Nazi slavery past of family buying Pret a Manger for £1.5bn
THE secretive German family about to buy Pret A Manger profited from forced labour under the Nazis, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The chain, founded by Jewish businessman Jeffrey Hyman in 1983, is the subject of a £1.5 billion takeover by JAB Holding.
But an investigation by this newspaper has uncovered how earlier generations of the family which owns JAB Holding – the Reimanns – built their fortune using Naziforced labour.
Former boss Albert Reimann Sr was a card-carrying Nazi. The MoS has obtained a copy of his party membership card from archives in Germany. The company admits it has contributed to a fund paying compensation to those who were used as forced labourers during the
‘It is a sad day. We are a Jewish family’
war and their families. Such workers faced starvation under the Nazis and were often tortured – and murdered.
The surprise announcement that four of Reimann’s grandchildren were buying Pret through offshore company JAB Holding came in May. The chain has around 500 outlets in nine countries.
Pret founder Hyman died last year. Told about the Nazi roots of the new owners, his sister Valerie Tomalin told The Mail on Sunday: ‘It is a sad day. Jeffrey would have been really upset. I am almost crying. I am horrified. Pret was a family business and I was the company secretary at the time it was set up. I am mortified and my brother would have been mortified. We are a Jewish family.’
The company taking over Pret has its origins in chemicals giant Johann A Benckiser.
Founded in 1823 by Johann Benckiser, it was eventually inherited by Albert Reimann Sr. Albert Reimann Jr took over in 1952. When he died in 1984, his nine adopted children each inherited 11.1 per cent of the firm but five of the heirs sold out to the remaining quartet. The company became Reckitt Benckiser and the family founded JAB Holding, a separate entity that took a stake in the new firm and pursued other investments. Reckitt Benckiser makes a range of household names including Dettol.
The four remaining owners Matthias Reimann-Andersen, Renate Reimann-Haas, Stefan ReimannAndersen and Wolfgang Reimann are estimated to be worth £3 billion each, according to Forbes.
Johann A Benckiser is listed as having donated to the official EVZ programme designed to compensate both forced and slave labour victims. Slave labour refers to people from concentration camps, whereas forced labour refers to civilians from occupied countries who were forced to work in Germany for derisory payments.
The federal programme makes it clear that there is no admission of guilt by donors, and it includes many companies set up after 1945.
However, according to historians, for those donor companies active during the war there is an implicit admission that they used forced or slave labour or both. Professor Ray Stokes, of Glasgow University, said: ‘There is a factual distinction to be drawn between forced labour and slave labour because forced labourers were paid but whether there is a moral distinction is another matter. In some categories forced labour approaches slave labour.’
When confronted by the EVZ entry, JAB Holding representatives admitted that Johann A Benckiser had used forced labour but denied it had used slave labour from the concentration camps.
A spokesman for JAB Holding said: ‘JAB Holding Co is an investment vehicle created in 2011 and based in Luxembourg. It is managed entirely by three professional partners and has no association with the former Johann A Benckiser.
‘Johann A Benckiser, along with more than 6,000 German companies, did participate in the plans to compensate former forced labourers and other victims.
‘Like other authorities, organisations and companies, Johann A Benckiser employed forced labourers as well as prisoners of war. Concentration camp prisoners had never been employed.’
A spokeswoman for the Reimann family said that they were aware that Albert Reimann Sr had been a member of the Nazi party but added that the family wealth was generated after the Second World War and they regarded JAB Holding and the original chemicals company as separate companies. Pret declined to comment last night.