Picked these up the other day for The Yankee. She likes them for her longer bike rides. I think I’ve eaten most of them.

So I looked it up, so boastful is Haribo, of their claim to be the original. Turns out they are. Haribo is German, was founded in 1920. Hans Riegel Sr. died either during, or in, World War II. Haven’t yet found a conclusive answer. His son, Hans Jr., is one of the richest men in Germany.

They came to the United States in the 1980s and were popular almost immediately. Haribo has factories all over Germany, but this particular bag was made in Turkey. And it turns out they are thought of as the original.

The slogan on the bag says “Kids and grown-ups love it so, the happy world of Haribo,” which sounds a bit Wonka-ish. Translations from other countries are worse. In Bulgaria, they run the government via cult of personality apparently, “With Haribo we are happy, Haribo we love.” Things are much better in Hungary “Kids and grown-ups are in a good mood – sweet is life Haribo.” The old Danish slogan — “Open up for something good, open up for Haribo – it’s good.” — has thankfully been re-written as “Haribo… it’s good.”

So beware the gummis, apparently.

The Haribo Wikipedia page is very perfunctory about this. “Haribo is accused of using Jewish forced labor in its factories during World War II but denies it.” There is the briefest mention in a Time piece from 2000:

Haribo, makers of the jelly bear candy sold around the world, was named in the German parliament as having used forced labor, a charge it denies. It says of the fund that “under the cover of alleged solidarity the thesis of collective guilt is being brought up again. There is no doubt about the suffering that existed but that cannot be righted now.”

At the writing of that Time story that sort of stance was more the rule than exception. Since then, 6,500 companies contributed to the Remembrance, Responsibility and Future fund, totaling 5.2 billion euros.

That’s a lot of gummi bears.

Elsewhere, just doing research for my dissertation. Nothing to see here. Move along.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 8th, 2011 at 9:20 am and is filed under history, iPhone, Monday, photo. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.