Hugo Ferdinand Boss (8 July 1885 – 9 August 1948) was a German businessman. He was the founder of the fashion house

Hugo Boss Hugo Boss AG, often styled as BOSS, is a luxury fashion house headquartered in Metzingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The company sells clothing, accessories, footwear, and fragrances. Hugo Boss is one of the largest German clothing companies, ...

AG. He was an active member of the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...

from 1931, and remained so until Nazi Germany's capitulation. His clothing company also utilized forced labour drawn from German-occupied territories and POW camps, to manufacture uniforms for the SS and later the

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the '' Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previo ...

Early life

Boss was born in

Metzingen Metzingen () is a Swabian city with about 22,000 inhabitants, in Reutlingen county, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, south of Stuttgart. Geography The following towns and municipalities are on the borders of Metzingen, they are named starting i ...

Kingdom of Württemberg The Kingdom of Württemberg (german: Königreich Württemberg ) was a German state that existed from 1805 to 1918, located within the area that is now Baden-Württemberg. The kingdom was a continuation of the Duchy of Württemberg, which existe ...

, to Luise (née Münzenmayer) and Heinrich Boss, the youngest of five children. He

apprenticed Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...

as a merchant, did his military service from 1903 to 1905, and then worked in a weaving mill in

Konstanz Konstanz (, , locally: ; also written as Constance in English) is a university city with approximately 83,000 inhabitants located at the western end of Lake Constance in the south of Germany. The city houses the University of Konstanz and was th ...

. He took over his parents' lingerie shop in Metzingen in 1908, as heir. In 1914, he was mobilized into the army and served through

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, ending it as a

corporal Corporal is a military rank in use in some form by many militaries and by some police forces or other uniformed organizations. The word is derived from the medieval Italian phrase ("head of a body"). The rank is usually the lowest ranking non- ...

Hugo Boss company

Boss founded his own clothing company in Metzingen in 1923 and then opened a factory in 1924, initially with two partners. The company produced shirts and jackets and later work clothing, sportswear, and raincoats. In the 1930s, it produced uniforms for the SA, the SS, the

Hitler Youth The Hitler Youth (german: Hitlerjugend , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. ...

, the postal service, the national railroad, and later the

Support of Nazism

Bundesarchiv Bild 146-2008-0276, Hans Heinrich Lammers

Boss joined the Nazi Party in 1931, two years before

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

came to power. By the third quarter of 1932, the all-black SS uniform (to replace the SA brown shirts) was designed by '' SS-Oberführer'' Prof.

Karl Diebitsch Karl Diebitsch (3 January 1899 – 6 August 1985) was an artist and the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) officer responsible for designing much of the SS regalia during the Nazi era, including the chained SS officer's dagger scabbard. Diebitsch worked with ...

, and graphic designer Walter Heck, who had no affiliation with the company. The Hugo Boss company produced these black uniforms along with the brown SA shirts and the black-and-brown uniforms of the

. Some workers were French and Polish prisoners of war forced into labour. Zwangsarbeit in Metzingen (Forced Work in Metzingen)
Ch.7: Die Firma Hugo Boss
/ref> In 1999, US lawyers acting on behalf of

Holocaust survivors Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no universally accep ...

started legal proceedings against the Hugo Boss company over the use of slave labour during the war. The misuse of 140 Polish and 40 French forced workers led to an apology by the company. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, the denazification process saw Boss initially labeled as an "activist, supporter and beneficiary" of

national-socialism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...

, which resulted in a heavy fine, also stripping him of his voting rights and capacity to run a business. However, this initial ruling was appealed, and Boss was re-labeled as a " follower", a category with a less severe punishment. Nevertheless, the effects of the ban led to Boss's son-in-law, Eugen Holy, taking over both the ownership and the running of the company.

Death

Boss died in 1948 of a tooth abscess in

Württemberg-Hohenzollern Württemberg-Hohenzollern (french: Wurtemberg-Hohenzollern ) was a West German state created in 1945 as part of the French post-World War II occupation zone. Its capital was Tübingen. In 1952, it was merged into the newly founded state of Bad ...

Allied-occupied Germany Germany was already de facto occupied by the Allies from the real fall of Nazi Germany in World War II on 8 May 1945 to the establishment of the East Germany on 7 October 1949. The Allies (United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and Franc ...

. He was 63.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Boss, Hugo 1885 births 1948 deaths Förderndes Mitglied der SS German chief executives German company founders 20th-century German businesspeople German fashion businesspeople German fashion designers German Army personnel of World War I Menswear designers Nazi Party members People from Metzingen People from the Kingdom of Württemberg