Tangier as International Zone: A Multicultural Free Port at Africa’s Doorway

Posted on by Sloane Snodgrasse
Cinema, Inter-ethnic relations, Popular Culture, Regional History

Tangier is a coastal city in northern Morocco that looks out across the Strait of Gibraltar to Tarifa, Spain, a distance of just 20 miles, hence its sobriquet, “the Door to Africa”. Strategically located at the cusp of Africa and Europe, Tangier has a long history of interactions with foreign cultures and civilisations – having been occupied at different periods by Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans❈, Vandals, Arabs, Moors and Berbers (Islamic and pre-Islamic), Byzantine Greeks, Spanish, Portuguese and English.

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Tangier in the scramble for Africa
By the beginning of the 20th century, during the “Scramble for Africa”, the territory of Morocco (which Tangier falls within) was divided up between Spain and France (and held as “protectorates”). The clandestine deal between the two prompted objections from Germany demanding a “slice of the (African) cake”. A provocative response by impetuous and volatile emperor Wilhelm II in Tangier precipitated an international crisis in 1905. Tensions were dampened down by the ensuing Act of Algeciras: Germany was appeased with a portion of the French Congo, but at the same time Britain and France consolidated their alliance.

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Tangier’s special status
Under an agreement (the Tangier Convention) signed by France, Spain and the UK in 1923, Tangier became an International Zone (TIZ), effective from 1924. The tripartite administration of TIZ was later extended to include the US, Belgium, Portugal, Netherland, Sweden and Italy. Forms of everyday official life in the enclave reflected its new internationalised nature, although limited to a very select band of foreign countries. As CG Fenwick described it at the time, TIZ was ”a condominium of select states, a limited board of trustees acknowledging no political responsibility to the nations of the world at large“ (Fenwick, C. G. “The International Status of Tangier.” The American Journal of International Law, vol. 23, no. 1, 1929, pp. 140–143. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2190247. Accessed 14 Apr. 2020).

The judiciary adopted a mixed court comprising two English judges and one each from France and Spain, and the type of law adhered to, analogous to French law (Brown, R. Weir “International Procedure under the Tangier Convention.” Journal of Comparative Legislation and International Law, vol. 7, no. 1, 1925, pp. 86–90. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/753030. Accessed 14 Apr. 2020).
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🔺 Tangier, 1924
(Photo: www.pinterest.com)

TIZ was neutral and demilitarised, retaining for zonal security a small force comprising 250 native Moroccan gendarmes under the command of a Spanish major assisted by other subordinate officers from the vested-interest countries. If needed, there was a provision to call on the sultan of Morocco to bolster security strength (Delore, Gabriel. “The Violation by Spain of the Statute of Tangier and Its Consequences as They Affect the United States.” The American Journal of International Law, vol. 35, no. 1, 1941, pp. 140–145. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2192608. Accessed 14 Apr. 2020).

The various international diplomatic corps in Morocco were consolidated in the city of Tangier (apparently the sultan preferred that they be accommodated there rather than Fez, Morocco’s principal city),  together with other municipal services, further reflecting the special character of TIZ (Brown).

Political authority in TIZ
The Zone’s political structure (from 1928) had as its basic unit of governance a Legislative Assembly (membership: 4 from France, 3 each from Spain, GB and Italy, 1 each from the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal and the US). Real power however lay with the Committee of Control – with consuls representing Belgium, France, GB, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. The Committee had the power to veto the Legislative Council and to dissolve it. At a grass-roots level there was an administrator in charge. Under the TIZ Statute the authority of the sultan, acting through a mandūb (proxy), was recognised (though the sultan’s sovereignty over TIZ was nominal) (Graham H Stuart, (1945). The Future of Tangier. Foreign Affairs, 23(4), 675-679, www.foreignaffairs.com)◘.

