BMW's Quandt family acknowledges Nazi ties after new study

Chances are, if you do enough digging around in your family's past, you're going to come up with something unpleasant somewhere down the line. That's exactly what Germany's Quandt family, heirs to the BMW kingdom, found after an independent study discovered that Geunther Quandt (pictured at right), the grandfather of Gabriele, used an estimated 50,000 forced laborers in his arms factory.
The workers were part of the Nazi "Aryanization" program. Gabriel Quandt said that it was wrong for her family to ignore this chapter of its past. The study, commissioned by the family, found that both Geunther and his son, Herbert, were responsible for Nazi injustices.

Despite Gabriel Quandt's acknowledgement of the transgressions of her forbears, the family still plans to award the Herbert Quandt Media Prize. Stefan Quandt says that the prize should stand because of the values that Herbert conveyed on the company later in life.