i found this:
IKEA shocker rocks world of right-wing DIY
Flat-pack furore
by Ian Ascough
Popular boffins' rhythm mag New Scientist is set to publish amazing new details of an investigation set to send shock-waves through the right-wing DIY community, The Rockall Times can reveal.
According to a ten-minute study into post-1945 German immigration, the report suggests that rather than flee to South America — as has long been suspected — high-ranking members of the Nazi party chartered Easyjet flights to Stockholm's Vasteras Airport. In Sweden — a country known for its liberal views — the tall, blonde and blue-eyed war criminals re-invented themselves as entrepreneurs and, in 1951, published the very first IKEA catalogue.
Using the alias nom de plume anonym moniker pseudonym epithet rubric Ingvar Kamprad, New Scientist alleges that German National Socialists quite literally set up shop in the impoverished Swedish region of Småland. Disappointed analysts at The Rockall Times report that Ingvar Kamprad, the individual alleged to be responsible for the IKEA concept, is not an anagram of anything more sinister than Darken Amra Kiva Pig — chilling testament to the depths the evil Nazis were willing to plumb to cover their wicked tracks.
IKEA chiefs claim the idea behind the shop was to offer home furnishing products of good function and design at prices much lower than competitors by using simple "cost-cutting final solutions" that did not affect the quality of products. However, the New Scientist exposé blasts the claims and proves Nazis have been able continue their reign of terror and anti-social behaviour by using IKEA as an execrable front. The Rockall Times contacted a world-renowned art expert who told us, on condition of anonymity: "Having studied and compared IKEA furniture instruction booklets with brushstrokes of watercolours completed by the accomplished Nazi artist Führer Adolf Hitler, there can be little doubt that both are the work of the same individual," said the BBC's David Dickinson on condition of anonymity.
IKEA instructions feature grinning, genderless cartoon shapes ostensibly pursuing a series of cryptic numbers around pages littered with Delphian images of what could be bits of wood or moulded plastic. Hitler — who was a popular Austrian humorist before his name became a by-word for despotism — is understood to have enjoyed presenting gifts of self-assembly furniture to his disciples during Germany's unfortunate misunderstanding with Britain during the 1940s. New Scientist claims the crowning zenith of Hitler's favourite lark was that the furniture would be missing a piece essential to its successful, functional completion.
The Rockall Times media department has viewed leaked and never-before-seen moving pictures of Hitler, Goebbels, Goering and Jeremy Beadle watching CCTV footage of unsuspecting Nazi-party sponsors attempting to assemble items of furniture. To the recipient, the gifts were simply examples of their leader's largesse and philanthropy. For Hitler and his wacky comedy cohorts the footage provided hours of pleasure and a genial release from the Niagara of Frenchmen throwing themselves at their feet in defiant submission.
The IKEA trademark represents the leading home furnishings brand in the world with more than 200 stores in more than 30 countries and more than 85,000 co-workers. Despite the New Scientist report, shares in IKEA remained steady in The City and in a move that is bound to shock analysts of totalitarian terror regimes The Financial Times tipped stock in the Swedish-based company to rise. "People have long suspected IKEA as a harbinger of the apocalypse and of being in coalition with Beelzebub himself," noted Luis Cypher of the Bank of England. "This really isn't news".
IKEA's arch rival MFI is reported to be following the situation closely. "We're following the IKEA situation closely," said MFI Chairman and Head of UK Operations Osama Bin Laden.
In North Korea, meanwhile, Dear Leader Kim Jong II was spotted leaving the Toys 'R Us near his Chŏngjin holiday home. The fun-loving satirist, who is rumoured to have been shopping for his good friend Bono, would not comment on the New Scientist accusations.
and this:
Is IKEA the World’s Largest Charity?
mentalfloss.com — You read that correctly; IKEA ’s technically a charity. But before you write down the umlaut-riddled name of your most recent dresser purchase as a charitable donation on your next tax return, it’s worth exploring this ownership structure, which was brought to light by a 2006 article in The Economist.
and then this for the background of the man:
Friday, 28 July, 2000, 16:37 GMT 17:37 UK
Ikea's self-assembled billionaire
By Bob Chaundy of BBC's News Profiles Unit
Ikea, the joke goes, is the Swedish word for temporarily out of stock.
