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IG Farben

I. G. Farbenindustrie AG (in full 'Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG', German for 'Dye industry syndicate stock corporation'), commonly known as IG Farben (German for 'IG Dyestuffs'), was a German chemical and pharmaceutical conglomerate. Formed in 1925 from a merger of six chemical companies—BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, Agfa, Chemische Fabrik Griesheim-Elektron [de], and Chemische Fabrik vorm. Weiler Ter Meer[1]—it was seized by the Allies after World War II and divided back into its constituent companies.[a]

I. G. Farbenindustrie AG
IG Farben Building, Frankfurt, completed in 1931 and seized by the Allies in 1945 as the headquarters of the Supreme Allied Command. In 2001 it became part of the University of Frankfurt.
TypeAktiengesellschaft
IndustryChemicals
PredecessorsBASF, Bayer, Hoechst, Agfa, Griesheim-Elektron, Weiler Ter Meer[1]
Founded2 December 1925
Defunct1952 (liquidation started)
31 October 2012 (liquidation accomplished)
FateLiquidated
SuccessorsAgfa, BASF, Bayer, Hoechst (now Sanofi)
HeadquartersFrankfurt am Main
Key people
Carl Bosch, Carl Duisberg, Hermann Schmitz, Edmund ter Meer, Arthur von Weinberg
Number of employees
330,000 in 1943, including slave labour[2]

IG Farben was once the largest company in Europe and the largest chemical and pharmaceutical company in the world.[4] IG Farben scientists made fundamental contributions to all areas of chemistry and the pharmaceutical industry. Otto Bayer discovered the polyaddition for the synthesis of polyurethane in 1937,[5] and three company scientists became Nobel laureates: Carl Bosch and Friedrich Bergius in 1931 "for their contributions to the invention and development of chemical high pressure methods",[6] and Gerhard Domagk in 1939 "for the discovery of the antibacterial effects of prontosil".[7]

The company had ties in the 1920s, to the liberal German People's Party and was accused by the Nazis of being an "international capitalist Jewish company".[8] A decade later, it was a Nazi Party donor and, after the Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933, a major government contractor, providing significant material for the German war effort. Throughout that decade it purged itself of its Jewish employees; the remainder left in 1938.[9] Described as "the most notorious German industrial concern during the Third Reich"[10] in the 1940s the company relied on slave labour from concentration camps, including 30,000 from Auschwitz,[11] and was involved in medical experiments on inmates at both Auschwitz and the Mauthausen concentration camp.[12][13] One of its subsidiaries supplied the poison gas, Zyklon B, that killed over one million people in gas chambers during the Holocaust.[b][15]

The Allies seized the company at the end of the war in 1945[a] and the US authorities put its directors on trial. Held from 1947 to 1948 as one of the subsequent Nuremberg trials, the IG Farben trial saw 23 IG Farben directors tried for war crimes and 13 convicted.[16] By 1951, however, all of them were released from prison early after the U.S. military instituted good time credits in its war crime program.[17][18] What remained of IG Farben in the West was split in 1951 into its six constituent companies, then again into three: BASF, Bayer and Hoechst.[a] These companies continued to operate as an informal cartel and played a major role in the West German Wirtschaftswunder. Following several later mergers the main successor companies are Agfa, BASF, Bayer and Sanofi. In 2004, the University of Frankfurt, housed in the former IG Farben head office, set up a permanent exhibition on campus, the Norbert Wollheim memorial, for the slave labourers and those killed by Zyklon B.[19]

Early history Edit

Background Edit

At the beginning of the 20th century, the German chemical industry dominated the world market for synthetic dyes. Three major firms BASF, Bayer and Hoechst, produced several hundred different dyes. Five smaller firms, Agfa, Cassella, Chemische Fabrik Kalle, Chemische Fabrik Griesheim-Elektron and Chemische Fabrik vorm. Weiler-ter Meer, concentrated on high-quality specialty dyes. In 1913, these eight firms produced almost 90 percent of the world supply of dyestuffs and sold about 80 percent of their production abroad.[20] The three major firms had also integrated upstream into the production of essential raw materials, and they began to expand into other areas of chemistry such as pharmaceuticals, photographic film, agricultural chemicals and electrochemicals. Contrary to other industries, the founders and their families had little influence on the top-level decision-making of the leading German chemical firms, which was in the hands of professional salaried managers.[21] Because of this unique situation, the economic historian Alfred Chandler called the German dye companies "the world's first truly managerial industrial enterprises".[22]