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Tangier International Zone
Area: 373 km. Pop Est.(ca 1936) approx 50,000 (Muslims 30,000, Jews 12,000, Europeans 8,000-something).
Currency: £ pounds sterling

Casablanca or Tangier?
By this time Tangier had acquired a reputation for cosmopolitanism and diversity,  being a destination for international businessmen, black marketeers, smugglers, diplomats, military men, refugees, writers and spies. It is widely thought that the classic war espionage film Casablanca (1942) was “inspired by the international ambience of Tangier” (Rachid Tafersiti, L’image de la Ville entire Cinema et Urbanisme, quoted in “The bar at Cinema Vox in Tangier”, Cinema Vox, www.cinemavox.ma)◍. More transparently, Tangier was the subject (or the mood-creating backdrop) for a spate of American mystery/thriller B-movies in the Forties and Fifties with titles like Tangier (reviewed by Variety, 1946: as “spy melodrama with plenty of hokum”) and The Woman from Tangier.

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Franco’s takeover 
In 1940, with France totally blindsided by the immediate, existential threat to Paris from the German Wehrmacht, General Franco, using the pretext that  he was protecting Tangier from a possible Italian invasion launched a surprise invasion of Tangier (‘Spanish protectorate in Morocco’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org). With Spain in military occupancy of the city, its soldiers tried to turn TIZ into a garrison town, imposing themselves, stopping citizens, checking their IDs, etc. The invasion and aftermath brought protests from UK and US and the Francoist state had to give assurances that the city would not be fortified and that the international institutions would be restored  (‘U.S. Protests Step of Spain in Tangier’, New York Times, 16-Nov-1940, www.nytimes.com). At the end of the war the Allies forced the Spanish to withdraw…the TIZ continued until 1956 when the independent Kingdom of Morocco was created with Tangier subsumed within the new Maghreb nation.

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PostScript: About a decade after its international status was terminated, Tangier became a sought-out destination for a whole new category of outsiders, the ”beat generation”, Western writers and artists like William S Burroughs. Within a few years other counterculture devotees were flocking to Tangier as it became part of the Moroccan hippie trail (although soon upstaged  by Marrakech as the preferred ‘Mecca’ for Western non-conformists in Morocco).

⇿———-———⇿⇿———-———⇿⇿———-———⇿

❈ Tangier first acquired the status of a free city in 38 BC under imperial Rome
◍ gambling was not permitted in Moroccan cities, whereas the activity flourished in nightclubs in the International Zone, so the fact that it is featured in Casablanca gives further credence to the idea that Tangier was the template for the movie (Cinema Vox)
◘ the Statute was criticised for several shortcomings – including a lack of democracy, Tangierinos were disenfranchised; and TIZ’s economic interests were neglected (Stuart)

Choosing the Pen over the Sword: Redemption of a Would-be Antipodean Assassin

Posted on by E Curb Nottus
Political History, Politics, Regional History

The act of assassination❈—be it for political, religious or financial motives—has been around for … I was going to say the entirety of human history, but we can be more precise now, thanks to scientific discoveries in the 1990s. We can now say with some confidence … since the Chalcolithic period (the Copper Age).

The Tyrolean Iceman
Scientists in 1991 located the ice-preserved remains of a man (ascribed the name ‘Ötzi) in the Austrian-Italian Alps, believed to be the earliest victim of assassination… killed by an arrow ca 5,300 years ago [‘Preservation of 5300 year old red blood cells in the Iceman’, Journal of Royal Society Interface, (Marek Janko, Robert W Stark & Albert Zink), 02-May-2012, www.royalsocietypublishing.org].

⇧ Hasan-i-Sabbah

The ‘original’ Assassins
The deed was perpetrated for thousands of years before the term by which we known it, ‘assassination’, was coined. It derives from the 11th/12th centuries in the Middle East. The ‘Assassins’ were from a branch of the Nizari Ismail sect of Shi’a Islam. From a mountain fortress base in Persia (there were Assassins also active in Syria), under the cult’s leader Hasan-i-Sabbah, they targeted particular Seljuk Turkish rulers for assassination. When they turned their retribution to rulers of the Mongul Empire later, the group was hunted down and wiped out by the invading Monguls. The etymology of ‘assassins’ derives probably from the Egyptian Arabic, hashasheen, meaning “noisy people” or “trouble-makers”. An alternate but it seems erroneous explanation, propagated by the oriental explorer Marco Polo, among others, is that the term derived from hashiti, because of the (unfounded) belief that the Assassins committed their murders while under the influence of hashish [‘Hashshashin: The Assassins of Persia’, (Kallie Szczepanski), ThoughtCo, 19-Sep-2019, www.thoughtco.com].

