IKEA to pay €6 million to victims of forced labor from East Germany – CNN.

The multinational furniture corporation IKEA will pay six million euros in compensation to victims of forced labor – political prisoners of East Germany, which was under the control of the Soviet Union. This was reported by CNN with reference to a statement by the general director of IKEA Germany, Walter Kadner.

Prisoners for political reasons or for criminal offenses during the Cold War were forced to make furniture for IKEA. This became known during an investigation conducted by the company's auditors Ernst&Young ten years ago. Its results were published by Swedish and German media.

The investigation revealed that prisoners produced furniture for IKEA in the 1970-1980s, and representatives of IKEA at that Time likely knew that political prisoners were used as additional labor force.

In the then German Democratic Republic (GDR), the labor of tens of thousands of prisoners was used in factories and plants as cheap labor.

IKEA stated that the compensation is the result of years of negotiations between the German branch of the company and the Union of Associations of Victims of Communist Dictatorship (UOKG). The latter claims to work for ensuring justice for those illegally convicted in communist Germany.

Former UOKG head Rainer Wagner stated in 2012 that the situation with IKEA is "just the tip of the iceberg," and urged companies to pay compensation to former prisoners who were forced to work for them.

Recall, in the Netherlands, the architectural firm Mvrdv converted a German military unit from World War II into housing.  The Germans built their section in the forests of Veluwe, near the city of Arnhem. It consisted of two dozen different types of structures. Concrete bunkers were finished with brick facades to disguise them as rural houses.