 
Carl Duisberg, chairman of Bayer, argued in 1904 for a merger of Germany's dye and pharmaceutical companies.[23]

With the world market for synthetic dyes and other chemical products dominated by the German industry, German firms competed vigorously for market shares. Although cartels were attempted, they lasted at most for a few years. Others argued for the formation of a profit pool or Interessen-Gemeinschaft (abbr. IG, lit. "community of interest").[24] In contrast, the chairman of Bayer, Carl Duisberg, argued for a merger. During a trip to the United States in the spring of 1903, he had visited several of the large American trusts such as Standard Oil, U.S. Steel, International Paper and Alcoa.[25] In 1904, after returning to Germany, he proposed a nationwide merger of the producers of dye and pharmaceuticals in a memorandum to Gustav von Brüning, the senior manager at Hoechst.[26][page needed]

Hoechst and several pharmaceutical firms refused to join. Instead, Hoechst and Cassella made an alliance based on mutual equity stakes in 1904. This prompted Duisberg and Heinrich von Brunck, chairman of BASF, to accelerate their negotiations. In October 1904 an Interessen-Gemeinschaft between Bayer, BASF and Agfa was formed, also known as the Dreibund or little IG. Profits of the three firms were pooled, with BASF and Bayer getting 43 percent each and Agfa 14 percent of all profits.[27] The two alliances were loosely connected with each other through an agreement between BASF and Hoechst to jointly exploit the patent on the Heumann-Pfleger indigo synthesis.[28]

Within the Dreibund, Bayer and BASF concentrated on dye, while Agfa increasingly concentrated on photographic film. Although there was some cooperation between the technical staff in production and accounting, there was little cooperation between the firms in other areas. Neither were production or distribution facilities consolidated nor did the commercial staff cooperate. In 1908 Hoechst and Cassella acquired 88 percent of the shares of Chemische Fabrik Kalle. As Hoechst, Cassella and Kalle were connected by mutual equity shares and were located close to each other in the Frankfurt area, this allowed them to cooperate more successfully than the Dreibund, although they also did not rationalize or consolidate their production facilities.[29]

Foundation Edit

 
Completed in 1930, the IG Farben Building in Frankfurt was seized by the Americans after the war. In 1996 it was transferred to the German government and in 2001 to the University of Frankfurt.
 
Share of the I. G. Farbenindustrie AG, issued in December 1925

IG Farben was founded in December 1925 as a merger of six companies: BASF (27.4 percent of equity capital); Bayer (27.4 percent); Hoechst, including Cassella and Chemische Fabrik Kalle (27.4 percent); Agfa (9 percent); Chemische Fabrik Griesheim-Elektron (6.9 percent); and Chemische Fabrik vorm. Weiler Ter Meer (1.9 percent).[1] The supervisory board members became widely known as, and were said to call themselves jokingly, the "Council of Gods" (Rat der Götter).[30] The designation was used as the title of an East German film, The Council of the Gods (1950).

 
Painting from Hermann Groeber, The IG Farben supervisory board, commonly known as the "Council of Gods", in 1926.[c]

In 1926, IG Farben had a market capitalization of 1.4 billion ℛ︁ℳ︁ (equivalent to 6 billion 2021 euros) and a workforce of 100,000, of which 2.6 percent were university educated, 18.2 percent were salaried professionals and 79.2 percent were workers.[1] BASF was the nominal survivor; all shares were exchanged for BASF shares. Similar mergers took place in other countries. In the United Kingdom Brunner Mond, Nobel Industries, United Alkali Company and British Dyestuffs merged to form Imperial Chemical Industries in September 1926. In France Établissements Poulenc Frères and Société Chimique des Usines du Rhône merged to form Rhône-Poulenc in 1928.[31] The IG Farben Building, headquarters for the conglomerate in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, was completed in 1931. In 1938, the company had 218,090 employees.[32]

IG Farben was controversial on both the far left and far right, partly for the same reasons, related to the size and international nature of the conglomerate and the Jewish background of several of its key leaders and major shareholders[citation needed]. Far-right newspapers of the 1920s and early 1930s, accused it of being an "international capitalist Jewish company". The liberal and business-friendly German People's Party was its most pronounced supporter. Not a single member of the management of IG Farben before 1933 supported the Nazi Party; four members, or a third, of the IG Farben supervisory board were themselves Jewish.[8] The company ended up being the "largest single contribution" to the successful Nazi election campaign of 1933;[33] there is also evidence of "secret contributions" to the party in 1931 and 1932.[34]

