German car manufacturer Audi revealed Monday that an investigation into its history found that tens of thousands of concentration camp inmates had been forced to labor for its predecessor company, Auto Union, according a report by German international news broadcaster Deutsche Welle. The company commissioned the investigation, making it the fourth major German automobile company to expose its Nazi history, after Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW. According to the findings of the investigation, Nazi SS units built labor camps where more than 3,700 prisoners were forced to work for Auto Union. This is in addition to a further 16,500 forced laborers at factories in eastern Germany, and 18,000 forced laborers at a plant in Bavaria, where 4,500 people died. The report was authored by historians Martin Kukowski and Rudolf Boch, who said that Auto Union's management was responsible for the inhumane conditions in which the prisoners worked. The historians focused on auto industry entrepreneur Richard Bruhn, who negotiated the merger of car companies Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer. Bruhn was a member of the Nazi party and served as chairman of the board at Auto Union during World War II and after it. In 1965, Auto Union became part of Audi's parent company, Volkswagen Group.
