"When an independent commission set up by Bertelsmann AG to investigate the company's Nazi past issued its report this fall, the results were damning -- but they didn't tell the full story.

For years, the German publisher and global media giant had declared that it staunchly resisted Hitler's regime, even claiming that it had been shut down during the war because of its anti-Nazi stand. The 800-page report laid those claims to rest, documenting extensive collusion by the company, including publishing pamphlets and books that fueled the Nazi propaganda machine.

At the time, company officials hailed the report as the culmination of its effort to come clean. "I would like to express our sincere regret for the inaccuracies the commission has uncovered in our previous corporate history of the World War II era, as well as for the wartime activities that have been brought to light," said Chief Executive Gunter Thielen.

Yet the report doesn't discuss the behind-the-scenes efforts the company made to silence the freelance historian who first unearthed the evidence that led to the investigation. And it made no mention of a revealing document that shows how Reinhard Mohn, who still controls Bertelsmann, helped cover up the company's Nazi links at a crucial time after the war when it was trying to gain a British publishing license. He initialed the cover page of a dossier prepared by his father falsely claiming that the firm had suffered from Nazi persecution. The commission confirmed his role in submitting the documents, but it made no mention of them in the report."

full story in the Wall Street Journal