Throughout the 1930s, the company underwent a process of Aryanization, and by 1938 Jewish employees had been dismissed and the Jews on the board had resigned. The remaining few left in 1938 after Hermann Göring issued a decree, as part of the Nazis' Four Year Plan (announced in 1936), that the German government would make foreign exchange available to German firms to fund construction or purchases overseas only if certain conditions were met, which included making sure the company employed no Jews.[9]

Products Edit

 
IG Farben facilities in Germany, 1932

IG Farben's products included synthetic dyes, nitrile rubber, polyurethane, prontosil, and chloroquine. The nerve agent Sarin was first discovered by IG Farben.[35] The company is perhaps best known for its role in producing the poison gas Zyklon B. One product crucial to the operations of the Wehrmacht was synthetic fuel, made from lignite using the coal liquefaction process.

IG Farben scientists made fundamental contributions to all areas of chemistry. Otto Bayer discovered the polyaddition for the synthesis of polyurethane in 1937.[5] Several IG Farben scientists were awarded a Nobel Prize. Carl Bosch and Friedrich Bergius were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1931 "in recognition of their contributions to the invention and development of chemical high pressure methods".[6] Gerhard Domagk was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1939 "for the discovery of the antibacterial effects of prontosil".[7]

World War II and the Holocaust Edit

Growth and slave labour Edit

 
IG Farben facilities in Germany, 1943
 
Map of the Auschwitz concentration camp complex in German-occupied Poland, showing Auschwitz I, II and III, and the IG Farben plant
 
Aerial photograph of Auschwitz, June 1944, showing the IG Farben plant

IG Farben has been described as "the most notorious German industrial concern during the Third Reich".[10] When World War II began, it was the fourth largest corporation in the world and the largest in Europe.[36] In February 1941, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler signed an order[37] supporting the construction of an IG Farben Buna-N (synthetic rubber) plant—known as Monowitz Buna Werke (or Buna)—near the Monowitz concentration camp, part of the Auschwitz concentration camp complex in German-occupied Poland. (Monowitz came to be known as Auschwitz III; Auschwitz I was the administrative centre and Auschwitz II-Birkenau the extermination camp.) The IG Farben plant's workforce consisted of slave labour from Auschwitz, leased to the company by the SS for a low daily rate.[38] One of IG Farben's subsidiaries supplied the poison gas, Zyklon B, that killed over one million people in gas chambers.[39]

Company executives said after the war that they had not known what was happening inside the camps. According to the historian Peter Hayes, "the killings were an open secret within Farben, and people worked at not reflecting upon what they knew."[40]

In 1978, Joseph Borkin, who investigated the company as a United States Justice Department lawyer, quoted an American report: "Without I.G.'s immense productive facilities, its far-reaching research, varied technical expertise and overall concentration of economic power, Germany would not have been in a position to start its aggressive war in September 1939."[41] The company placed its resources, technical capabilities and overseas contacts at the German government's disposal. The minutes of a meeting of the Commercial Committee on 10 September 1937 noted:

It is generally agreed that under no circumstances should anybody be assigned to our agencies abroad who is not a member of the German Labor Front and whose positive attitude towards the new era has not been established beyond any doubt. Gentlemen who are sent abroad should be made to realize that it is their special duty to represent National Socialist Germany. ... The Sales Combines are also requested to see to it that their agents are adequately supplied with National Socialist literature.[42]

This message was repeated by Wilhelm Rudolf Mann, who chaired a meeting of the Bayer division board of directors on 16 February 1938, and who in an earlier meeting had referred to the "miracle of the birth of the German nation": "The chairman points out our incontestable being in line with the National Socialist attitude in the association of the entire 'Bayer' pharmaceutica and insecticides; beyond that, he requests the heads of the offices abroad to regard it as their self-evident duty to collaborate in a fine and understanding manner with the functionaries of the Party, with the DAF (German Workers' Front), et cetera. Orders to that effect again are to be given to the leading German gentlemen so that there may be no misunderstanding in their execution."[43]

By 1943, IG Farben was manufacturing products worth three billion marks in 334 facilities in occupied Europe; almost half its workforce of 330,000 men and women consisted of slave labour or conscripts, including 30,000 Auschwitz prisoners. Altogether its annual net profit was around 500 million ℛ︁ℳ︁ (equivalent to 2 billion 2021 euros).[2] In 1945, according to Raymond G. Stokes, it manufactured all the synthetic rubber and methanol in Germany, 90 percent of its plastic and "organic intermediates", 84 percent of its explosives, 75 percent of its nitrogen and solvents, around 50 percent of its pharmaceuticals, and around 33 percent of its synthetic fuel.[44]

