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In the 1960s and 1970s two controversies forced Rotary clubs to address the issue of complicity during the Holocaust. One emerged from a West German Rotarian’s attempts to publish an honest account of his organization’s concessions to National Socialism in the 1930s. The second ensued upon the nomination of an Austrian former Nazi to the Rotary International presidency. Both events unleashed intense discussions in the United States and elsewhere, pitting those who felt that the Holocaust must never be forgotten against those who saw camaraderie and forgiveness as more important than historical memory. These debates revealed “transnational” memory at work. Rotarians’ and the wider public’s response to these controversies transcended geographical boundaried, bringing Americans, Europeans, and others together to contemplate the moral legacies of Nazism and the Holocaust.

This article situates industrialists in an ongoing discussion about the ‘Americanization’ of West Germany by focusing on business leaders' interest in public relations and human relations during the l950s. It portrays industrialists' adoption of putatively ‘American’ techniques of publicity and factory relations as an attempt to make peace with workers, while simultaneously overcoming a legitimacy crisis born of their complicity in nazi crimes. Despite their interest in American PR, many industrialists could not hide their fears of American popular culture. Industrialists therefore crafted an image of America as economically modern but intellectually bankrupt. They juxtaposed this ambivalent view of America with indigenous discourses about ‘the factory community’ and company paternalism that had been present during the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. Ultimately, against the backdrop of the Cold War, industrialists were able to adapt to liberal democracy and ‘protect’ their workers from communism by amalgamating American and German models of labour relations.