A Global Company with a Global Past: VW’s Histo­rical Respon­si­bi­lity in Bolsonaro’s Brazil

Rio de Janeiro (October 5, 2018), seven months after the homicide of the femi­nist acti­vist Mari­elle Franco, voice of the Black popu­la­tion, of the favelas, and of the LGBTQI in the local city council. Accor­ding to the current status of police inves­ti­ga­tions, the main suspects for this crime are members of para­mi­li­tary circles with close connec­tions to the family of Jair Bolso­naro, Brazil’s new presi­dent. In honor of Mari­elle, her supporters hung up street signs with the name ‘Rua Mari­elle Franco’ imme­dia­tely after her death.

Wilson Witzel (rechts) am 8.10.2018 in Rio de Janeiro; Quelle: extra.globo.com

On the picture to the right, one can see how two former candi­dates of Bolsonaro’s party (PSL) destroy such a sign with pride. The man on the right side of the photo, who is raising his fist in elation is Wilson Witzel, a close colla­bo­rator of Bolso­naro and now the governor of the federal state Rio de Janeiro.

Roberto Cortes und Wilson Witze am 7.3.2019; Quelle: autoestrada.uol.com.br

Witzel also appears in a second picture. Here, he recently staged a photo­graph next to the chairman of Volks­wagen Camin­hões e Ônibus (the local truck subsi­diary of the Volks­wagen Group) as economy-friendly head of govern­ment. Reac­tions in Germany leaned toward embar­rass­ment, with the umbrella orga­niza­tion of Kriti­sche Aktio­nä­rinnen und Aktio­näre (“Critical Stock­hol­ders”) criti­ci­zing this meeting in a news report. After all, Witzel is – just like Bolso­naro – a poli­ti­cian who glori­fies crime and a culture of violence, which in the Euro­pean elec­toral land­scape can only be compared with hard­core right­ists groups like the Greek Golden Dawn.

Yet, the CEO of VW in Latin America, Pablo Di Si, welcomed the radical-right elec­tion winners with surpri­singly impru­dent words already at the begin­ning of November. In the Argen­ti­nean press, he described Bolsonaro’s elec­tion as a chance for the economy and a motive for opti­mism. Does VW ther­e­fore sympa­thize with the human rights scor­ning govern­ment of Brazil? In view of the previously held stance of the local company repre­sen­ta­tives, one can at least speak of a miscon­ceived poli­tical neutrality.

“Miscon­ceived Poli­tical Neutrality”

“Miscon­ceived Poli­tical Neutra­lity” is the term that the histo­rian Chris­to­pher Kopper from the Univer­sity of Biele­feld used to describe the posi­tion of the German VW manage­ment board in Wolfs­burg during the Brazi­lian dicta­tor­ship (1964-1984). In 2016, due to scathing accu­sa­tions, VW charged him with sett­ling poten­tial viola­tions by the Brazi­lian subsi­diary company during the autho­ri­ta­rian period.

It came out that the factory secu­rity offices at the VW faci­lity in São Bernardo do Campo near São Paulo had mistreated leftist workers, deli­vered them to the poli­tical police and ther­e­fore aided cases of torture and incar­ce­ra­tion. In addi­tion, the car manu­fac­turer owned a 140,000 ha cattle farm in the Amazon from 1973 to 1986, where it used Brazi­lian workers under brutal coer­cion for massive defo­re­sta­tion. Despite the latter being employed by local subcon­trac­tors, VW had been regu­larly informed about these inci­dents but chose not to intervene.

Forced labor is a term that evokes painful memo­ries about a comple­tely diffe­rent histo­rical context. Between 1939 and 1944, thou­sands of war prisoners, civi­lians parti­cu­larly from Eastern Europe, as well as concen­tra­tion camps detai­nees were exploited in the Wolfs­burg Volks­wagen factory for defense produc­tion. It was a first among German big busi­ness when VW ordered an inde­pen­dent histo­rical study about its dark past in 1986.

Upon recom­men­da­tion of histo­rian Hans Mommsen, the company’s manage­ment board provided a 12 million Deutsch­mark fund in 1991 to support cultural and social projects in the count­ries of origin of the former forced labo­rers. The publi­ca­tion of the resul­ting book Das Volks­wa­gen­werk und seine Arbeiter im Dritten Reich (VW and its Workers in the Third Reich) in 1996 brought forth a series of initia­tives for comme­mo­ra­tion of the victims. Under the leader­ship of histo­rian Manfred Grieger, who had co-authored the above book with Mommsen, the VW depart­ment for “Histo­rical Commu­ni­ca­tion” was founded in the follo­wing year, and its work became a bench­mark for media and academia.

