Furniture giant Ikea has agreed to pay 6 million euros ($6.5 million) to a government fund compensating victims of forced labor under Germany’s communist dictatorship, a move campaigners hope will push other companies to follow.

In Germany during the Cold War, political and criminal prisoners were forced to build flat-pack furniture for Ikea. The revelations were revealed in Swedish and German media more than a decade ago, prompting the company to commission an independent investigation.

The prisoners produced furniture for Ikea, a global giant in the furniture industry, as recently as the 1970s and 1980s, according to the investigation by auditors Ernst & Young. Ikea representatives likely knew at the time that political prisoners were being used to complete the work, according to the report.

The former East Germany was occupied by the Soviet Union from 1949 to 1990, which installed a rigid communist state known as the German Democratic Republic, or GDR. Tens of thousands of its prisoners were forced to work in factories, making it a key location for cheap labor from which many Western companies would have benefited.

Many political prisoners in the GDR were reportedly incarcerated for the simple “crime” of opposing the one-party communist state. Opposition to the state was suppressed by East Germany’s feared Stasi secret police, who spied on almost every aspect of people’s daily lives.

In a statement released this week, Ikea Germany announced that it would voluntarily contribute 6 million euros to the new government fund created to compensate victims of the East German dictatorship.

After decades of campaigning by victims’ groups, Germany’s ruling coalition government proposed in 2021 to create a relief fund. The German Parliament will vote on its creation in the coming weeks, although this step is considered a mere formality.

The Ikea statement added that the payment was the result of several years of conversations between the company’s German branch and the Union of Associations of Victims of the Communist Dictatorship (UOGK), an organization that describes itself as working to ensure that those wrongly convicted in communist Germany receive justice in today’s constitutional state.

In a statement provided to CNN, Walter Kadner, CEO and director of sustainability at Ikea Germany, said: “We deeply regret that products for Ikea were also produced by political prisoners in the GDR. Since this became known, Ikea has made constant efforts to clarify the situation.

“We gave those affected our word that we would help support them. We therefore welcome the implementation of the relief fund and are happy to be able to keep our promise.”

GDR prisoners work in a steelworks in Rothensee, Germany, in an undated photo. (Andreas Hampel/ullstein bild/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

Ikea’s historic payment is the first of its kind. This decision was welcomed by victim defense organizations.

Dieter Dombrowski, president of the UOGK, called the development “revolutionary.”

“After learning that the company was involved in forced prison labor, Ikea accepted our invitation to talk. Together we walked the path to enlightenment and Ikea met with those involved on an equal footing.

“We hope that other companies will follow Ikea’s example,” Dombrowski added.

According to the UOGK, Ikea is one of several companies that benefited from forced prison labor in communist Germany. Former UOKG president Rainer Wagner warned in 2012 that Ikea was “just the tip of the iceberg” in calling on companies to compensate former prisoners who still bear the psychological scars of incarceration and forced labor.

Evelyn Zupke, special representative for victims of the GDR in the German Parliament, said: “Ikea’s commitment to supporting the relief fund is an expression of a responsible approach to the dark chapters of history of the company.

“We cannot erase what the prisoners had to endure in the GDR prisons, but today we can treat them with respect and support them.”