Julian Crowley
You may not have heard of Bertelsmann A.G. but you will have heard of the books published by its many subsidiaries, including Random House, Bantam Books and Doubleday.
During Nazi rule, Bertelsmann published propaganda and Nazi literature such as “Sterilization and Euthanasia: A Contribution to Applied Christian Ethics.” They even published works by Will Vesper, who had given a rousing speech at the book-burning in 1933.
Random House courted Nazi controversy again in 1997 when they added, “a person who is fanatically dedicated to or seeks to control a specified activity, practice, etc.” to the Webster’s dictionary definition of Nazi, prompting the Anti-Defamation League to say that it “trivializes and denies the murderous intent and actions of the Nazi regime.”
