Klaus Schwab's family history - was his dad a Nazi?
There are endless speculations about Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum.
In this article, I quote information from a Dutch fact-chercker and other sources, with some of my own commentary.
Here Klaus Schwab's official WEF profile:
https://www.weforum.org/about/klaus-schwab
Klaus Schwab's family is not Jewish
A very common trope is to claim that he's Jewish, which is ridiculous. It was based on a Jewish woman named Marianne Schwab who married a man with the family name "Rothschild".
The name "Schwab" designates someone who originates from "Schwabenland", a region of Germany that borders on Switzerland, with the capital Stuttgart. It is a common name.
So is the name Rothschild. There are innumerable people with the name "Rothschild" who have no connection whatsoever with the banker family clan, like this Marianne Rothschild-Schwab's husband. She grew up in Northern Germany and then emigrated with her husband to the US. They were clearly not very rich and had absolutely zero connection with Klaus Schwab's family.
Klaus Schwab's father, Eugen Wilhelm Schwab
Klaus Schwab's father's identity has been confirmed as Eugen Wilhelm Schwab, born 1899:
https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/GZDB-6J8/eugen-wilhelm-schwab-1899
A WEF employee confirmed that this is an authentic document showing Klaus Schwab's father - a temporary visa to visit Brasil from 1960:
Klaus Schwab's parents were both German and Christian. This is their marriage register entry from the church in Ravensburg where they got married in 1926:
Klaus Schwab was born on 30 March 1938 in Ravensburg, Germany, so that checks out: his parents would have been married about 12 years before his birth.
Anyone claiming that Klaus himself had any kind of involvement with the Nazis must think of some weird time-travelling timeline, as he was just 7 by the end of WWII.
His parents, however, were very likely members of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers Party, which was shortened to the "National Socialist" or "Nazi" party), but at the very least sympathizers, as his father, Eugen Wilhelm Schwab, was allowed to retain his job as director of the Swiss Escher Wyss factory in Ravensburg during the entire duration of the Nazi regime, which would not have been possible otherwise, especially as Escher Wyss was an industrial business essential to war time production. They would never have left this in the hands of someone not supportive of the Nazi regime.
What does that mean for Klaus Schwab?
Any claim about a "Jewish connection" is definitely absurd, but Klaus Schwab was clearly exposed to Nazi propaganda and Nazi-supporting parents during his childhood.
That does not automatically make him a Nazi - many Germans who were children during WWII or born in the post-war years tried to put as much distance between themselves and the Nazis as possible. Hence they moved to the far left under the mistaken assumption that the Nazis were "far right".
In reality, the National Socialists were Marxists to the core - every single value they promoted can be found in Marx & Engels, including the antisemitism, the racism, the hated of Capitalism etc. Hitler was a member of a communist party in 1919. While he claimed to be "anti-communist", that was just a political ruse, as demonstrated by his alliance with Stalin. Nazi & Soviet propaganda & symbols were not just similar, but identical in style and content.
I documented this connection in detail in this article here:
"Nazis are Marxists - and here is the proof"
https://www.minds.com/SMetzeler/blog/national-socialists-are-communists-1107368875892244480
Klaus Schwab did move to the far left and Marxist ideology, which is obvious based on the evidence:
- the Lenin bust in his living room, clearly visible in an Arte documentary; Lenin was a genocidal fascist; I see this bust as strictly equivalent to exposing a Hitler bust
- his association with the Club of Rome since 1973
- the fact that the WEF started supporting the entire "woke" (Cultural Marxist) ideology over the last decade, if not earlier
- The WEF signed a contract with the UN to help with the implementation of the Marxist Agenda 2030
To understand the ideological nature of the UN Agenda 2030, read this:
https://www.un.org/humansecurity/agenda-2030/
Nazi or Communist, there's virtually no difference! Either way, Klaus Schwab follows an evil ideology, one that is no different from what his parents supported. There's a good chance that Klaus Schwab is far more ideological than his parents ever were, as they probably just went along with Nazism out of opportunism and fear.
Dutch Fact-Checker Information
This is a Dutch "fact-checker" article which is a lot better than the usual kind, as it acknowledges that they do not have evidence to deny any Nazi links and even admit that there is some evidence of Nazi collaboration:
https://dpa-factchecking.com/netherlands/220211-99-80892/
This is the link to the English translation of the article, which I copied below:
11.02.2022, 15:57 (CET), letztes Update: 27.05.2022, 09:45 (CEST)
"Eugen Wilhelm Schwab, master Nazi," it reads in gothic letters above a black-and-white photo of an elderly man doing the rounds on Facebook and Twitter . Eugen is the father of Klaus Schwab, founder of the WEF, and according to multiple social media users, a "senior Nazi officer". What this says about son Klaus is sometimes implicitly , sometimes explicitly stated in the posts. Café Weltschmerz also discusses father Schwab's past in an article about Klaus Schwab. But is there any evidence that Eugen Schwab held high office for the Nazis? And do the possible sins of the father also say something about the son?
Review
There is no evidence that Eugen Schwab held a high position in the Nazi hierarchy. The available documents rather point in the other direction, but they are not conclusive either. Klaus Schwab himself was in any case too young to play a role in Nazi Germany.
Facts
Since its outbreak in early 2020, the corona pandemic has proved to be a particularly fertile ground for disinformation and conspiracy theories on social media. A favorite target in misleading posts is Klaus Schwab , the founder of the World Economic Forum. Since November 2020 , dpa has already written 28 fact checks in Dutch, German and French that are in one way or another about Schwab, especially his initiative ' The Great Reset '.