Obviously, ever­yone knew that there was also corpo­rate inte­rest behind the decision to accom­mo­date the public desire for histo­rical clari­fi­ca­tion. This confron­ta­tion with their own past gave VW the advan­tage in guar­ding itself against poten­ti­ally dama­ging findings by a third party and resul­ting scan­dals. Further­more, a culture of histo­rical marke­ting emerged with the expan­sion of “Histo­rical Commu­ni­ca­tion,” which became part of the car manufacturer’s product promo­tion. In addi­tion to publi­ca­tions such as the remar­kable coll­ec­tion of reports from former Jewish forced labo­rers published in 2005, which unspa­ringly illus­trated the crime committed in Wolfs­burg, they also published books with glossy car images that recounted a clas­sical narra­tive of post-war success. In this context, VW’s rise as one of the largest multi­na­tional corpo­ra­tions was portrayed as a logical outcome of the German economic miracle of the post-war era. The poli­tical condi­tions, just like the social and ecolo­gical conse­quences of the period however, were hardly ever questioned.

VW in Brazil: Slug­gish Review of the Past

VW only began to pay atten­tion to its own history in Brazil, which the company long labeled “third world,” when public pres­sure came from the country itself, having turned into an “emerged power.” Already in the National Truth Commis­sion (CNV), appointed by former Presi­dent Dilma Rousseff to inves­ti­gate the crimes committed under the mili­tary dicta­tor­ship, and completed in 2014, the suspi­cion emerged that VW had parti­ci­pated in the poli­tical perse­cu­tion of union members during the dicta­tor­ship. In the follo­wing year, twelve alleged victims came forward in the context of a class-action lawsuit carried jointly by unions and NGOs, which trig­gered an inves­ti­ga­tion of the car manu­fac­turer by the Brazi­lian State Attorney.

Produk­ti­ons­strasse bei VW do Brasil, o.J.; Quelle: handelsblatt.com

These events prompted the “Histo­rical Commu­ni­ca­tion” to begin inves­ti­ga­tions on VW’s role in the Brazi­lian mili­tary regime. With their preli­mi­nary archival visits, attempts to estab­lish a (not always easy) dialogue with the concerned workers and the orga­niza­tion of a confe­rence at the Univer­sity of Göttingen, Grieger and his team started to seriously deal with the ques­tion of how to evaluate the beha­vior of a multi­na­tional company in autho­ri­ta­rian states. However, in the midst of this process, the company parted from Grieger in October 2016. His review of a commis­sioned study concer­ning the subsi­diary company Audi appar­ently trig­gered this decision. He had insi­nu­ated that, due to a lack of distance to the client, the study had failed in its objec­tive to flaw­lessly analyze Audi’s entan­gle­ment with the Nazi regime. Presu­mably, Grieger’s philo­sophy of addres­sing even the most painful histo­rical ques­tions, which he prac­ticed relent­lessly over the years, had never fully settled in the company’s menta­lity. Accor­ding to a report of the German public TV channel ARD from July 24, 2017, his rese­arch on Brazil also went too far for the board of management’s taste. The company’s internal panic around the emis­sions scandal since Fall 2015 was not parti­cu­larly helpful for an exami­na­tion of the dark side of the company history.

Dome­stic and Foreign Expert Assessment

Grieger’s dismissal upon request of the company manage­ment was followed by open protest from the commu­nity of histo­rians in Germany as well as disap­pointed media and union reports in Brazil. In the context of these critical reac­tions, VW imme­dia­tely there­after asked histo­rian Chris­to­pher Kopper to produce an inde­pen­dent assess­ment of the company’s rela­tion to Brazi­lian state repression.

Yet, did VW really care for clari­fying its legal respon­si­bi­lity? Did the company want to know what exactly happened in its own factory? In that case, the company could have relied on the study of poli­tical scien­tist Guaracy Mingardi, who had been commis­sioned a few months earlier by the Brazi­lian State Attorney. Pedro Machado, the respon­sible state attorney, said that he unsuc­cessfully invited VW to parti­ci­pate in the exami­na­tion and to deliver internal company archives.

VW could have just the like supported Brazi­lian rese­ar­chers, orga­nized in work groups such as Mais Verdade in Rio de Janeiro or the IIEP (Inter­câmbio, Infor­ma­ções, Estudos e Pesquisas) in São Paulo, who had been inte­rested for a while in the review of the company’s respon­si­bi­lity under the mili­tary regime. Overall, Brazil does not lack for highly compe­tent histo­rians on the history of the dicta­tor­ship. The condi­tions under which VW contracted the study ther­e­fore leave the impres­sion that, in the eyes of the company manage­ment, only a German rese­ar­cher guaran­teed serious­ness and objec­ti­vity, no matter whether or not they already poss­essed serious know­ledge of Brazil’s contem­po­rary history, society and language.