Medical experiments Edit

Staff of the Bayer group at IG Farben conducted medical experiments on concentration-camp inmates at Auschwitz and at the Mauthausen concentration camp.[12][45] At Auschwitz they were led by Bayer employee Helmuth Vetter, an Auschwitz camp physician and SS captain, and Auschwitz physicians Friedrich Entress and Eduard Wirths. Most of the experiments were conducted in Birkenau in Block 20, the women's camp hospital. The patients were suffering from, and in many cases had been deliberately infected with, typhoid, tuberculosis, diphtheria and other diseases, then were given preparations named Rutenol, Periston, B-1012, B-1034, B-1036, 3582 and P-111. According to prisoner-physicians who witnessed the experiments, after being given the drugs the women would experience circulation problems, bloody vomiting, and painful diarrhea "containing fragments of mucus membrane". Of the 50 typhoid sufferers given 3852, 15 died; 40 of the 75 tuberculosis patients given Rutenol died.[46]

For one experiment, which tested an anaesthetic, Bayer had 150 women sent from Auschwitz to its own facility. They paid RM 150 per woman, all of whom died as a result of the research; the camp had asked for RM 200 per person, but Bayer had said that was too high.[47] A Bayer employee wrote to Rudolf Höss, the Auschwitz commandant: "The transport of 150 women arrived in good condition. However, we were unable to obtain conclusive results because they died during the experiments. We would kindly request that you send us another group of women to the same number and at the same price."[48]

Zyklon B Edit

Between 1942 and 1945, a cyanide-based pesticide, Zyklon B, was used to kill over one million people, mostly Jews, in gas chambers in Europe, including in the Auschwitz II and Majdanek extermination camps in German-occupied Poland.[49] The poison gas was supplied by an IG Farben subsidiary, Degesch (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung MbH, or German Company for Pest Control).[39] Degesch originally supplied the gas to Auschwitz to fumigate clothing that was infested with lice, which carried typhus. Fumigation took place within a closed room, but it was a slow process, so Degesch recommended building small gas chambers, which heated the gas to over 30 °C and killed the lice within one hour. The idea was that the inmates would be shaved and showered while their clothes were being fumigated.[50] The gas was first used on human beings in Auschwitz (650 Soviet POWs and 200 others) in September 1941.[51]

Peter Hayes compiled the following table showing the increase in Zyklon B ordered by Auschwitz (figures with an asterisk are incomplete). One ton of Zyklon B was enough to kill around 312,500 people.[52]

Production and sales of Zyklon B, 1938–1945
1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944
Sales (thousands of marks) 257 337 448 366 506 544
Percentage of total Degesch earnings 30 38 57 48 39 52
Production (short tons) 160 180 242 194 321 411 231
Volume ordered by Auschwitz (short tons) 8.2 13.4 2.2*
Percentage of production ordered by Auschwitz 2.5 3.3 1.0*
Volume ordered by Mauthausen
(not an extermination camp)
0.9 1.5
 
Zyklon B container in the Auschwitz museum
 
Heinrich Himmler (second left) visits the IG Farben Auschwitz plant, July 1942
 
IG Farben Auschwitz factory

Several IG Farben executives said after the war that they did not know about the gassings, despite the increase in sales of Zyklon B to Auschwitz. IG Farben owned 42.5 percent of Degesch shares, and three members of Degesch's 11-person executive board, Wilhelm Rudolf Mann, Heinrich Hörlein and Carl Wurster, were directors of IG Farben.[53] Mann, who had been an SA-Sturmführer,[54] was the chair of Degesch's board. Peter Hayes writes that the board did not meet after 1940, and that although Mann "continued to review the monthly sales figures for Degesch, he could not necessarily have inferred from them the uses to which the Auschwitz camp was putting the product".[14] IG Farben executives did visit Auschwitz but not Auschwitz II-Birkenau, where the gas chambers were located.[55]

Other IG Farben staff appear to have known. Ernst Struss, secretary of the IG Farben's managing board, testified after the war that the company's chief engineer at Auschwitz had told him about the gassings.[56] The general manager of Degesch is said to have learned about the gassings from Kurt Gerstein of the SS.[55] According to the post-war testimony of Rudolf Höss, the Auschwitz commandant, he was asked by Walter Dürrfeld [de], technical manager of the IG Farben Auschwitz plant, whether it was true that Jews were being cremated at Auschwitz. Höss replied that he could not discuss it and thereafter assumed that Dürrfeld knew.[57] Dürrfeld, a friend of Höss, denied knowing about it.[58]

