By: Fern Sidman

In a bold bid to transform Hamburg into one of Europe’s premier cultural capitals, Tobias Kratzer, the newly appointed general director of the Hamburg State Opera, unveiled his inaugural season earlier this year with a pointed declaration: “This is about embracing risk.” As The New York Times reported on Tuesday, Kratzer’s vision for the institution combines audacious stagings of classical works with contemporary commissions that wrestle with major political themes, gender fluidity, and historical reckoning.

But it is not the stagecraft alone that is drawing attention.

Standing beside Kratzer during the spring presentation was Hamburg’s culture minister, Carsten Brosda, who introduced plans for a striking new opera house near the city’s waterfront. The project, budgeted at approximately €340 million ($394 million), marks an extraordinary departure from German tradition: it will be financed not by the public, but by a single private benefactor.

As The New York Times report noted, Brosda praised the benefactor’s generosity without naming him. That donor is Klaus-Michael Kühne, the 88-year-old billionaire whose fortune derives from Kühne + Nagel, one of the world’s largest logistics companies. Yet, as the Times emphasized, Kühne’s philanthropy arrives freighted with controversy, due to unresolved questions about his family firm’s deep entanglement with the Nazi regime.

For many observers, Kühne’s central role in underwriting Hamburg’s operatic renaissance is jarringly out of step with Germany’s broader culture of remembrance. “One could say that art is meant to whitewash Kühne’s company,” said Professor Annette Jael Lehmann of the Free University in Berlin, in comments to The New York Times. She warned that the project risked alienating the very artists Kratzer hopes to attract—those drawn to truth-telling rather than aesthetic spectacle.

The controversy arises from Kühne + Nagel’s wartime involvement in the Nazi program known as “M-Aktion,” a state-orchestrated campaign to loot furniture and belongings from deported or murdered Jews across France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. These goods were transported to Germany—by Kühne + Nagel—and redistributed at discounted rates to German families. As The New York Times report highlighted, this program was not a peripheral aspect of the Nazi economy but “crucial to the war,” helping maintain public morale by materially rewarding loyal citizens with plundered property.

While Kühne + Nagel has acknowledged its role in M-Aktion, the company claims that most of its wartime files were destroyed. The full extent of its involvement came to light only in 2015, after historian Wolfgang Dressen and journalist Henning Bleyl uncovered new evidence in public archives. As The New York Times reported, their findings pointed to the company’s designation as a “National Socialist model company”—an official honorific for businesses that exemplified Nazi ideals.

Further complicating the legacy is the company’s earlier partnership with Adolf Maass, a Jewish businessman who co-owned the firm until 1933. According to Maass’s granddaughter, Barbara Maass, he was likely forced out after Hitler’s rise to power. Kühne + Nagel contends the departure was amicable, but Maass was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944. The firm has yet to commission an independent historical investigation—standard practice among many German companies reckoning with their Third Reich past.

Following Germany’s surrender in 1945, denazification proceedings in both Hamburg and Bremen evaluated the role of Alfred and Werner Kühne, Klaus-Michael’s father and uncle. One committee in Hamburg concluded that they were “profiteers broadly speaking” and that Kühne + Nagel had “cooperated to a large extent” in the transportation of Jewish property. In Bremen, the brothers were initially labeled as “offenders,” the second-most serious level of culpability, which could have stripped them of their business.

Klaus-Michael Kühne, for his part, has remained defiant. In a March interview with Der Spiegel cited by The New York Times, he declared, “This chapter is closed for me, and I won’t open it again.” That stance stands in stark contrast to most of Germany’s corporate elite, which has made significant gestures toward transparency and atonement. Even firms with less direct involvement—such as fashion house Hugo Boss, which designed Nazi uniforms—have publicly confronted their complicity.

However, as The New York Times revealed, the classification was mysteriously downgraded to “collaborators”—a far less damning label—at the behest of British and American intelligence agencies. A letter found in the Bremen State Archives cited “security of the British and American Zones” as the rationale. In the postwar context, when Cold War priorities began to eclipse denazification goals, such leniency was not uncommon. But it left a consequential legacy: the Kühne family retained control of the business, which grew into one of the world’s dominant logistics companies, with revenues of $31 billion last year.

Unlike other major German corporations with Nazi-era ties—such as Bertelsmann, Hugo Boss, and Deutsche Bank—Kühne + Nagel has never commissioned an independent historical review of its activities during the Third Reich. A spokesperson for the company told The New York Times that the destruction of its wartime records by Allied bombing rendered such a review “impossible.” Nevertheless, this explanation has failed to satisfy many critics, who see Kühne’s disinterest in full transparency as emblematic of a deeper unwillingness to engage with Germany’s reckoning with its past.

The Hamburg culture ministry defended its decision to proceed with the opera house project, stating that Kühne + Nagel had “acknowledged its work for the Nazi regime.” But many observers feel that acknowledgment, without accountability, is not enough.

Tobias Kratzer, 45, inherits this controversy as he attempts to redefine what opera can mean in a 21st-century Germany. Known for his provocative productions at the Bayreuth Festival and Paris Opera, Kratzer’s first season in Hamburg includes a bold reimagining of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmila, and a Stockhausen composition for children. He has also invited rapper and media personality Shirin David to collaborate with the State Opera, signaling an intent to broaden the appeal of an art form often confined to elite audiences. As The New York Times reported, Kratzer has expressed a desire to “find new angles” on familiar works and to confront uncomfortable legacies. A planned performance of Madame Butterfly, for instance, will be supplemented by a public panel discussing its colonialist themes. BR, Germany’s public broadcaster, called his vision a “paradigm change” for Hamburg’s operatic landscape. The Hamburger Abendblatt lauded his programming as “beyond brave.”

But when asked by The New York Times about the new opera house’s contested origins, Kratzer struck a diplomatic tone. He noted that the very debate surrounding Kühne’s sponsorship has helped increase public attention on the opera. “I think even just the discussion about the building,” he said, “is going to attract more eyes to the opera.”

It is a pragmatic sentiment, but one that reflects the difficult balancing act facing Hamburg’s cultural stewards. On one side lies the promise of artistic renewal and expanded global recognition. On the other is a complex historical legacy, one that refuses to stay in the wings.

The opera house, scheduled for completion by 2032, will likely open after Kratzer’s current contract ends in 2030. Whether the building becomes a monument to Hamburg’s cultural ambition or a flashpoint for unresolved historical grievances may depend less on architecture than on transparency. As The New York Times has shown, art institutions cannot simply curate the past—they must confront it.

In the case of Kühne + Nagel and its enduring shadow over Hamburg’s opera, the overture has begun. The reckoning may still be waiting in the wings.