It's somewhere in the late a.m. on Monday and I just finished watching the first five episodes of "Mad Men," a show I never paid much attention to (as I am not now paying any attention to episode number six) and I finally, finally just realized what's been bugging me for the previous 215 consecutive minutes.
I'd breezed right by it six times before it clicked, but something had been buzzing in the back of my head the whole time I was voraciously chewing piece after piece of nicotine gum while everyone on-screen smoked more than any human I had ever seen, including me.
But it wasn't the smoking. It wasn't even the show, which does have its merits (though they mostly lay in actors who are wasting away between nostalgia for an age that never existed and the glossy idea that if you have your characters drink and smoke enough, they won't have to do much of anything else).
It was actually the premise for the show, which swirls around the ad men on Madison Ave., NY, in post-war 1950s 'Merica (hence the name, which is purportedly what they called themselves) coupled with the BMW ad that runs before each and every episode On Demand.
"We didn't set out to be a getaway car," a voice over proclaims at the beginning of the 30-second spot, as a BMW spins out down an alley, setting the visual tone for the ad.
"Or an art car," the VO continues, corresponding artsy BMW on the screen.
"We didn't intend to be a part of any subculture, or pop culture. We didn't set out to play games or to start a religion. We just made the car."
This is followed by a pitch for the newest installment in the BMW 3 Series. All well and good, until this kicker:
"Another expression of independence, from a company built on it."
Really BMW? Independence? Are you sure you don't mean "absolute dependence on human slavery?"
I mean, jumpin' Jehoshaphat, the irony of this monumentally stupid spot running right before a series about ad-writers - actually "brought to you by BMW," is what the On Demand voice over told me - is just too delicious to pass up, even if it did take a bit of time to punch through my heavily sedated, sleep-deprived mind.
Now, it's already well known that SS Major Karl Sommer, head of the Economic and Administrative Main Office - which gave companies like BMW (and Bayer, and Siemens, and Daimler-Benz, and so forth and so on,) unfettered access to prisoners for slave labor - sold out BMW right up front in a post-war interview for having "employed" somewhere in the neighborhood of 25,000 to 30,000 POWs and concentration camp inmates.
All in a supremely independent manner, of course.
(Interestingly enough, in 1994, BMW AG named a Karl Sommer executive vice president and chief financial officer of BMW (US) Holding Corp. Huh.)
But in trying to remember Sommer's name for this bit of historical wang-dang-doodlin', I tripped across some newer - and way more interesting - info on the BMW past.
See, turns out about six years ago there was a biography published (in German, mind you) of German battery factory owner Guenther Quandt.
Now, Quandt's batteries reportedly were used in Nazi rockets (which isn't surprising) and after the war, the battery business was booming for Guenther (which also isn't surprising). In fact, Guenther and his son, Herbert, made so much money that Herbert was able to "save" BMW from Daimler in 1959 by buying it, five years after his father's death.
Now that's what I call independence!
Well, turns out there was a bit more to it than that (there always is in post-war Germany). See, like BMW, Quandt also apparently, kinda, sorta used slave labor straight out of the concentration camps. Haha! Whoops!
The Quandt family - now worth about $34 billion with a 47-percent share in the company - was finally forced to crawl into a rare spotlight appearance and own up to the missing history pages last year after a TV documentary more or less rehashed much of the biography (this time before a less discerning public, i.e. a television audience).
The family said in a statement it was "moved" by the concentration camp survivors testimony in the film as to conditions (and deaths) at the factory, acknowledged the family history gets a bit fuzzy between 1933 and 1945, and vowed to fund further research on the Guenther/Herbert period.
(The statement also made the point that Quandt family members and Quandt-owned companies have contributed to a national compensation fund for survivors and their families, though no sum was mentioned. Also not mentioned: the family's fortunes were actually solidified in textiles during World War I, supplying uniforms for the Kaiser. In case you were curious.)
I couldn't find any more info on the status of the family's research effort, but hey! While we're waiting, season two of "Mad Men" premiers July 27 on AMC!
(Brought to you by humanity's darkest chapter.)