Hayes writes that the inmates of Auschwitz III, which supplied the slave labour for IG Farben, were well aware of the gas chambers, in part because of the stench from the Auschwitz II crematoria, and in part because IG Farben supervisors in the camp spoke about the gassings, including using the threat of them to make the inmates work harder.[59] Charles Coward, a British POW who had been held at Auschwitz III, told the IG Farben trial:

The population at Auschwitz was fully aware that people were being gassed and burned. On one occasion they complained about the stench of the burning bodies. Of course all of the Farben people knew what was going on. Nobody could live in Auschwitz and work in the plant, or even come down to the plant, without knowing what was common knowledge to everybody.[60]

Mann, Hörlein and Wurster (directors of both IG Farben and Degesch) were acquitted at the IG Farben trial in 1948 of having supplied Zyklon B for the purpose of mass extermination. The judges ruled that the prosecution had not shown that the defendants or executive board "had any persuasive influence on the management policies of Degesch or any significant knowledge as to the uses to which its production was being put".[53] In 1949, Mann became head of pharmaceutical sales at Bayer.[54] Hörlein became chair of Bayer's supervisory board.[61] Wurster became chair of the IG Farben board, helped to reestablish BASF as a separate company, and became an honorary professor at the University of Heidelberg.[62] Dürrfeld was sentenced to eight years, but had his sentence commuted to time served in 1951 by John McCloy, the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany, under massive political pressure, after which he joined the management or supervisory boards of several chemical companies.[58]

Seizure by the Allies Edit

 
Occupation zones of Germany, 1945 (American, British, French and Soviet)

The company destroyed most of its records as it became clear that Germany was losing the war. In September 1944, Fritz ter Meer, a member of IG Farben's supervisory board and future chair of Bayer's board of directors, and Ernst Struss, secretary of the company's managing board, are said to have made plans to destroy company files in Frankfurt in the event of an American invasion.[63] As the Red Army approached Auschwitz in January 1945 to liberate it, IG Farben reportedly destroyed the company's records inside the camp,[64] and in the spring of 1945, the company burned and shredded 15 tons of paperwork in Frankfurt.[63]

The Americans seized the company's property under "General Order No. 2 pursuant to Military Government Law No. 52", 2 July 1945, which allowed the US to disperse "ownership and control of such of the plants and equipment seized under this order as have not been transferred or destroyed". The French followed suit in the areas they controlled.[65] On 30 November 1945, Allied Control Council Law No. 9, "Seizure of Property owned by I.G. Farbenindustrie and the Control Thereof", formalized the seizure for "knowingly and prominently ... building up and maintaining German war potential".[66][2] The division of property followed the division of Germany into four zones: American, British, French and Soviet.[65]

In the Western occupation zone, the idea of destroying the company was abandoned as the policy of denazification evolved,[10] in part because of a need for industry to support reconstruction, and in part because of the company's entanglement with American companies, notably the successors of Standard Oil. In 1951, the company was split into its original constituent companies. The four largest quickly bought the smaller ones.[citation needed] In January 1955, the Allied High Commission issued the I.G. Liquidation Conclusion Law,[67] naming IG Farben's legal successor as IG Farbenindustrie AG in Abwicklung (IGiA)[68] ("I.G. Farbenindustrie AG in Liquidation).[67]

IG Farben trial Edit

In 1947, the American government put IG Farben's directors on trial. The United States of America vs. Carl Krauch, et al. (1947–1948), also known as the IG Farben trial, was the sixth of 12 trials for war crimes the U.S. authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany (Nuremberg) against leading industrialists of Nazi Germany. There were five counts against the IG Farben directors:

 
The defendants in the dock on the first day of the IG Farben trial, 27 August 1947
  • "the planning, preparation, initiation, and waging of wars of aggression and invasions of other countries;
  • "committing war crimes and crimes against humanity through the plunder and spoliation of public and private property in countries and territories that came under German occupation;
  • "committing war crimes and crimes against humanity through participating in the enslavement and deportation for slave labor of civilians from German-occupied territories and of German nationals;
  • "participation by defendants Christian Schneider, Heinrich Buetefisch, and Erich von der Heyde in the SS, a recently-declared criminal organization; and
  • "participation in a common plan or conspiracy to commit crimes against peace".[69][16]

