Hugo Boss (businessman)

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Hugo Ferdinand Boss (8 July 1885 – 9 August 1948)<ref name="Geneall">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> was a German businessman who founded the fashion house Hugo Boss. He was an active member of the Nazi Party from 1931, and remained so until Nazi Germany's capitulation. His clothing company also utilized forced labour drawn from German-occupied territories and prisoner-of-war camps to manufacture military uniforms for the Schutzstaffel and Wehrmacht.

Early life

Boss was born in Metzingen, Kingdom of Württemberg, to Luise (née Münzenmayer) and Heinrich Boss,<ref name="Geneall"/> the youngest of five children. He apprenticed as a merchant, did his military service from 1903 to 1905, and then worked in a weaving mill in Konstanz. He took over his parents' lingerie shop in Metzingen in 1908, as heir.Template:Citation needed In 1914, he was mobilized into the army and served through World War I, ending it as a corporal.Template:Citation needed

Hugo Boss company

Boss founded his own clothing company in Metzingen in 1923 and then opened a factory in 1924, initially with two partners. The company produced shirts and jackets and later work clothing, sportswear, and raincoats. In the 1930s, it produced uniforms for the SA, the SS,<ref>Lumsden, Robin. A Collector's Guide To: The Allgemeine – SS, Ian Allan Publishing, Inc. 2001, p 53.</ref> the Hitler Youth, the postal service, the national railroad, and later the Wehrmacht.<ref name=local-2011>Template:Cite news </ref>

Support of Nazism

SS-Gruppenführer Hans Lammers in black Allgemeine-SS uniform 1938

Boss joined the Nazi Party in 1931, two years before Adolf Hitler came to power.<ref name=abcarticledirectory-Hugo-Boss-Biography>Template:Cite news</ref> By the third quarter of 1932, the all-black SS uniform (to replace the SA brown shirts) was designed by SS-Oberführer Prof. Karl Diebitsch, and graphic designer Walter Heck, who had no affiliation with the company.<ref>McNab, Chris. Hitler's Elite: The SS 1939–45, Osprey 2013, p 90.</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The Hugo Boss company produced these black uniforms along with the brown SA shirts and the black-and-brown uniforms of the Hitler Youth.<ref name="nytimes">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>White, Constance C. R. "Patterns: Dealing with Hugo Boss's Nazi tie." The New York Times 19 August 1997: A20.</ref> Some workers were French and Polish prisoners of war forced into labour.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="7 Die Firma Hugo Boss">Template:In lang Zwangsarbeit in Metzingen (Forced Work in Metzingen), Ch.7: Die Firma Hugo Boss</ref> In 1999, US lawyers acting on behalf of Holocaust survivors started legal proceedings against the Hugo Boss company over its use of slave labour during the war.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The company issued an apology in 2011 for the misuse of 140 Polish and 40 French forced workers.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

After World War II, the denazification process saw Boss initially labeled as an "activist, supporter and beneficiary" of Nazism, which resulted in a heavy fine, also stripping him of his voting rights and capacity to run a business.Template:Citation needed This initial ruling was appealed, and Boss was re-labeled as a Mitläufer ("fellow traveller"), a category with a less severe punishment.<ref name=abcarticledirectory-Hugo-Boss-Biography/> Nevertheless, the effects of the ban led to Boss's son-in-law, Eugen Holy, taking over both the ownership and the running of the company.Template:Citation needed

Death

Boss died on 9 August 1948 of a tooth abscess<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> in Württemberg-Hohenzollern, Allied-occupied Germany. He was 63 years old at the time of his death.

External links

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