In fact, it is an acronym consisting of the initials of its eccentric founder, the 74-year-old Ingvar Kamprad, with the E being for Elmtaryd, the family farm in Sweden where he was born; and the A for Agunnaryd, the village where he grew up.
IKEA stores grace 29 countries
Kamprad, in a move straight from the pages of the Brothers Grimm, has declared that whichever of his three sons is most successful in running their arms of Habitat - the upmarket furniture chain which Ikea bought in 1992 - will inherit Ikea and the £15bn family fortune.
Lying behind this inheritance challenge is a firm Calvinist work ethic that was instilled in Ingvar Kamprad from the very beginning.
In 1897 his grandfather killed himself with a shotgun when he could not pay the mortgage on his farm and three years after moving his wife and three children from the Sudetenland.
Kamprad's widowed grandmother saved the farm from bankruptcy by sheer willpower and hard work.
It was she who infected the young Ingvar with enthusiasm for Adolf Hitler, whose seizure of her Sudeten homeland she regarded as liberation. Kamprad recently apologised for this youthful aberration.
I don't think any of my sons are capable of running the company, at least not yet
Ingvar Kamprad
By the age of 17 he had formed a small company to enable him to bid for a contract to supply pencils. Within five years he had set up a mail-order firm and was sending goods out with the daily milk round.
Soon afterwards, he snapped up a disused factory and began turning out furniture. His low prices undercut the cosy Swedish cartel of the time which imposed a boycott on Kamprad's company in the late 1950s.
Kamprad responded by turning to Polish producers for inexpensive components that could be assembled at home from flat packs. The modern Ikea was born.
Now, its 140 outlets dispense its pastel paraphernalia throughout 29 countries.
Kamprad eschews formal wear
"IKEA's ethos is in line with the reforming art and industry movements of 20th Century northern Europe by delivering democratic design at affordable prices", says Director of the Design Museum, Paul Thompson.
"The Bauhaus movement, for example, was concerned with combining style with reduced costs", he added.
A strong social and ethical theme runs through Ikea's "bible", Kamprad's "Furniture Dealer's Testament". Maxims abound such as "Waste of resources is a mortal sin at Ikea", "Happiness is not to reach one's goal but to be on the way" and "Only while sleeping one makes no mistakes."
The company structure is less hierarchical than other similar businesses - titles and privileges are taboo at Ikea. Suits and ties are absent.
The imprint comes direct from its founder. Ingvar Kamprad is seldom besuited, and despite his extreme wealth, frequents cheap restaurants, flies economy class and haggles for bargains at the market in the Swiss village near Lausanne where he lives in tax exile.
Pastel furnishing, stylish but accessible
"How the hell can I ask people who work for me to travel cheaply if I am travelling in luxury?", he says. "It's a question of good leadership".
It was with some surprise then, when Kamprad admitted recently his over-fondness for vodka, a vice acquired, he says, from the almost obligatory accompaniments to all his business deals in Poland. Despite regular drying-out periods, the vodka habit has remained for 40 years.
Cynics might attribute many of the assembly instructions to the work of vodka-addled brains but Ikea's sale growth continues in double digits.
So, the prize for the successful brother is huge. But, if the democratic instincts are inherited from his father, he should, in line with the Grimm Brothers fairy tale, share the winnings with his two siblings.
That is if they can decipher the assembly instructions.
See also:
19 Jun 00 | Business
Ikea expands in UK
Internet links:
IKEA Home Page
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have to remember it was compulsory for children to belong to the camp for hitler.
what the founder of ikea had to do was drilled into his head by his grandmother. he later apologized for the involvement.
can't hold it against a company for what happened years ago since the company is now a major contributor to charity.
people that left that area due to the war and came to the usa chose to do so.
now that generation is very old, some of the hatred they carried over is gone with the present generation.
i can remember growing up no german was allowed to be spoken in our home.
no german food allowed either.
we even changed our name legally to sound more american.
but then, i am not really german but luxembourgese.
on the dad's side.
the other side, the mum is the scot side.
Come on, I have 3 boys (well, 4 if you count Royce!), and grew up in Hockeytown! Then spent 12 years there while my kids were young! Impossible not to be - kind of like being in Green Bay and not being a Packers' fan!
