The Quandts are among the most powerful business dynasties in Germany. However, their rise is controversial. How closely was the family involved in the crimes of the National Socialists? Is their current wealth based on profits from forced labor, Aryanization, and armaments contracts of the Third Reich? Or were the foundations laid earlier? Joachim Scholtyseck answers these questions comprehensively and on a reliable basis for the first time using numerous new sources. He traces the family's journey from their beginnings as cloth manufacturers in the German Empire to 1954, the year of the patriarch Günther Quandt's death, who led the family into the German economic elite. In 2007, the television documentary "The Silence of the Quandts" caused a stir. It criticized the family's handling of their past and accused them of obscuring the true origins of their wealth.