The promise was made in 2012 and would finally be about to be fulfilled. On Tuesday, October 29, Ikea announced the payment of 70 million crowns (6 million euros) to the national fund for the victims of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), which should see the light of day in Berlin in the coming weeks. With this gesture, the Swedish furniture giant acknowledges its responsibility for the use of forced labor by political prisoners in the factories of its East German suppliers during the 1970s and 1980s.
The scandal broke out in May 2012, after the broadcast of an investigative program on the Swedish channel SVT. Based on 800 documents extracted from the archives of the Stasi (the political police of the former GDR), the documentary revealed that the group, founded in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, sourced from the main furniture manufacturers in East Germany. , at a time when they made prisoners work in their factories. But also that Ikea management was aware.
A first debate took place in Germany and Sweden in 1984, after one of the brand’s stores in Wallau, in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), was the subject of an arson attack, probably set in protest against forced labor. of political prisoners in the GDR. In a journalistic interview AftonbladetKamprad then assured that only one of his suppliers had used it and that Ikea had “immediately terminated the contract”after being informed.
Except that the research transmission of TSV was able to prove that in 1986 the Klippan sofa – an iconic piece of furniture from the brand, still on sale – was still made by prisoners at the Waldheim penitentiary. Several former detainees testified. Among them, the German political scientist Wolfgang Welsch: imprisoned in the Brandenburg preventive prison, after a failed attempt to escape to the FRG, he recounted the work in three shifts, the violence of the guards, as well as the delivery papers for the furniture. , written in Swedish.
“Responsible approach”
Ikea initially denied the facts, before asking consulting firm Ernst & Young to carry out an investigation. Published in November 2012, its findings confirmed that the Swedish giant’s suppliers had indeed used “political and common law prisoners” and so? « representatives of the Ikea group [en] They were conscious at that time ». The group then pledged to pay reparations to the forced laborers.
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