Together they land some telling blows on Mr Goldhagen's book, which a review in The Economist on April 27th 1996 criticised for ignoring the gradations of support, compliance, ambivalence, antipathy and opposition which existed in German society during the ThirdReich.
The companies have long rejected legal claims by slave labourers, insisting that any damages should be paid by the German government as successor to the ThirdReich.