German car components supplier Schaeffler appears to have been more deeply involved in the political system of the Third Reich than previously assumed, according to research conducted by SPIEGEL TV in Poland.

It was already known that a company acquired by Wilhelm Schaeffler in 1940 in the town of Kietrz in what is now Poland employed forced laborers, but Polish researchers are now also linking the name Schaeffler to the processing of human hair from the Auschwitz death camp.

The deputy head of the Auschwitz Museum's research department, Dr. Jacek Lachendro, told SPIEGEL TV that part (1.95 tons) of the hair still exhibited in Auschwitz today was found in a factory in Kietrz at the end of World War II.