Continental tyres

A few days ago, at reference 1, I had occasion to notice the fact that I once bought some Continental tyres for my bicycle, and still have one of them. Hand made in Germany. Very good tyres they proved to be too.

Today the company is getting a lot of media coverage of the (800 page) report they commissioned from the historian Paul Erker on their contribution to the Nazi war effort. There does not seem to be an English version of the report out on the Internet, but one can buy the original German from Amazon, including Kindle, so presumably German readers can get it easily enough, at a price. And one can get easily enough from the company web site at reference 2 to the (English) press release at reference 3.

It seems that their record, particularly their use of forced labour, some of it from concentration camps, is bad. Although good that they have got around to recognition.

I am not yet sure where that leaves me with the present company, and I am glad I did not buy, by luck rather than judgement, any more tyres from them last week.

PS: news brought to me by the online version of the Financial Times.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/08/maintenance-time.html.

Reference 2: https://www.continental.com/en.

Reference 3: https://www.continental.com/en/press/press-releases/ns-study-231748.

Reference 4: Zulieferer für Hitlers Krieg. Der Continental-Konzern in der NS-Zeit (Supplier to Hitler’s War: the Continental Group in the Nazi Era) - Prof. Paul Erker - 2020.

Reference 5: https://www.continental-tires.com/bicycle. The bicycle bit of this very large business, which started with rubber back in the nineteenth century but which now does all kinds of stuff.