Kühne+Nagel to investigate its Nazi-era history

Kühne+Nagel will examine its Nazi-era record, opening a new chapter in the Swiss logistics group’s history. Chair Jörg Wolle told the German-language magazine Bilanz that the company must investigate its activities during the Second World War, including allegations involving the expropriation and transport of Jewish property.

The company confirmed Wolle’s comments to the AWP business news agency. Its board of directors will consider the matter in the near future, a spokesperson said. Kühne+Nagel has not yet set a start date or published the planned investigation’s terms of reference.

The review carries particular weight in Switzerland, where the company has been headquartered in canton Schwyz since 1992. Kühne+Nagel’s Swiss base came decades after its founding in Bremen, Germany, in 1890. The company now presents itself as a global logistics player, with a history that reaches back to the transport of coffee, cocoa, wool, cotton and cereals.

The proposed inquiry follows long-running scrutiny of the company’s German-era operations. It is expected to examine the treatment of Jewish partner Adolf Maass and allegations that Kühne+Nagel transported possessions confiscated from Jews under Nazi rule.

Adolf Maass held 45% of Kühne+Nagel in 1933, before Nazi persecution stripped him of his stake. The Jewish partner was forced to relinquish his ownership in the company that year, according to the account cited by Swissinfo. He was later deported to Auschwitz by the Nazi regime and never returned.

Maass’s case places ownership, persecution and corporate power at the centre of the planned review. The investigation will need to establish how the transfer of his stake occurred, who benefited from it and what company records reveal about the decisions taken at the time. The available account identifies Alfred Kühne, the father of long-standing majority shareholder Klaus-Michael Kühne, as the figure directing the business during this period.

The allegations extend beyond the ownership dispute. Kühne+Nagel is also said to have transported movable property confiscated from Jews who had fled or been deported. Logistics companies could become part of the machinery of persecution by moving, storing or delivering goods after the state had seized them.

A full examination would therefore involve more than a corporate chronology. It would require archival work on contracts, inventories, ownership records and correspondence, alongside research into the fate of people whose possessions passed through the company’s network.

Kühne+Nagel’s Swiss identity began in 1975, when the group opened a branch in Pfäffikon, canton Schwyz. The head office moved to Schindellegi in 1992, where it remains. That later Swiss history now frames a debate rooted in the company’s German origins and the conduct of its wartime leadership.

The company was founded by August Kühne and Friedrich Nagel in Bremen in 1890. Its early business moved commodities including coffee, cocoa, wool, cotton and cereals. The firm’s evolution from a Bremen trading and transport operation into a multinational logistics group makes the historical review relevant beyond one office or one family.

Klaus-Michael Kühne, who became the company’s long-standing majority shareholder, opposed an in-depth examination during his lifetime, according to Bilanz. The magazine reported that he was particularly unwilling to finance an expert report that would critically assess his father Alfred Kühne’s role.

Klaus-Michael Kühne died in 2026, leaving a reported fortune to a Swiss foundation after a long business career. The company’s decision to revisit its past now comes after that period of personal resistance. The board must determine whether the inquiry will be conducted by independent historians, what archives will be opened and whether its findings will be published in full.

The board has yet to define the investigation’s scope or timetable. That uncertainty will shape how seriously the review is received in Switzerland and abroad. A credible process would need to identify the surviving records, test the company’s account against independent archives and clarify what happened to property seized from Jewish victims.

The inquiry could also address questions that reach beyond Kühne+Nagel. Swiss companies with German origins, or with commercial links to Nazi Germany, have faced growing pressure to examine how wartime business operated under dictatorship. Transport firms occupy a distinctive position because their work connects confiscation to the movement and redistribution of goods.

Kühne+Nagel’s leadership has now acknowledged that the issue requires attention. Wolle said addressing the past would be consistent with the wishes of Klaus-Michael Kühne, although the former shareholder had opposed a critical expert report during his lifetime. That shift leaves the board responsible for turning a public commitment into a documented historical project.

For Swiss observers, the next milestones will be concrete: the appointment of researchers, access to company archives, treatment of Adolf Maass’s heirs or representatives, and publication of the final findings. Until those decisions are made, the proposed review remains an announced intention rather than a completed reckoning.