Of the 24 defendants arraigned, one fell ill and his case was discontinued. The indictment was filed on 3 May 1947; the trial lasted from 27 August 1947 until 30 July 1948. The judges were Curtis Grover Shake (presiding), James Morris, Paul M. Hebert, and Clarence F. Merrell as an alternate judge. Telford Taylor was the chief counsel for the prosecution. Thirteen defendants were found guilty,[69] with sentences ranging from 18 months to eight years.[70] All were cleared of the first count of waging war.[69] The heaviest sentences went to those involved with Auschwitz,[70] which was IG Farben's Upper Rhine group.[71] Ambros, Bütefisch, Dürrfeld, Krauch and ter Meer were convicted of "participating in ... enslavement and deportation for slave labor".[72]

All defendants who were sentenced to prison received early release. Most were quickly restored to their directorships and other positions in post-war companies, and some were awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.[73] Those who served prison sentences included:

Director IG Farben position Sentence
(years)
Post-sentence Sources
Carl Krauch Chair of the supervisory board, member of Göring's Office of the Four-Year Plan Six[72] Joined supervisory board of the Bunawerke Hüls GmbH
Hermann Schmitz CEO, Reichstag member Four[72] Board member, Deutsche Bank in Berlin; Honorary chair, Rheinische Stahlwerke AG board [74][16]
Fritz ter Meer Supervisory board member Seven[72] Chair, Bayer AG board; board member of several firms [75][16]
Otto Ambros Supervisory board member, manager of IG Farben Auschwitz Eight[72] Board member of Chemie Grünenthal (active during the thalidomide scandal), Feldmühle, and Telefunken; economic consultant in Mannheim [76][16]
Heinrich Bütefisch Supervisory board member, head of fuel sector at IG Farben Auschwitz Six[72] Board member for Deutsche Gasolin AG, Feldmühle, and Papier- und Zellstoffwerke AG; consultant and board member for Ruhrchemie AG Oberhausen [77][16]
Walter Dürrfeld [de] Technical manager of IG Farben Auschwitz Eight[72] [58]
Georg von Schnitzler Chair, Chemical Committee Five[72] President, Deutsch-Ibero-Amerikanische Gesellschaft [78][16]
Max Ilgner Supervisory board member Three[72] Chair of the board of a chemistry firm in Zug [79][16]
Heinrich Oster Alternate board member; BASF board member Two[72] Gelsenberg AG board member [80][16]

Those acquitted included:

Director IG Farben position Outcome Post-sentence Source
Carl Wurster Board member, head of IG Farben's Upper Rhine Business Group Acquitted IG Farben board chair and led the reestablishment of BASF. After retiring joined or chaired supervisory boards in Bosch, Degussa and Allianz. [62]
Fritz Gajewski Board member, manager of Agfa division Acquitted Chair of the board of Dynamit Nobel [81]
Christian Schneider Acquitted Joined supervisory boards of Süddeutsche Kalkstickstoff-Werke AG Trostberg and Rheinauer Holzhydrolyse-GmbH, Mannheim. [82]
Hans Kühne Acquitted Took a position at Bayer, Elberfeld [83]
Carl Lautenschläger Acquitted Research associate at Bayer, Elberfeld [84]
Wilhelm Rudolf Mann Head of pharmaceutical sales for the Bayer division of IG Farben, member of the Sturmabteilung Acquitted Resumed his position at Bayer. Also presided over the GfK (Society for Consumer Research) and the Foreign Trade Committee of the BDI, Federation of German Industry. [85]
Heinrich Gattineau Acquitted Joined the board and supervisory council of WASAG Chemie-AG and Mitteldeutsche Sprengstoff-Werke GmbH. [86]

Liquidation Edit

Agfa, BASF and Bayer remained in business; Hoechst spun off its chemical business in 1999 as Celanese AG before merging with Rhône-Poulenc to form Aventis, which later merged with Sanofi-Synthélabo to form Sanofi. Two years earlier, another part of Hoechst was sold in 1997 to the chemical spin-off of Sandoz, the Muttenz (Switzerland) based Clariant. The successor companies remain some of the world's largest chemical and pharmaceutical companies.[citation needed]

Although IG Farben was officially put into liquidation in 1952, this did not end the company's legal existence. The purpose of a corporation's continuing existence, being "in liquidation", is to ensure an orderly wind-down of its affairs. As almost all its assets and all its activities had been transferred to the original constituent companies, IG Farben was from 1952, largely a shell company with no real activity.[87]

