Kühne+Nagel to investigate its Nazi-era history

Kühne+Nagel will examine one of the most difficult chapters in its corporate history. The Schwyz based logistics group said on September 24 that it intends to investigate and disclose its activities during the Second World War, including reported links to the expropriation of Jewish property. The decision follows renewed scrutiny of the company’s German origins, the fate of Jewish co-owner Adolf Maass and the role played by the Kühne family during the Nazi period.

Chair Jörg Wolle confirmed the planned review in an interview with the German language magazine Bilanz. The company’s board will consider the project in the near future, a spokesperson told the AWP business news agency. Kühne+Nagel has not yet announced who will conduct the research, how broad its mandate will be or when work will begin.

The announcement places the company among Swiss firms confronting business ties to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Its Swiss headquarters in Schindellegi are far removed from the company’s origins in Bremen, but the historical record concerns the group’s wider corporate identity. Any investigation will need to establish what the company knew, which decisions it took and how property seized from Jewish victims moved through its logistics network.

Adolf Maass held 45% of Kühne+Nagel before the Nazi regime forced him out in 1933. Maass was a Jewish partner in the Bremen company when Adolf Hitler’s government began dismantling Jewish economic and civil rights. The available account says he was compelled to relinquish his stake, severing his position in the business during the regime’s first year.

Maass was later deported to Auschwitz. He never returned. His story gives the planned investigation a clearly defined human and corporate focus: the treatment of a co-owner whose shareholding represented nearly half of the company before Nazi persecution stripped him of it.

The company’s review is also expected to examine whether Kühne+Nagel benefited from the removal of Jewish owners and businesses. A full account would need to trace the ownership transfer, identify the people involved and establish whether Maass or his heirs received compensation. The source material does not state what happened to his stake after he was forced to surrender it.

For Swiss observers, the case raises questions about how companies headquartered in Switzerland account for conduct carried out through predecessor firms abroad. Kühne+Nagel’s current legal structure cannot by itself settle responsibility for decisions made in 1930s Germany. That requires records, independent analysis and a public account of the evidence.

The investigation is expected to follow goods taken from Jews who fled or were deported. During the Nazi period, Kühne+Nagel is reported to have transported movable property confiscated from Jewish victims. Such shipments could include household possessions and other personal belongings removed during forced emigration, deportation or the seizure of Jewish businesses.

The available report attributes these activities to the company under the direction of Alfred Kühne, the father of Klaus-Michael Kühne. It does not provide a complete inventory of shipments, the locations involved or the financial value of the goods. Those details will be central to any credible historical account.

Logistics companies occupied a practical position in the Nazi system of dispossession. They stored, moved and delivered property after state authorities had stripped people of their homes and businesses. Examining transport records could help show how persecution became an organised administrative and commercial process.

Researchers will likely need to consult company archives, German state records, property claims and documentation from Jewish families. The review should also distinguish between direct orders, commercial services and any forms of cooperation with Nazi authorities. Establishing those distinctions will matter for historians and for people seeking information about relatives whose possessions disappeared during the Holocaust.

Kühne+Nagel’s history reaches from Bremen in 1890 to Schindellegi today. August Kühne and Friedrich Nagel founded the company in Bremen, in the German state of Lower Saxony, to transport coffee, cocoa, wool, cotton and cereals. Its early business was built around the movement of commodities through German trade networks.

The group opened a branch in Pfäffikon, canton Schwyz, in 1975. Seventeen years later, it moved its head office to Schindellegi, where it remains based. The company now presents itself as a global logistics player, with a corporate history that spans Germany, Switzerland and international supply chains.

That evolution makes the planned inquiry relevant in Switzerland even though the reported wartime conduct took place in Germany. The company’s Swiss presence has lasted more than five decades, while its German foundation predates the Nazi regime by more than forty years. A historical review will have to explain how the business changed ownership, leadership and legal structure across those periods.

Kühne+Nagel’s current board has not set a start date or named an outside research team. Those decisions will determine whether the process remains an internal corporate exercise or becomes an independently assessed investigation with public access to its findings.

The company’s new position reverses the stance associated with Klaus-Michael Kühne. During his lifetime, the long-standing majority shareholder opposed an in-depth historical investigation into Kühne+Nagel’s Nazi era past, according to Bilanz. The report says he was particularly unwilling to fund an expert study that would have critically examined his father Alfred Kühne’s role.

Jörg Wolle said addressing the issue would be consistent with Kühne’s wishes. The statement comes after Klaus-Michael Kühne’s recent death and amid wider attention on his estate and the company’s legacy. Swissinfo reported that he left a fortune of $49 billion to a Swiss foundation because he had no heirs.

The board now faces practical choices. It can commission independent historians, define a transparent archive policy, contact descendants of Adolf Maass and publish the findings in full. It can also clarify whether the review will cover compensation, restitution or only the reconstruction of events.

For Switzerland, the outcome will offer a test of how a major company confronts inherited responsibility across borders. The next milestones are concrete: a mandate, a research team, access to documents and a publication date. Until those are announced, Kühne+Nagel’s commitment remains a pledge awaiting evidence.