Flick pays Nazi-reparation fund after years of protests (Billionaire Mercedes heir)

The Art Newspaper ^ | Friday, 27 May 2005 | Lucian Harris

[nickcarraway]

Billionaire Mercedes heir and art collector Friedrich Christian “Mick” Flick, has paid €5 million ($6.54 million) into a fund for surviving victims of Nazi forced labour, administered by the German foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future”.

Dr Flick, whose grandfather was Hitler’s leading weapons manufacturer, had been under pressure to make the payment for several years, particularly in light of the long-term loan of his contemporary art collection to the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum in Berlin, which went on show last September, attracting vociferous protests from Jewish groups. Salomon Korn, vice-president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany described Berlin’s decision to accept the collection that had previously been rejected by Zurich, Strasbourg, and Dresden, as “a moral whitewash of blood money that [is] like showing the Goering Collection”.

Others defended Mr Flick. Heinz Berggruen, a prominent Jewish collector and dealer, said at the time: “The concept of Sippenschaft or family guilt was applied by the Nazis and should now be rejected.”

Despite the continuing pressure, or perhaps because of it, Dr Flick, who is notoriously independently-minded, repeatedly declined to make the payment. He argued that as an individual he was not obligated to contribute to the fund, which was established by the German government and industry in 2000 to receive reparations from companies. He is also believed to have felt that payment would be tantamount to an admission of guilt for the crimes of his grandfather. Instead, in 2001, he put E5 million into a foundation to fight racism and xenophobia.

Mr Flick would not comment on his latest change of heart. A press release issued on 22 April stated simply that “Dr Flick would like to acknowledge the fate of former forced labourers and to convey to them an expression of his deepest respect and sympathy”. His donation was made shortly before the 60th anniversary of World War II and the opening of Peter Eisenmann’s Holocaust Memorial in Berlin.

[DTA]

Boycott Mercedes, drive a Ford.

[monkeyshine]

Maybe the ghost of Christmas future came to visit him one night.

[PzGr43]

“The concept of Sippenschaft or family guilt was applied by the Nazis and should now be rejected.”

Exactly. As should collective responsibility.

Collective responsibility was what the Jews got from the Nazis for the actions of a tiny minority of Jewish-Bolshevik activists coming largely from the East (along with the other 50% of non-Jew massacre victims, who are ignored by the press and never received any 'compensation').

So is collective responsibility good or bad ? Make up your minds. I am happy either way - it cuts both ways.

For the left, it's good when it's the right. But since anyone on left is automatically a victim within a right-wing military-industrialist power-structure, the question of collective responsibility never arises, since the individual in question cannot be guilty - it's the right that is responsible for the way he is !

The whole 'compensation' thing is highly dubious (much like the 'foreign aid' charities) as it appears on first sight that . For an expose of the Holocash industry read Norman Finkelstein's "The Holocaust Industry"