As it turns 100, Lufthansa aims to take more responsibility for its Nazi past

To mark a century since its founding, Germany’s Lufthansa is reappraising its history to take on greater responsibility for its actions during the Nazi era, breaking with earlier attempts to separate its pre- and postwar identity.

“We at Lufthansa are proud of what we are today,” CEO Carsten Spohr tells journalists in remarks released today. “To then ignore the difficult, dark, terrible years would simply have been dishonest.”

Even the decision to mark 100 years since the start of the first “Deutsche Luft Hansa” reflects a shift. The company had long stressed the legal and organizational break between its predecessor – which was deeply integrated into the Nazi regime and shut down in 1946 – and the postwar Lufthansa AG founded in 1953.

Lufthansa’s board and supervisory board members had joined the Nazi Party from 1930 onwards and, as the state airline, it carried government officials.

Lufthansa also had a role in the arms industry and the Luftwaffe air force. In 1944, the armaments sector contributed more than two-thirds of total revenue.

Earlier board members had stressed the legal separation largely for reasons of reputation and liability. Lufthansa now wants to take responsibility, Spohr says.

One step is a new book on the company’s history that will be distributed to all of its more than 100,000 employees, along with an exhibition in the new visitors’ center.

Lufthansa commissioned research into its past more than 25 years ago but declined to acknowledge findings on the extent of its use of forced labor and personnel continuity after World War II. According to historian Manfred Grieger, who contributed to the book, more than 12,000 people were exploited in Hansa’s arms production and its repair and maintenance operations. It has only recently emerged that the number included children.