As Lufthansa celebrates a century since its founding, the German flagship carrier has taken an unprecedented step in confronting one of the darkest chapters in its history, acknowledging its deep entanglement with the Nazi regime during the 1930s and 1940s.
At a press event this week in Frankfurt ahead of the airline’s 100-year celebrations, CEO Carsten Spohr said the company’s leadership had decided it was no longer tenable to celebrate such a milestone without openly addressing its past. “To then ignore the difficult, dark, terrible years would simply have been dishonest,” he told journalists, signalling a marked shift from previous corporate statements that distanced the modern airline from its predecessor.
Facing Uncomfortable History
Lufthansa traces its roots to Deutsche Luft Hansa, founded in 1926 and later absorbed into Nazi Germany’s war economy. Historians now emphasise that the airline was far more than a bystander during the era; it became a state-aligned enterprise tightly integrated into Adolf Hitler’s regime. By the mid-1930s, senior executives and supervisory board members were members of the Nazi Party, and the airline performed official transport duties for government officials.
Researchers say that by 1944, revenue from armaments contracts accounted for more than two-thirds of the company’s income, indicating its transformation from a commercial airline into a component of Germany’s war infrastructure. Thousands of forced labourers — including Jews deported under Nazi policies — were put to work in aircraft repair depots and other facilities supporting wartime production.
These aspects of the airline’s legacy had long been downplayed in public narratives. After World War II, the original Deutsche Luft Hansa was dissolved by the Allied occupation authorities in 1946. A new company, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, was established in 1953, and for decades Lufthansa emphasised the legal distinction between the old and the new entities to avoid liability for wartime actions.
New Acknowledgement and Education Efforts
In a departure from that approach, Lufthansa has commissioned an extensive historical study by independent scholars into its role under National Socialism. The research findings will be published as a book and distributed to the airline’s more than 100,000 employees, according to Spohr. An exhibition exploring this period will also open in the company’s new visitors’ centre.
German historians involved in the research describe Deutsche Luft Hansa as not just a passive instrument but an active participant in the Nazi system. “Lufthansa was clearly part of the system,” one expert said, noting the airline’s voluntary association with Nazi policies and its role in supporting the military and state infrastructure.
A Broader Reckoning
Lufthansa’s announcement comes amid wider discussions in Germany about corporate responsibility for actions during the Nazi era. While some companies have publicly acknowledged and compensated victims of forced labour and other abuses, others have been slower to confront their histories. Lufthansa’s move, especially timed with its centenary, signals an effort to reframe its narrative by incorporating these difficult truths rather than sidestepping them.
As the airline looks ahead to the next century of operations, its leadership says a candid engagement with history is essential to understanding its evolution, from pioneering international flights in the 1920s, through complicity in a totalitarian regime, to becoming a modern global carrier.
[Cover image credit: Lufthansa Group]
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