For Kopper admitted to ARD jour­na­lists that he had to fami­lia­rize himself comple­tely in the matter at first. When reading his final report, it becomes clear that he succeeded. At the same time, all histo­rians are aware of how essen­tial know­ledge of language and context are for histo­rical work. Despite assi­duous rese­arch, Kopper did not include in his own report all of the docu­ments from the poli­tical police and the Brazi­lian secu­rity agency analyzed and repro­duced in Guaracy’s final report.

VW was “Loyal Without Rest­ric­tions” vis-à-vis the Mili­tary Government

Despite these obsta­cles, Kopper handed a serious and objec­tively docu­mented 126-page text in Fall 2017, which (similar to the Mingardi report, handed in to the State Attorney shortly before) was able to confirm most of the suspi­cions against the company: The subsi­diary VW do Brasil assessed the mili­tary coup of 1964 in a posi­tive manner and “behaved loyal without rest­ric­tions towards the mili­tary govern­ment.” Between 1969 and 1979, a “coope­ra­tion between factory secu­rity offices and the poli­tical police of the regime” took place, and such “with the consented know­ledge of the manage­ment.” The factory secu­rity offices faci­li­tated the detention of factory employees at a time when the use of torture was “already known to the German and Brazi­lian public.” In addi­tion, workers were moni­tored and poli­ti­cally moti­vated “black lists” created and exch­anged with other compa­nies in order to prevent the employ­ment of indi­vi­duals perceived as subver­sive throug­hout the entire auto industry. Concer­ning the explo­ita­tion of rural workers on its Amazon farm, Kopper speaks of the company’s “indi­rect responsibility.”

On the occa­sion of the publi­ca­tion of the “Kopper study,” the plain­tiff victims were invited to a public event in São Bernardo do Campo on December 14, 2017. They did not receive any infor­ma­tion concer­ning the program of the event and ther­e­fore the plain­tiff workers decided to demons­trate in front of the factory gates rather than posing for hand­shakes with company repre­sen­ta­tives: Their banners read “We don’t want a party, we want justice.“

Protes­tie­rende VW-Arbeiter; Quelle: dw.com

In the factory’s confe­rence room, VW used the publi­ca­tion of the Kopper report as a reason to cele­brate the multi­na­tional company as history-conscious. However on this occa­sion an ambi­va­lent message was conveyed, which sounded rather like a denial of their own histo­rical respon­si­bi­lity. Despite prior efforts by corpo­rate manage­ment to keep the histo­rical rese­arch in German hands, no German manager was present; as if the matter suddenly had turned into an exclu­si­vely local problem.

The company’s spokesperson Pablo Di Si attri­buted the abuses listed in the report to “indi­vi­dual offen­ders,” expressed “remorse” in the name of his company without enun­cia­ting the expected “apology,” and unveiled a comme­mo­ra­tive plaque in the honor of the “victims of the dicta­tor­ship,” which excluded any refe­rence to VW and the workers abused by its factory secu­rity offices.

Respon­si­bi­lity in the Present

The rema­inder of the report’s demands went by the board. Kopper was too unknown  in Brazil as to turn his recom­men­da­tion, uttered on German TV – that the company should apolo­gize to its victims and indem­nify them – into a public demand within Brazi­lian society. With the success of Bolsonaro’s right-wing elec­tion campaign in 2018 and the take­over by those nost­algic of the dicta­tor­ship, who despise the work of the National Truth Commis­sion as well as the memory of the victims of the mili­tary regime, his report prac­ti­cally fell into oblivion.

Poli­ti­cally, the former army officer Bolso­naro stems from the extreme right fringe of the mili­tary regime he adores, though which he reproa­ches for not having killed enough oppo­si­tion members. Within the course of the last three decades, he openly defended fascist values and prac­tices inclu­ding torture, mass murder and poli­tical confi­ne­ment. Despite rapidly shrin­king popu­la­rity within his own country and cata­stro­phic diplo­matic appearance, his govern­ment hopes to gain the support of global players on an inter­na­tional scale thanks to its utterly neoli­beral economic policy. How VW will deal with the ques­tion of histo­rical respon­si­bi­lity in this context and as Brazil’s most important car manu­fac­turer must be seriously observed. At the moment, nego­tia­tions are taking place with the plain­tiff workers, in which the company only engaged under threat of a court case.

If VW admitted to a recon­ci­ling approach to the reas­sess­ment of its past and engage in poli­tics of mate­rial and symbolic repa­ra­tion on the victims’ side, a historic step would be taken. With it, the car company could stimu­late a past overdue reas­sess­ment of the mili­tary dicta­tor­ship, which Brazil sorely needs in today’s context: For March 31, Bolso­naro has ordered offi­cial festi­vi­ties for the 55th anni­ver­sary of the mili­tary dicta­tor­ship. If however, VW sweeps the matter under the carpet and conti­nues to treat Bolsonaro’s govern­ment like a normal interlo­cutor, this would be not only disas­trous for demo­cracy in Brazil, it would also demons­trate that VW has learned very little from its three decades of Culture of Remem­brance in Germany.