 
IG Farben building in 2007

In 2001, IG Farben announced that it would formally wind up its affairs in 2003. It had been continually criticized over the years for failing to pay compensation to the former labourers; its stated reason for its continued existence after 1952 was to administer its claims and pay its debts. The company, in turn, blamed ongoing legal disputes with the former captive labourers for its inability to be legally dissolved and have the remaining assets distributed as reparations.[88]

On 10 November 2003, its liquidators filed for insolvency,[89] but this did not affect the existence of the company as a legal entity. While it did not join a national compensation fund set up in 2001 to pay the victims, it contributed 500,000 DM (£160,000 stg or €255,646) towards a foundation for former captive labourers under the Nazi regime. The remaining property, worth DM 21 million (£6.7 million or €10.7 million), went to a buyer.[90] Each year, the company's annual meeting in Frankfurt was the site of demonstrations by hundreds of protesters.[88] Its stock (denominated in Reichsmarks) traded on German markets until early 2012. As of 2012, it still existed as a corporation in liquidation.[91]

IG Farben in media Edit

Film and television

  • IG Farben is the company said to be supporting German terror activities and research of uranium ores in Brazil after World War II in Alfred Hitchcock's film noir Notorious (1946).
  • The Council of the Gods (1951), produced by (DEFA director Kurt Maetzig), is an East German film about IG Farben's role in World War II and the subsequent trial.
  • IG Farben is the name of the arms dealer played by Dennis Hopper in the 1987 independent film Straight to Hell directed by Alex Cox.[92]
  • In one of the deleted scenes from Repo Man, repo man Bud uses a phony business card with IG Farben as a company name to distract a man while his daughter's car is repossessed.
  • In Foyle's War series eight, episode 1 ("High Castle"), Foyle tours Monowitz as part of his investigation of the murder of a London University professor, who as a translator for the Nuremberg Trials becomes involved with an American industrialist who owns a petroleum company, and a German war criminal named Linz, who also turns up dead, in his cell. Linz's firm, IG Farben, had hired from the SS forced laborers incarcerated at Monowitz.

Literature

Games

See also Edit

References Edit

Notes Edit

  1. ^ a b c Peter Hayes (2001): "[O]ne of the first acts of the American occupation authorities in 1945 was to seize the enterprise as punishment for 'knowingly and prominently ... building up and maintaining German war potential'. Two years later, twenty-three of the firm's principal officers went on trial ... By the time John McCloy, the American high commissioner [for Germany], pardoned the last of them in 1951, IG Farben scarcely existed. Its holdings in the German Democratic Republic had been nationalized; those in the Federal Republic had been divided into six, later chiefly three, separate corporations: BASF, Bayer, and Hoechst."[3]

    Also see "Law No. 9" (PDF). Allied Control Council. (PDF) from the original on 22 September 2018.

  2. ^ Peter Hayes (2001): "[I]t was Zyklon B, a granular vaporizing pesticide, that asphyxiated the Jews of Auschwitz, and a subsidiary of IG, the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Schädlingsbekämpfung MbH (German Vermin-Combating Corporation), or Degesch, that controlled the manufacture and distribution of the Zyklon. IG's 42.5 percent of the stock in Degesch translated into three seats on its Administrative Committee, occupied by members of Farben's own Vorstand [board of directors], Heinrich Hoerlein, Carl Wurster, and Wilhelm R. Mann, who acted as chairman. But this body ceased to meet after 1940. Though Mann continued to review the monthly sales figures for Degesch, he could not necessarily have inferred from them the uses to which the Auschwitz camp was putting the product ..."[14]
  3. ^ Standing, left to right: Arthur von Weinberg, Carl Müller, Edmund ter Meer, Adolf Haeuser, Franz Oppenheim. Seated: Theodor Plieninger, Ernst von Simson, Carl Bosch, Walther vom Rath, Wilhelm Kalle, Carl von Weinberg and Carl Duisberg

Citations Edit

  1. ^ a b c d Tammen 1978, p. 195
  2. ^ a b c Hayes 2001, pp. xxi–xxii.
  3. ^ Hayes 2001, p. xxii.
  4. ^ Hager 2006, p. 74.
  5. ^ a b Nicholson 2006, p. 61.
  6. ^ a b "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1931". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 27 October 2008.; "Carl Bosch". Nobel Foundation.
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  41. ^ Borkin 1978, p. 1; for more on Borkin, Pearson, Richard (6 July 1979). "Joseph Borkin, Antitrust Lawyer, Author Dies". The Washington Post.
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Works cited Edit

