The nucleus of this book consists of articles I wrote for Bloomberg News between April 2012 and May 2018. Although I left to write this book, I would never have delved into this subject without the encouragement of many people at Bloomberg. Not only did Matthew (G.) Miller unwittingly come up with the book title (“de Jong, do we have any more Nazi billionaire stories on the shelf?”), but he and Peter Newcomb (his suggestion, Nazillionaires, was a close second for the title) took a chance on me and then put me onto this beat. Thank you both. Matt, I think I took your assignment to “go and find the Nazi gold” a tad too seriously. Thanks also to Rob LaFranco and Pierre Paulden for their editorial guidance, and to Pamela Roux Castillo and Jack Witzig, two stalwarts of the Bloomberg Billionaires turned wealth team.
Thanks to Max Abelson for inadvertently leading me to the start and the end of this book: by introducing me at Bloomberg in fall 2011 and for telling me to see the Raymond Pettibon exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in fall 2019. A big thanks to Donal Griffin, my favorite cantankerous Irishman, for taking the time to read early drafts. Thanks also to Caleb Melby, who, way back when, told me I should write a book about this subject; it firmly planted the idea in my mind. Thanks to my then editors Simone Meier, Elisa Martinuzzi, and Neil Callanan for encouraging me to take the plunge and write the book. Thanks also to Annette Weisbach and Matthew Boyle; I collaborated with them on some of my earliest reporting on the Reimanns and the Quandts.
I’m grateful to my agent, Howard Yoon, for believing in this project from the start and for his enormous help and encouragement, and to his associates at Ross Yoon, notably Dara Kaye. A massive thank-you to Alexander Littlefield, my discerning editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/HarperCollins, who remained unflappable and never lost sight of the big picture. Thanks also to Zach Phillips, Marleen Reimer, and Lisa Glover for helping out with so much, and to Susanna Brougham for her impeccable copyediting. Thanks to David Eber for the legal review and Mark Robinson and Chloe Foster for the cover and interior design. Thanks also to Glen Pawelski and the team at Mapping Specialists. I’m also very grateful to Arabella Pike and Jo Thompson at William Collins in London for their help with the book.
Many thanks to colleagues at Büro Hermann & Söhne, particularly Gerben van der Marel, Jan Zappner, and Peter Wollring, for the years of camaraderie in lieu of an actual newsroom. Pauline Peek, a true multi-talent, helped with research and fact-checked the book. A big thank-you to Martin Breitfeld and his colleagues at Kiepenheuer & Witsch in Cologne for all their help. Thanks also to Rüdiger Jungbluth, who once told me over lunch in Hamburg, “When it’s not written in English it’s not considered news”; it made me realize that these dark histories of money and power weren’t known outside Germany. Thanks to all the German historians who were willing to speak to me at length about this subject — most notably Tim Schanetzky, Kim Christian Priemel, and Sven Keller.
Thanks, for various reasons, to Alex Cuadros, Alice Pearson, Ben and Jenny Homrighausen, Volker Berghahn, Yana Bergmann, Brittany and Sam Noble, Ruby Bilger, Daniel Sedlis, Nina Majoor, Eric Gade, Evan Pheiffer, Sven Becker, Janette Beckman, Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, Norman Ohler, Taunton and Nikki Paine, Sam Moyn, Majlie de Puy Kamp, Patrick Radden Keefe, Mary Vromen, Mathew Lawrence, Hayden Miller, Ryan Alexander Musto, Heather Jones, Joe Dolce, Lauren Streib, Henry Seltzer, Line Lillevik, and Max Raskin. Germany’s dark history was never far away in Berlin, and sometimes it came bizarrely close. A big danke to the whole “clique” in the capital, most notably Elsa Wallenberg, Alexander Esser, Laura Stadler, Cäcilie von Trotha, Richard Meyer zu Eissen, Finn Weise, and all the other weirdos. A special thanks, also, to all my dear friends in Amsterdam.
Writing this book made me realize even more how fortunate I am to be surrounded by such wonderful families. An immense thanks to my parents, Helen and Philip, for their unconditional love and support, and also to my aunt Jacqueline, the de Zwarts, the Velaises, and the Tanns.
Finally, a big thank-you to Sophie, a true force of nature. Ever industrious; ever the explorer. Glad to be caught up in your whirlwind. Can’t wait to find out where it will take us next.