⇧ Lee Harvey Oswald (the person-in-the-street’s image of the modern “lone wolf” assassin)

A continent mercifully spared the assassin’s vengeance
Assassination is one of the oldest tools of power politics, there are instances of it depicted in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and world history is littered with assassinations of the famous—Philip of Macedon, Julius Caesar, Caligula, Thomas a’Becket, Abraham Lincoln, JFK, Mahatma Gandhi, Archduke Ferdinand, Leon Trotsky—as well as more obscure figures of power and influence [‘Assassination’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]. Interestingly, Australia is one the few parts of the world with a modern political structure that has largely escaped the universal spectre of political assassination. In the 120 years of Australia’s Federation there has been only two instances involving serving politicians, one successful and one not successful❒.

⇧ John Newman

“Australia’s first political assassination”
NSW Labor backbencher John Newman was pursuing an anti-crime, anti-drug campaign in his electorate in southwest Sydney, centring round the (then) criminal hotspot of Cabramatta. Newman earned the enmity of the local crime syndicate headed by a Vietnamese migrant club owner and was assassinated in his front driveway in 1994 [‘John Newman murder: Downfall of a merciless crime lord saved soul of Cabramatta’, (Mark Morri & Lachlan Thompson), Fairfield Advance, 03-Sep-2014].

⇧ AA Calwell (Source: National Library of Australia)

Nearly 30 years earlier Australia’s leader of the opposition Arthur Calwell very nearly anticipated the Newman assassination. In 1966 Calwell was attending a rowdy rally at Mosman Town Hall debating conscription during the Vietnam War. As the Labor leader was leaving the event, a 19-year-old itinerant factory hand approached the car and fired a sawn-off .22 rifle from point-blank at Calwell✪. Fortunately for the opposition leader, the would-be assassin only succeeded in shattering the window glass which lacerated the politician’s chin. The assailant, Peter Raymond Kocan, whose background was characterised as that of a “casebook disturbed loner”, when questioned why he shot Calwell, responded that “he wanted to be remembered by history for killing somebody important” and that “he didn’t like (Calwell’s) politics” [‘Arthur Calwell and Peter Kocan’, Shane Maloney and Chris Grosz’, The Monthly, Aug 2007, www.themonthly.com.au].

⇧ Peter R Kocan

At his trial, the press reporting took the “15 minutes of fame” line – portraying Kocan as a “coldly deranged Lee Harvey Oswald type…(determined) to kill to be famous, to rise above the nobodies of the world” [‘Pivotal chapter in Peter Kocan’s life’, The Age, 03-July-2004, www.theage.com.au]. But Kocan’s homicidal intent was not a political act or a rationally calculated one, rather it was the “distorted reasoning of a mind alienated, socially isolated and hyper-sensitively suggestible” [‘Portrait of a Loner’, Weekend Australian, (Murray Waldron), 03-July-2004].

Finding a calling in purgatory
Arthur Calwell made a full recovery from his superficial wounds but “died politically” soon after. His loss in the national elections later that year (the stodgy, charisma-free Calwell’s third unsuccessful tilt at winning the prime ministership) ended his leadership ambitions⌧. Kocan, described by his defence psychiatrist as a “borderline schizophrenic”, was declared criminally insane, receiving a life sentence and ended up spending a decade in a psychiatric prison at Morisset Hospital. Out of such bleak adversity Kocan found unexpected light and hope. A chance encounter with the poetry of Rupert Brooke at Morisset launched the failed assassin on a post-incarceration career path in which he transformed himself into an award-winning, published poet and novelist [Graham Freudenberg, ‘Calwell, Arthur Augustus (1896–1973)’,  Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 13, (MUP), 1993].

≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍≍
❈ “the act of deliberately killing someone especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons”, Black’s Law Dictionary
❒ Thomas Ley, a minister of justice in a state National Party government of the 1920s may have been Australia’s first political assassin…a trail of murders, including of two of Ley’s political opponents, point an incriminating finger back to him (‘Thomas Ley’, Glebe Society, www.glebesociety.org.au)
✪ portentously, Calwell told the town hall meeting “you can’t defeat an ideal with a bullet”
⌧ although Calwell stubbornly hung on to the Labor leadership until replaced by his younger, dynamically visionary deputy Gough Whitlam in February 1967

Weihaiwei Under the Union Jack: An Odd Little British Enclave in China

Posted on by E Curb Nottus
Military history, Regional History

Weihai City is a commercial port and major fishing centre jutting out on the north-easternmost tip of Kiaochow Peninsula in Shandong province. Geographically it is the southern point guarding the entrance to the Gulf of Zhili (Bohai) and the maritime route to Tianjin, the gateway to Beijing. Up until 1895 Weihai or Weihaiwei as it was formerly known was the China’s base for it’s Beiyang Fleet (Northern Seas Fleet). That year the port city was taken by the Japanese in the Jiawu War (First Sino-Japanese War).

⇓ Liugong Is. Chinese naval memorial

Britain’s motives for securing a port at Weihaiwei
Britain in the late 19th century was one of several European powers jockeying for territorial possessions in China. Weihaiwei was important to the diplomats in Whitehall, not so much because it had a deep-sea port (the British already had Hong Kong, to which they added the New Territories in 1898), but as a strategic buffer to other great powers in China. Early in 1898 the Chinese government leased Qingtao (Tsingtao) in southern Shandong province to Germany and the Liaoning Peninsula to Russia (which included the geopolitically important Lüshunkou, renamed by the Russians “Port Arthur”). Acquiring Weihaiwei in 1898 gave Britain a strategic foothold on the mainland to counterbalance the presence of the Germans and the Russians✲. Britain’s lease, it said, would last until the Russians pulled out of Port Arthur. However when Russia withdrew from Port Arthur in 1905, Britain stayed in Weihaiwei, mainly because another rival, Japan, took its place.

⇓1st Chinese Regiment, Weihaiwei

(Picture: www.history-chron.com)

The British War Office took charge of administering Weihaiwei (the capital of which was called Port Edward) locating it’s naval base just off the port at Liugong Island (Liu-Kung-Tao). A garrison of 200 British men (who saw service in the 1900 Boxer Rebellion in Peking) and a local Chinese regiment was stationed at Pt Edward [‘Wei-Hai-Wei Police’, (Harry Fecitt), Gentleman’s Military International Club, 11-Nov-2008, www.gmic.co.uk].The Navy’s plans for a base in the mould of Hong Kong turned topsy-turvy when Port Edward was found to be unsuitable either as a major navy base or as a trading port. Administration of the territory was passed from the War Office to the Colonial Office which appointed a civilian commissioner to take charge [‘Weihaiwei under British Rule’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]. The Navy retained a presence at Port Edward using it mainly as it’s China Station for summer anchorage∎.

A peculiar British enclave
As British overseas entities go, Weihaiwei was quite atypical. First, it was a leased territory, a legal occupancy, but not a colony like Hong Kong. Britain had no sovereignty over Weihaiwei or it’s Chinese population. Unlike Hong Kong Chinese residents, the Chinese in Pt Edward could not achieve UK citizenship. From 1898 to 1930 Weihaiwei remained a Chinese territory with the British exercising “exclusive jurisdiction over a Chinese population”. Another difference from the colonial model: Hong Kong’s top office-holder was the governor, whereas Port Edward’s administration was headed up by “a lowly commissioner”⌖ [Reviews of British Rule in China: law and justice in Weihaiwei, 1898-1930, by Carol G S Tan, (2008), (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, Peter Wesley-Smith, Vol. 49, 2009; Li Chen, Law and History Review, Vol. 28, 2010)].

A quiet, unassuming ‘backwaters’
With British ambitions for Pt Edward scaled down considerably, the navy and the civil administration—both largely doing their own thing—settled down for a long and uneventful tenure in Shandong province. Weihaiwei’s mild summer climate (compared to the hotter climes in Peking and Hong Kong) free of malaria, allowed the Navy to use the locale for the pursuit of rest and recreation for UK personnel serving in China⌂ (Weihaiwei under British Rule’, Wiki). The British civil servants posted to Weihaiwei also enjoyed these relaxed conditions. Commissioner Lockhart, who spent nearly 19 years running the post, spent the bulk of his leisure time horse-riding and playing golf (Lethbridge).