While it is of course justified to criticize Schwab and his initiatives, it is quite another to spread clearly false information about Klaus Schwab as a person.
Dpa previously wrote a fact check to show that Schwab is not descended from the Jewish Rothschild banking family. However, he is now being accused of his father being a high-ranking Nazi.
Eugene Schwab
Each social media version of this latest story somehow links the father's past to what it would mean for his son. However, it is important to note that the sins of the parents, if any, are not the sins of the children. " The apple doesn't fall far from the tree " is a saying, not an argument.
Klaus Schwab himself writes in the acknowledgments of one of his books that Eugen Wilhelm is his father. A spokesman for Klaus Schwab also confirms that the man in the photo is actually Klaus Schwab's father. The photo used appears to be from a temporary visa for Brazil that Eugen Schwab obtained in 1960.
Denazification Act
To find out what role Eugen Schwab played within the NSDAP or other Nazi organizations, Deutsche Presse-Agentur requested his Denazification Act from the Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg . Immediately after the end of World War II, the Allies attempted to " denazify " German society. This happened, among other things, with local tribunals and investigations, of which this deed is the result.
Schwab did not appear before this committee because he was suspicious. According to dr. Niels Weise, historian at the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich, almost all adult men and women had to appear for these committees. Schwab, as a leader of a company, was of course there.
According to Weise, this committee mainly looked at membership of various National Socialist organizations. Schwab indicates in the deed that he was not a member of the NSDAP or the SS. He was, however, a member of a number of other organisations, such as the DAF and the NSV , mass organisations.
Membership of such organizations does not provide a clear indication of how a person felt about the regime, according to Weise. Nor is the achievement of a civilian merit order (which Schwab had received) evidence of close ties to the regime.
Whether Schwab was telling the truth is of course not certain. These committees did not always have the best reputation . But according to Weise, the information in this deed is at least plausible. According to Weise, Schwab also does not appear in a list of NSDAP party documents that he could consult (five other people named Eugen Schwab do, but they have a different date of birth). This is not conclusive evidence, but it makes Schwab's NSDAP membership a lot more unlikely.
The final verdict of the commission was full acquittal for Eugen Schwab. He was not charged with any political charges. It is clear that this statement should not be taken for granted. But even so, it seems unlikely that Schwab could have successfully denied being a member of the NSDAP if he were a prominent Nazi.
Escher Wyss AG
Eugen Schwab ran the Ravenburg branch of the Swiss machine builder Escher Wyss AG throughout the Nazi years in Germany . Klaus Schwab was also born in the same city in 1938. The fact that this company was a ' National Socialist model company ' is one of the arguments used to demonstrate father Schwab's connection with the Nazis.
This recognition, according to Dr. Christian Marx, economic historian at the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich, however, is not enough evidence for Nazi sympathies. It was awarded to many companies and that had rather economic motives. It says little about how close the company leaders would be to the Nazi top.
It is indeed true that Escher Wyss Ravensburg employed prisoners of war and forced laborers during the war. However, there were not 3,600 , as Café Weltschmerz claims. This number is for the entire city of Ravensburg, where even more companies were present.
During the Second World War about two hundred (p. 34) prisoners of war and forced laborers were probably employed by Escher Wyss Ravensburg. Whether the company was forced to do so by the Nazis or because there were few other workers available is not clear.
As far as Marx knows, there is no comprehensive company history of Escher Wyss Ravensburg. He does, however, make the link with GHH/MAN, a company about which Marx wrote his dissertation. This company also employed forced labourers, but according to Marx it was not at all close to the Nazi leadership. This again proves nothing, but it shows that the use of forced laborers and prisoners of war - although morally reprehensible - says little concrete about Nazi sympathies of the company leaders.
There is also speculation about what was produced in father Schwab's factory . It is true that Escher Wyss made a turbine for a Norwegian hydro plant , where they tried to make heavy water for an atomic bomb. But whether that was the Escher Wyss factory in Ravensburg is not clear.
Ravensburg was relatively spared from allied bombing during the war. There would be two reasons for this. On the one hand there was a distribution center of the Red Cross , on the other hand no weapons were produced in the city. This is another indication - not proof - that Escher Wyss did not produce weapons at least in Ravensburg.
Decision
It is difficult to show in black and white what Eugen Schwab did or did not do under the Nazi regime. It is clear that he has not actively resisted, as he has always retained his position as leader of Escher Wyss. The morality of certain matters, such as the use of prisoners of war, can be debated, but it is difficult to make a clear judgment on the basis of currently available sources.
However, there is no evidence available that he held a high rank in the Nazi hierarchy, which is at the core of what is being claimed on social media. The sources used in this fact check point rather - but not conclusively - in the other direction. This leaves aside the fact that all of this may mean essentially nothing to his son, who is the ultimate target of the misinformation on social media.
(State of affairs: 11/02/22)
Links
Article Café Weltschmerz ( archived )
Klaus Schwab ( archived )
First fact check dpa Klaus Schwab
Dpa fact checks on Klaus Schwab ( archived )
Article Clingendael Spectator ( archived )
Factcheck dpa about family Schwab
Acknowledgments Klaus Schwab ( archived )
Visa Eugen Schwab ( archived )
Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg ( archived )
On Denazification ( archived )
IFZ Munich ( archived )
On Denazification #2 ( archived )
Article on Escher Wyss AG ( archived )
About National Socialist model companies ( archived )
Research sda ( archived )
Swiss companies and forced labor ( archived )
Norsk Hydro ( archived )
Heavy Water ( archived )
Red Cross in Ravensburg ( archived )
History Ravensburg ( archived )