Designer Hugo Boss was the favoured tailor of Hitler and won the contract to supply Nazi forces with their uniforms.
After the war he argued that he had supported Hitler "to save the company" rather than because of any National Socialism ideology, but new research shows that he was in fact a loyal Nazi.
A new book publishes records that show that during the second world war [sic] the company used 140 forced workers kidnapped by the Gestapo from Poland.
At its clothes factory based in Metzingen, Baden-Wurttemberg the work force also included 40 French prisoners of war in its production of Wehrmacht uniforms.
"It is clear that Hugo F Boss did not only join the party because it led to contracts for uniform production, but also because he was a follower of National Socialism," wrote Roman Koester, an economic historian at the Bundeswehr University in Munich in his book Hugo Boss, 1924-1945. Read on and comment » | Fiona Govan | Wednesday, September 21, 2011
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