⇓ Comm. Lockhart with some local headmen (1909) (Picture: National Galleries Scotland)

Relations with the local population
Lockhart’s tenure as civil commissioner from 1902 defined the pattern for the leasehold’s duration. A standardised tax-collecting system utilising the headmen of Weihai villages was established. The commissioner made sure that the enclave’s expenditure never exceeded that of revenue while implementing a modest program of reforms to education and infrastructure. Lockhart was able to administer Weihaiwei largely unencumbered…being free to govern unilaterally as there was no legislative council in the territory acting as a check on his actions. Lockhart, as a dedicated Sinologist, established a rapport with the middle-class Chinese merchants. He adopted an approach to the local community that was prudent and pragmatic, generally leaving them to run their own political and economic affairs at the village level. The Chinese headmen being conservative in nature in turn didn’t cause any undue problems for the commissioner (Wesley-Smith; Lethbridge).

Retrocession of Weihaiwei
In 1930 the lease expired on Weihaiwei, Britain handed back the territory to China and removed its garrison. By agreement Britain was allowed to retain certain buildings and facilities on Liugong Island for use by the British Navy for a further 10 years. Britain retained some personnel on the island using it only during winter…meanwhile the golf course activities continued. The day after the extended lease was up in 1940, a band of Japanese soldiers occupied Weihaiwei. Britain protested this action, contending that it had optioned a further extension on Liugong Island, but with larger issues to deal with didn’t press the matter. The remaining British personnel including the surgeon-commander were evacuated [‘Weihaiwei Withdrawal: Rights Reserved by Britain’, The Straits Times, 08-Dec-1940, www.eresources.nib.gov.sg]

Note: the last UK administrator of Weihaiwei, Reginald Fleming Johnston, had been a tutor and adviser to China’s last emperor, Pu-Yi.

⟠ ⟠ ⟠

Weihaiwei British Leasehold, 1898-1930. Capital: Port Edward.
288 square miles (including Liugong Island, 3.16 square miles)
Population (1901) >120,000 European portion <200 (Li Chen)


✲ the British pressured China into the lease of Weihaiwei, doing so after the Japanese withdrew their forces, but apparently after overcoming some reservations within Westminster (Wei Peh T’i, Review of British Mandarins and Chinese Reformers, by Pamela Atwell, (1985), Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, Vol. 27, 1987)
∎ although it did function also as a free port until 1923
⌖ although one biographer of Commissioner Lockhart equated it with the rank of lieutenant-governor (Lethbridge, Henry James. “SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART: COLONIAL CIVIL SERVANT AND SCHOLAR.” Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 12, 1972, pp. 55–88. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23881565. Accessed 4 Apr. 2020)
⌂ today under the PRC Weihai is a health and convalescence town

Hugo Boss, Gentlemen’s Outfitters to the German Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei

Posted on by Sloane Snodgrasse
Commerce & Business, International Relations, Military history, Racial politics, Regional History, Retailing history

Hugo Boss … luxury watches, fragrances, men’s suits and fashion wear and accessories, Nazi uniforms. Wait! Run that last one past me again? Yes, it’s true. Hugo Boss AG＊, that doyen of international fashion houses with annual revenue exceeding €2.7 billion (2018) and over 1,100 stores worldwide, provided the German Nazi Party, with their uniforms during (and prior to) the Third Reich. Although you wouldn’t know so from a perusal of the Hugo Boss website which keeps a firm lid on the company’s unsavoury past❂.

The clothing company was started in Metzingen (southern Germany) in 1924 by the eponymous Hugo (Ferdinand) Boss…it commenced supplying the NSDAP (National-Socialist Workers Party) with their brown military uniforms, according to the company’s own claim, in 1924 (the year in which Hugo Boss was founded)∅. Initially Boss designed and provided the standard Nazi brown-shirted outfits including Stürmabteilung (SA) uniforms,  Nazi workwear, and Hitler Youth uniforms. In the Depression Boss’s company was like many, many businesses severely hit and Boss was forced into bankruptcy in 1931. That year was momentous for another reason, HF Boss joined the Nazi Party, an event that was to turn his fortunes round dramatically. At the same time the failed businessman also joined the SS (Schutzstaffel) as a “sponsoring member”.

