That’s what people are worried about as the NY Jets and Giants consider selling the naming rights to the stadium in which they play, to Allianz, a German company which insured the Auschwitz death camp and had a CEO who served in Hitler’s cabinet. Not surprisingly in our hyper-polarized culture, this possibility brings out the worst in most of those who have an opinion. On the one hand, the watchdog groups like the ADL speak out against the move because, “it would put their name in lights for generations.” On the other hand we have Jewish leaders backing the move because, as one rabbi said, “Allianz is a friend of the Jewish people and we need not live in the past.”
I am honestly not sure which of these responses is worse, but each is definitely guilty of pandering – one to the past and the other to the present. How about a response that speaks to the future?
Perhaps the Allianz name in lights for generations is just what we need. If this company, which dates to the 1890’s, damaged its own reputation by acting badly for a decade, it might be able to rehabilitate itself by public association with some positive for an even longer period of time. But that’s the question here isn’t it?
Do those who oppose this move believe that companies with past Nazi connections should ever be rehabilitated? Or do they simply want to keep hammering away at the grandchildren of those who were guilty simply because they still work in corporations that bear the same name? This is not about punishing those guilty of unspeakable evil, it’s about punishing a brand. So do these same groups oppose Ford Motors, whose founder was a vicious anti-Semite and almost single-handedly responsible for the popularization of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?

On the other hand, I would love to know what qualifies Allianz as a “friend of the Jewish people”. Other than wanting to sound “nice”, what motivates the desire to simply give the company a free pass? That we should “not live in the past”? Is the rabbi who uttered those words for real? Last time I checked, while we should not be imprisoned by out pasts, taking time to live in them has been a part of Jewish tradition since the command to see ourselves as slaves leaving Egypt every Passover.
So rather than praise this deal because it scores a few points in the present, or damn the deal because of the company’s past, perhaps the deal should be framed as a challenge to Allianz. Perhaps along with the tens of millions of dollars which they would pay to place their name on the stadium, they should be asked what else they would do to brand the company as one committed to remembering the Holocaust and to working against genocide anywhere in the world.
This is about branding. And this moment presents a real opportunity to see how a company might re-brand itself after a problematic past. After all, what is more important, that we remember their past misdeeds, or that they create a new identity which works against such deeds ever occurring again?