Germany’s top biscuitmaker dips into Nazi past, apologizes for forced labor use

German cookie titan Bahlsen has issued an official apology for the family-owned company’s Nazi past, and on Wednesday released a book on its history that includes details of its links to Adolf Hitler’s regime.
“Our ancestors and the people involved at the time took advantage of the system during the Nazi era,” the Bahlsen family wrote in a statement. “People suffered, especially the more than 800 forced laborers between 1940 and 1945.”
The self-investigation follows widely criticized comments in 2019 by heiress Verena Bahlsen, who claimed her family’s company “paid the forced laborers exactly as much as German workers and we treated them well.”
She subsequently issued a sugar-coated apology for the comments, which the book released on Wednesday has further exposed as wholly untrue.
The Bahlsen family added that the truth is “uncomfortable and painful” and that they “deeply regret the injustice done to these people at Bahlsen.” The family owners and management also pledged to promote a culture of remembrance and a “clear stance against hatred, xenophobia and anti-democratic tendencies.”
The makers of the Leibniz Butterkeks, a mild butter-flavored biscuit, began production in the late 19th century. The Hanover-based company is the market-leading biscuit maker in Germany.