By appointment to the Führer
Membership of the party meant more contracts for Hugo Boss as a favoured supplier of Hitler. Under the Nazi dictatorship Boss’ sales grew from 38,260 RM in 1932 to 3,300,000 RM in 1941 (Timm). Boss’ motives for joining have been attributed to “economic opportunism” and its clear that he saw the business advantages of tying his colours to the Nazi flagship, but there’s equal little doubt that his commitment to the Nazi cause was heartfelt (a photo of him with the Führer was said to to be one of the tailor’s most prized possessions)❊ [‘Hugo Boss’ Secret Nazi History’, (Fashion and War), M2M, (video, YouTube)].

🔻A Boss ad placed in the SS newspaper

Nazi fashionistas
From 1937 on, the relationship acquired an exclusivity, Hugo Boss made clothing only for the Nazis, including the black uniforms worn by the elite Nazi force, the SS (Boss didn’t design the uniforms worn by Himmler’s SS Corps, two party members unconnected to the company designed them). Boss continued to heavily advertise his fashions in the SS newspaper, Das Schwarze Korps, and fashionably chic the uniforms were! One of the pillars of the Nazis’ ideology was the pseudo-scientific belief in Aryan superiority, this involved showing the world what the “new man” looks like. There was no finer exemplar of this than the Wehrmacht military man, and this is where Boss provided the finishing touches. The firm’s stylish, sharply cut uniforms conveyed the desired outer appearance, the SS corporate identity that Hitler and the Nazis wanted to project to the world (Fashion and War).

HB as slave-labour drivers
From 1940 Boss used slave labour at it’s Metzingen textile factory, predominantly comprising women and later supplemented by the infusion of Polish and French POWs. The company  (sans it’s founder), after decades of dodging accusations, finally came clean about it’s shameful Nazi collaboration, after being pressured into issuing a mea culpa in 1997 for the gross mistreatment of the workers. Later the corporation commissioned a book on it’s dark past association❏ [‘“Hitler’s Tailor” Hugo Boss apologises for using slave labour to make Nazi uniforms’, (Lauren Paxman), Daily Mail, 24-Sep-2011, www.dailymail.co.uk].

(Source: www.militaryuniforms.net/Pinterest)

A discounted form of justice
After the war Boss was tried along with other German collaborators by a regional Denazification tribunal. The man known as “Hitler’s Tailor” claimed in his defence that he only joined the Nazi Party to save his firm. The court found Boss to have been a “beneficiary of the system” and fined him 100,000 RM, made him sever all connexions with his own firm and stripped him of the right to vote, join a political party or professional organisation. However, on appeal, the fine was reduced by 75%, the other restrictions were lightened and his culpability was downgraded to ‘follower’ of the regime. Before the findings could be ratified by the French Military Government and the punishments imposed, Boss died in 1948 (Timm).

(Photo: Hutton-Deutsh Collection/Corbis/Getty Images)

Endnote: Supping with the 卐 devil
Hugo Boss AG was far from the only company to profitably cohabitate with Hitler and the NSDAP. The list of big corporations doing mutually advantageous business was extensive, both within Germany and outside  – including Volkswagen, Bayer, Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Kodak, Ford, General Motors, IBM, Siemens, Chase National Bank and Associated Press [‘Companies with Ties to Nazi Germany’, (Debra Kelly), Grunge, (Upd.17-Dec-2019), www.grunge.com].

┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷

＊ Aktiengesellschaft (German limited company)

❂ either that or trying to conceal or gloss over the inconvenient truth of the corporation’s history, eg, “in the 1930s it produced uniforms for various(sic) parties around the time of the world war”, www.bangandstrike.com

∅ the firm’s advertising in the 1930s stated that it was a “supplier of National Socialist uniforms since 1924”, however research suggest that this overstates by four years the length of Boss’ association with Hitler and the Nazis [Elisabeth Timm, ‘Hugo Ferdinand Boss (1885-1948) und die Firma Hugo Boss: Eine Dokumentation’, (Metzingen Zwangsarbeit – Forced Labour), MA Thesis, 1999]

❊ it was a ‘reunion’ of the two humble German corporals from World War I

❏ author Roman Koester wrote: “it’s clear that (Boss) did not just join the party out of economic calculation…he was a convinced Nazi” (Hugo Boss, 1924-1945. A Clothing Factory During the Weimar Republic and Third Reich)