Interesting story out of the world of donuts/doughnuts this week, as the Reimann family, originators of Krispy Kreme, (which makes by far the best tasting confections in America), were given a little surprise, and not of the sweet variety. An article in the German tabloid Bild outed the family’s ancestors as Nazis. The story is notable because these ancestors weren’t just footsoldiers or dull functionaries typing forms in triplicate, but full blown Aryan racists who used slave labor in their business and amassed a huge fortune doing it (that may sound familiar to people on the U.S. side of the ocean, as well). Apparently the family used female Russian and French prisoners, who they beat, sexually abused, and made strip naked for inspections. In July 1937 Albert Reimann, Jr. wrote to SS leader and Holocaust architect Heinrich Himmler and stated that his business was “a purely Aryan family business that is over 100 years old.” He also wrote that, “The owners are unconditional followers of the race theory.”
Reimann, Jr., who you see below, passed much of his fortune along to nine adopted children, four of whom now retain shares of the Krispy Kreme empire. Amazingly, the topping on this tale is that the source of all the info appears to be an ancestry check the family itself
commissioned on their father. Wealthy clans generally have a firm understanding of their own family tree, what with all the money involved and the potential for virtually anyone to come out of the woodwork claiming to be a twelfth cousin or granddaughter of a patriarch’s mistress, but in the case of adoptive children, putting the entire puzzle together sometimes happens later in life or not at all. In any case, the Reimann family, which holds approximately $37 billion in assets, announced that it would give $11 million to charity, or about %0.0003 of the estimated family fortune. Hey, every little bit helps.
Reimann, Jr., who you see below, passed much of his fortune along to nine adopted children, four of whom now retain shares of the Krispy Kreme empire. Amazingly, the topping on this tale is that the source of all the info appears to be an ancestry check the family itself
commissioned on their father. Wealthy clans generally have a firm understanding of their own family tree, what with all the money involved and the potential for virtually anyone to come out of the woodwork claiming to be a twelfth cousin or granddaughter of a patriarch’s mistress, but in the case of adoptive children, putting the entire puzzle together sometimes happens later in life or not at all. In any case, the Reimann family, which holds approximately $37 billion in assets, announced that it would give $11 million to charity, or about %0.0003 of the estimated family fortune. Hey, every little bit helps.
