MILAN – The billionaire Reimann family, which owns JAB Holding Company, said they will donate EUR10 million to charity after learning the extent of their family’s ties to the Nazi regime. JAB Managing Partner and Chairman, Peter Harf, said the Reimann family was shocked by links to Nazi abuses, discovered by the Bild am Sonntag newspaper in archives.
“[Albert] Reimann senior and Reimann junior were guilty… they belonged actually in prison,” said Mr Harf.
Luxembourg-based investment firm JAB Holding Co. controls several leading coffee and restaurant brands of the likes of Keurig, Dr Pepper, Peet’s Coffee and JDE coffee brands, the company said on Thursday.
The business also includes brands such as Jacobs, Douwe Egberts, Tassimo, Gevalia, L’Or, Pilao and Kenco.
Albert Reimann senior died in 1954 and his son in 1984. It has emerged that both were enthusiastic Nazis, whose company used slave labourers.
Bild am Sonntag reported that female slaves from Nazi-occupied eastern Europe – treated as racially inferior – were beaten and sexually abused at premises in Ludwigshafen, in the Rhineland. Among them was a Russian maid.
The family fortune today is estimated at €33bn, which would make it Germany’s second-wealthiest family.
