a Dutch television documentary claimed to have discovered archive documents showing the airline played an active role in helping suspected war criminals flee Germany.
A good decision by KLM. If the famous and big Dutch company helped Nazis to flee Europe after WW2, it has to be open about it, admit it, take responsibility, apologize, and compensate when / if possible.
If the documentary makers are proven to be right, it will hurt KLM’s image (rightfully) quite severely. KLM is one of those few big companies of which the Dutch are very proud. If true, that attitude towards KLM might change (a bit). Of course, it would also hurt KLM’s image abroad.
It is quite amazing that there is still so much unknown about World War II: there are – I am sure – still companies that worked with the Nazis but who have never been held responsible for doing so.
Cross posted at my own blog.
opinions powered by SendLove.to
4 Responses to “Dutch airline KLM to probe flights for fleeing Nazis”
I just can’t see the big concern about what a company might of done 60 years ago, when anyone who had any decision making ability for those actions is now dead. Also who would they compensate?
Bones…you are forgetting there is no statute of limitations regarding the “Reparations Cottage Industry”. Look at the ongoing demands for reparations over the slave trade, for example.
A lot of companies in existence today profited from Nazi-links. Numerous German firms, of course, but also non-German ones such as IBM.
There is, however, a double standard at work here. How many Western firms profited from links with Stalin’s Russia?
Similarly, human rights groups are very efficient in tracking down and advocating global prosecution of right-wing dictators like Pinochet. Left-wing dictators like Castro are lionized (and the less colourful one-time Communist dictators of Eastern Europe…even the East Germans who ordered shoot-to-kill policies for those fleeing East Germany at the Berlin Wall…now live out their lives in happy retirement). Oddly, Europeans do not seem perturbed at these creatures living in their midst.
look banks that took in what they knew was stolen paying rep. to families I understand. I just don’t know who could be financially damaged by KLM having done this.
Marlowecan brings up an important point about the double standard. Much of the world forgets that the Nazis were not the only villains in Eruope.
WWII, as it transpired in Europe, is presented in such simplistic terms. It was the bad guys, the Nazis, against the good guys, the Allies. Only one of the good guys, the Soviet Union, was busy racking up victims of its own, and continued to do so for a long time. There is little interest in that aspect of victimazation; it hardly ever gets mentioned.
Japan is reluctant about dealing with its past, too. Even the barest of admissions about war crimes is hard to get from them.
There is no shortage of victims in the world, only relatively few get acknowledgment or interest.
And Darfur still goes on.