https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/14/business/reimann
Their billionaire descendants, who control Krispy Kreme, Stumptown and other brands, are grappling with the exposure of an unspeakable secret. Emilie Landecker, circa 1961. Her Jewish father, Alfred, was killed by the Nazis. When her children asked about the family’s roots, she would admonish them to stop talking about “that old stuff.”
1. Such appalling events
Emilie Landecker was 19 when she went to work for Benckiser, a German company that made industrial cleaning products and also took pride in cleansing its staff of non-Aryan elements.
It was 1941. Ms. Landecker was half Jewish and terrified of deportation. Her new boss, Albert Reimann Jr., was an early disciple of Adolf Hitler and described himself as an “unconditional follower” of Nazi race theory.
Somehow, inexplicably, they fell in love.
The story of Ms. Landecker, whose Jewish father was murdered by the Nazis, and Mr. Reimann, whose fervent Nazism and abuse of forced laborers did not stop his family from attaining colossal wealth after the war, is a tale of death and devotion and human contradictions. It is also a tale of modern-day corporate atonement.
Decades after World War II, Benckiser evolved into one of the largest consumer goods conglomerates on the planet. Known today as JAB Holding Company and still controlled by the Reimann family, it is worth more than $20 billion and owns Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Peet’s Coffee, Einstein Bros. Bagels, Stumptown Coffee Roasters, Pret A Manger, Keurig and other breakfast brands.
The relationship between Mr. Reimann and Ms. Landecker was for many years a secret. He was married, but had no children with his wife. He and Ms. Landecker had three, and he adopted them in the 1960s; today, two of them own a combined stake in JAB of about 45 percent. For decades, they say, they did not know about their father’s Nazism and the abuses that took place at the company they inherited: The female forced laborers who had to stand at attention outside their barracks naked. A prisoner of war who was kicked out of a bomb shelter and died.