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Anton Loibl GmbH

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Anton Loibl GmbH
IndustryBicycle reflectors
FoundedSeptember 1936
FounderHimmler's Personal Office
OwnerAnton Loibl

Anton Loibl GmbHwas a company owned by theSSwhich was a funding source for theAhnenerberesearch branch and theLebensborneugenics programme. It was created to market abicycle reflectorinvented by Anton Loibl, a chauffeur forHitler.It employedslave labour.

Anton Loibl, a former long-term chauffeur for Hitler and a decorated SS-Hauptsturmführer(Ernst Röhmhad obtained the driver's job for him in the early 1920s, and he had spent time in prison after participating in theBeerhall Putschin 1923),[1]was a part-time inventor; while working as a machinist and driving instructor, he invented a reflector for bicycle pedals which incorporated glass chips.[2][3]Heinrich Himmler,who was acquainted with Loibl, ensured that he was awarded the patent in preference to an earlier applicant,[3]and the company was established in September 1936 in Berlin byHimmler's Personal Officein order to market it.[2][4]In his capacity as police chief of the Reich, Himmler had a requirement added to the traffic code on 13 November 1937 which required all newly manufactured bicycles to incorporate these reflectors.[2][5]The bicycle manufacturers had to pay a licence fee, which amounted to 600,000ℛℳin 1939.[2]

Loibl was initially a co-director and co-owner of the company, and received 50% of the income, altogether approximately 500,000 ℛℳ;[2]he was removed for incompetence at the end of 1939 or early in 1940.[4][6](An internal report dated June 1939 pointed out Himmler's use of his power for the benefit of the company and criticised Loibl's personally profiting from it.[2][7]) Additionally, Himmler directed the company to pay substantial sums (290,000 ℛℳ a year) to the Ahnenerbe and the Lebensborn; financing these had been the primary purpose of its establishment.[2]The Ahnenerbe had chronic financing problems for some years and in 1937 theReichsnährstandhad reduced its funding and Himmler set up a foundation to channel funds to it, including from the Loibl concern.[8]The Ahnenerbe's share of the Loibl funds was 77,740 ℛℳ in 1938;[3]the Lebensborn received from 100,000 to 150,000 per year from 1939 on.[9]At theNuremberg Trialsthe Loibl company was described as "still earning considerable funds for 'Ahnenerbe'".[10]

Chartered to develop "technical articles of all kinds",[4][11]the company later diversified and also sold other products, such as a patented lamp.[2]

By the end of the 1930s, when Germany had achieved full employment, the SS enterprises were using slave labour, including fromconcentration camps.[12]In January 1938, Loibl showed a visitor around a testing laboratory for aircraft motors atDachau.[13]

In December 1963 the reflectors were still required on German bicycles.[5]

References

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  1. ^Hermann Kaienburg,Die Wirtschaft der SS,Berlin: Metropol, 2003,ISBN9783936411041,p. 199,(in German)
  2. ^abcdefghEnno Georg,Die wirtschaftlichen Unternehmungen der SS,Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 7, Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1963,OCLC1990667,p. 19(in German)
  3. ^abcHeather Pringle,The Master Plan: Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust,New York: Hyperion, 2006,ISBN9780786868865,n.p.
  4. ^abcMichael Thad Allen,The Business of Genocide:The SS, Slave Labor, And The Concentration Camps,Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2002,ISBN9780807826775,pp. 34–35.
  5. ^ab"SS-Konzern: Pfeffer aus Dachau",Der Spiegel,25 December 1963,pp. 30–32(in German)(pdf)
  6. ^Kaienburg,p. 494.
  7. ^Walter Naasner, ed.,SS-Wirtschaft und SS-Verwaltung: das SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt und die unter seiner Dienstaufsicht stehenden wirtschaftlichen Unternehmungen: und weitere Dokumente,Schriften des Bundesarchivs 45a, Düsseldorf: Droste, 1998,ISBN9783770016037,p. 271(in German)
  8. ^Michael Kater,Das "Ahnenerbe" der SS 1935–1945: Ein Beitrag zur Kulturpolitik des Dritten Reiches,Studien zur Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1974,ISBN9783421016232,p. 59.
  9. ^Volker Koop,"Dem Führer ein Kind schenken": die SS-Organisation Lebensborn e.V.,Cologne: Böhlau, 2007,ISBN9783412216061,p. 72(in German)
  10. ^Trials of war criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under Control Council law no. 10, Nuremberg, October 1946–April, 1949Volume VCase 8: U.S. v. Greifelt (cont.) Case 4: U.S. v. Pohl (Pohl case),Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O., 1950,OCLC12799641,p. 532.
  11. ^Michael Thad Allen, "The Business of Genocide: the SS, Slavery, and the Concentration Camps", in:Business and Industry in Nazi Germany,ed.Francis R. Nicosiaand Jonathan Huener, University of Vermont, Center for Holocaust Studies, New York: Berghahn, 2004,ISBN9781571816542,pp. 81–103,p. 85.
  12. ^Allen, "The Business of Genocide" inBusiness and Industry in Nazi Germany,p. 87.
  13. ^Franz Wegener,Der Alchemist Franz Tausend: Alchemie und Nationalsozialismus,Politische Religion des Nationalsozialismus 6, [Gladbeck]: KFVR, 2006,ISBN9783931300180,p. 142(in German)
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