Klaus-Michael Kuehne is the richest man in Germany, heir to the freight-forwarding firm Kuehne + Nagel, which was cofounded by his grandfather and which he has stewarded for much of his life. A supporter of the centrist Christian Democratic Union (the party of the former chancellor Angela Merkel) and generous philanthropist, Kuehne lives the sort of life one expects from Europe’s super-rich: dividing his time among his estate near Lake Zurich, his chalet in the Swiss Alps, his yacht, and his villa in Mallorca. David De Jong takes a look at his company’s dark past, a story that begins in 1933, when Hitler took power:

In late April, the Kuehne brothers, [Klaus-Michael’s father and uncle], ousted their Jewish partner and co-owner Adolf Maass after he’d spent more than 30 years at the firm. Maass, fifty-seven at the time, owned 45 percent of the Hamburg branch of Kuehne + Nagel, which he had founded in 1902 and which was the largest and most profitable part of the firm. When Friedrich Nagel died heirless in 1907, his shares went to his cofounder, August Kuehne, the father of Alfred and Werner. He died in 1932.

According to a signed and dated contract in the Maass family archive in the Montreal Holocaust museum, Maass signed over his shares and claims to the Kuehne brothers on April 22, 1933, for no compensation. The reason? An alleged inability “to fulfill his capital obligations” to the Kuehnes and the company. Such accusations became a common method in Nazi Germany to oust Jewish shareholders from their own firms.

Nine days after ousting Maass, the Kuehne brothers became Nazi party members, according to their denazification files in the Bremen state archive. In the following years the Kuehnes developed their firm into a “national-socialist model company,” an honorary title that the Nazi regime awarded to Kuehne + Nagel in 1937, the year that Klaus-Michael was born.

During World War II, Kuehne + Nagel, led by Alfred and Werner, transported looted Jewish property, primarily furniture, books, and art, from occupied Western Europe to Nazi Germany.

Of course, almost all major German corporations participated in the enslavement, despoliation, and murder of the Jews—such is the nature of a totalitarian state engaged in such a massive project as the Holocaust. What is unique about Kuehne is that he hired historical investigators to research his firm’s wartime history, and then refused to publish the results.

Yesterday I saw an unconfirmed report that the Biden administration has offered Israel a massive arms deal in exchange for a promise not to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Even if the report is incorrect, there is plenty of other evidence that the White House has been trying to dissuade Jerusalem from mounting such an attack. The thinking behind this pressure is hard to fathom, as there is little Israel could do that would better serve American interests in the Middle East than putting some distance between the ayatollahs and nuclear weapons. Aaron MacLean explains why this is so, in the context of a broader discussion of strategic priorities in the Middle East and elsewhere:

If the Iran issue were satisfactorily adjusted in the direction of the American interest, the question of Israel’s security would become more manageable overnight. If a network of American partners enjoyed security against state predation, the proactive suppression of militarily less serious threats like Islamic State would be more easily organized—and indeed, such partners would be less vulnerable to the manipulation of powers external to the region.

[The Biden administration’s] commitment to escalation avoidance has had the odd effect of making the security situation in the region look a great deal as it would if America had actually withdrawn [from the Middle East].

Alternatively, we could project competence by effectively backing our Middle East partners in their competitions against their enemies, who are also our enemies, by ensuring a favorable overall balance of power in the region by means of our partnership network, and by preventing Iran from achieving nuclear status—even if it courts escalation with Iran in the shorter run.