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After the "Anschluss" of Austria in March 1938, the general building company A. Porr AG was also "arised". The Jewish owners withdrew from their offices, and Duke Ernst August owned 42.7 per cent over the largest stockpile. It was only in the early 1990s that the Welfen family share was sold for over 100 million marks. The Prince's lawyer did not dispute the acquisition, but added that the state did not transfer the assets to the Aryans, but the Jewish owners had sought buyers to at least save their money. For further questions, the law firm in Hamburg refers to the London office of the prince. There, however, you could not even get rid of a question on Tuesday. "No comment," interrupted the man on the phone and hung up.
Source: Der Prinz, der Schatz und die Nazis (Die Welt, February 2nd 1999) [The prince, the treasure and the Nazis]
The case of the murdered entrepreneur Elbogen came to light as well as the entry of Ernst August to an Austrian construction company, the Porr AG, in 1942: At that time, the NS authorities accused him of having made an inflated "de-Judaization gain" and therefore it must be confiscated by the "Reich". But this never happened. The Welfen returned a part of the shares to the previous owners in the fifties, the Welfen family held another part until the nineties.
Source: Welfen und NS-Regime: „Dunkle Geheimnisse des Hauses Hannover“ (Hannoversche Allgemeine, 8.8.2014) [Welfen and NS-Regime: "Dark Secrets of the House of Hanover"]
Grandchild Ernst August Prinz of Hanover, married to Caroline of Monaco, is still worried by the history of the stiff grandfather. In the course of the Aryanization the grandfather had acquired 1942 the majority in the Austrian construction company Porr AG. Porr AG built for the IG Farben in Auschwitz, the concentration camp supplied the workers. From 1944 Porr AG was active in the Gusen II concentration camp. Concentration camp prisoners built the mine galleries for the armament industry. The extent to which the Duke was informed of this is open, but the historical classification is clear. Historian Bertrand Perz calls the Porr AG as "involved in the violent expansion of the Nazi state".
Source: Der Adel und die Nazis, Teil 2: Reich im Reich (profil, May 27th 2004)[The Nobility and the Nazis, Part 2: Rich in the Reich]
The last Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg purchased from the Jewish Viennese entrepreneur Lothar Elbogen in 1938 after imprisonment and torture by the regime a potassium production for half the value of the market; He also bought to a similar cheap prise the construction company Porr AG, took part in the armaments company FMW in Wels, that repaired aircrafts for the defenses, and shortly before the end of the war produced another jet aircraft, which was manufactured as a "miracle weapon" in galleries at Gusen , were the construction Porr AG also benefited.
Source: Wie die Welfen von der Arisierung profitierten (Süddeutsche Zeitung, August 18th 2014) [How the Welfen benefited from the Aryanization]
With the takeover of the national socialists, there was a complete exchange of the company management and large parts of the shareholders. The House of Hannover-Braunschweig took over shares of the Stern family and of Siegfried Pick, which subsequently controlled 43% of the share capital of Porr AG. The board and the supervisory board were now completely dominated by the House of Hanover-Braunschweig, which is close to the Nazi regime. The number of employees increased by sixfold from March 1938 to October 1939. Porr AG was strongly involved in the construction of the Lenzing paper factory, among other things. Soon after the beginning of the war, however, labor shortages became apparent. While the construction industry in Austria slumped, the company carried out numerous orders from Slovakia, which had allied itself with Hitler-Germany. During the German advance on Yugoslavia, among other buildings, the copper recovery plant Bor was rebuilt after its destruction by withdrawing Yugoslav troops. The company was also involved in the construction of the "Atlantic Walls". As of 1943 the overwhelming majority of the workforce consisted of forced laborers, in April 1944 almost 11,000. With the beginning of the bomb war in Eastern Austria material and equipment were moved to Western Austria. A partial transfer of the plant to Straßwalchen took place in early 1945.
Source: Wien Geschichte Wiki (Vienna History Wiki)
Porr asked me at the beginning of the 90s, if I could not hide the Nazi period. That I said no to it, I was glad about it ten years later, "says Stiefel.
Source: Swarovski arbeitet NS-Vergangenheit auf. Interview with Historian Dieter Stiefel in Tiroler Tageszeitung, February 17th 2013
About former. Porr-Executive Director DI Josef Url
Born 1894 in Mürzzuschlag (Styria), father building and carpentry, maturity examination at the regional school in Graz, lieutenant in the First World War, Awards, participation in the Carinthian abduction battle, Dipl.-Ing., Last director & Member of the Board of Porr General. Building society, d. 1961. Url did not act politically, was an NSDAP party candidate and, after the Second World War, lost the procuration of his company for a short time, master data list in the archives of the Allemannia, kH- Marauschek, DI Josef Url, in Aula, Sept. 1961, 24.
Source: Für Burschenschaft und Vaterland: Festschrift für den Burschenschafter und Studentenhistoriker Prof. (FH) Dr. Peter Kaupp (for fraternity and fatherland. Commemorative for the fraternity member and student historian Prof. (FH) Dr. Peter Kaupp)