It is impossible to fault de Jong’s fierce indignation in this book. He must be right, to urge that the descendants of Hitler’s tycoons should admit their ancestors’ criminality, as some do not. But what else does he want? For them to surrender their ill-gotten inheritances to good causes? ... It is not realistically possible, in 2022, to exact retrospectively the retribution that was not imposed in 1945. St Moritz and St Tropez, together with the nasty and absurdly expensive Mayfair members’ dining clubs, will continue to be thronged with the heirs and heiresses to evil, jostled by their modern kin, children of the Kremlin oligarchs.

Much of this has been covered by the German press but is not well known to international audiences. De Jong is thorough in his tracing of business and personal relationships and sensitive to the complexities of opportunism and collaboration. But the picture he paints is a damning one, pointing to the complicity of those who allowed war crimes to go unpunished.

This is old news, but de Jong explores how all walked free after the war and their heirs do little to acknowledge their ancestors’ crimes ... It’s to de Jong’s credit that he brings many of these events back into the historical spotlight ... The author recounts perhaps more details on German business dealings than American readers may seek, but there is enough chicanery to maintain interest ... A sturdy account of the financial side of Nazi evil that resonates today.

De Jong’s colorful narrative features cutthroat corporate intrigue, sordid kowtowing to Nazi potentates and a melodramatic feud between Quandt and Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, who married Quandt’s ex-wife. The result is an intimate and vivid history.

In a densely researched account of five wealthy German families, each of which not only benefited from but strengthened the Nazi regime, de Jong suggests that neither German society nor the German state has fulfilled its promise to denazify German business and industry, even in the many decades since the end of the war ... In prose that is readable but not especially artful, de Jong, a reporter for Bloomberg, likely provides more detail on the structures of business deals and family succession than most lay readers would need—at times, his exhaustive detail makes this feel more like an academic text—but in doing so makes a valuable contribution to committing to the record the full account of these families’ crimes. De Jong details how each of these families slowly escalated their support for and intertwinement with the Nazis ... It’s worth noting that de Jong’s portrayal of the failures of denazification tends to emphasize its worst failures. De Jong selected the families he follows precisely because of the wealth they still hold today, not because they were the most influential business people in the regime ... De Jong’s exploration of the postwar period left me wondering if his focus on the culpability of the families was sufficient ... Nevertheless, de Jong’s thesis holds. By detailing the stories of these five families, he makes a strong case that the German tendency toward self-reflection or addressing past wrongs has only been true up to a point; it has failed when it comes to the country’s wealthiest families.