  • Abelshauser, Werner; von Hippel, Wolfgang; Johnson, Jeffrey Allan; Stokes, Raymond G. (2003). German Industry and Global Enterprise. BASF: The History of a Company. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Aftalion, Fred; Benfey, Otto Theodor (1991). A History of the International Chemical Industry. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-8207-8.
  • Bartrop, Paul R. (2017). "Zyklon B". In Bartrop, Paul R.; Dickerman, Michael (eds.). The Holocaust: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection. Volume 1. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. pp. 742–743.
  • Bäumler, Ernst (1988). Die Rotfabriker: Familiengeschichte eines Weltunternehmens (Hoechst) (in German). Munich and Zürich: Piper. ISBN 978-3-492-10669-6.
  • Beer, John Joseph (1981). The Emergence of the German Dye Industry. Manchester, NH: Ayer Company Publishers. ISBN 978-0-405-13835-5.
  • Borkin, Joseph (1978). The Crime and Punishment of IG Farben. New York, London: The Free Press, division of Macmillan Publishing Co. ISBN 978-0-02-904630-2.
  • Chandler, Alfred DuPont (2004). Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-78995-1.
  • Dickerman, Michael (2017). "Monowitz". In Bartrop, Paul R.; Dickerman, Michael (eds.). The Holocaust: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection. Volume 1. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. pp. 439–440.
  • Duisberg, Carl (1923) [1904]. "Denkschrift über die Vereinigung der deutschen Farbenfabriken". Abhandlungen, Vorträge und Reden aus den Jahren 1882–1921. Berlin. pp. 343–369.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • van Pelt, Robert Jan; Dwork, Deborah (1996). Auschwitz, 1270 to the Present. New York and London: W.W. Norton and Company. ISBN 9780393039337.
  • Evans, Richard J. (2008). The Third Reich at War. London: Penguin.
  • Fiedler, Martin (1999). "Die 100 größten Unternehmen in Deutschland – nach der Zahl ihrer Beschäftigten – 1907, 1938, 1973 und 1995". Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte (in German). 44 (1): 32–66. doi:10.1515/zug-1999-0104. S2CID 165110552.
  • Hager, Thomas (2006). The Demon under the Microscope. New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 978-1-4000-8214-8.
  • Hayes, Peter (2001) [1987]. Industry and Ideology: IG Farben in the Nazi Era. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Hayes, Peter (Fall 2003). "Auschwitz, Capital of the Holocaust". Holocaust and Genocide Studies. 17 (2): 330–350. doi:10.1093/hgs/dcg005.
  • Hilberg, Raul (2003) [1961]. The Destruction of the European Jews. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
  • Hilberg, Raul (1998) [1994]. "Auschwitz and the Final Solution". In Berenbaum, Michael; Gutman, Yisrael (eds.). Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 81–92. ISBN 9780253208842.
  • Jacobs, Steven Leonard (2017). "I G Farben". In Bartrop, Paul R.; Dickerman, Michael (eds.). The Holocaust: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection. Volume 1. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. pp. 312–314.
  • Jeffreys, Diarmuid (2008). Hell's Cartel: IG Farben and the Making of Hitlers War Machine. New York: Metropolitan Books-Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 978-0-8050-9143-4.
  • Lifton, Robert Jay; Hackett, Amy (1998). "Nazi Doctors". In Berenbaum, Michael; Gutman, Yisrael (eds.). Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 301–316. ISBN 9780253208842.
  • Schmaltz, Florian (2018). "Auschwitz III—Monowitz Main Camp [aka Buna]". In Megargee, Geoffrey P. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945, Volume 1. Bloomington: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Indiana University Press. pp. 215–220.
  • Neumann, Boaz (2012). "National Socialism, Holocaust, and Ecology". In Stone, Dan (ed.). The Holocaust and Historical Methodology. New York: Berghahn Books.
  • Nicholson, John W. (2006). The Chemistry of Polymers. London: Royal Society of Chemistry. ISBN 978-0-85404-684-3.
  • "Records of the United States Nuernberg War Crimes Trials, United States of America v Carl Krauch et al. (Case VI)" (PDF). National Archives. (PDF) from the original on 20 July 2017.
  • Rees, Laurence (2006) [2005]. Auschwitz: A New History. New York: PublicAffairs.
  • Sasuly, Richard (1947). IG Farben. New York: Boni & Gaer.
  • Schwartz, Thomas Alan (2001) [1994]. "John J. McCloy and the Landsberg Cases". In Diefendorf, Jeffrey M.; Frohn, Axel; Rupieper, Hermann-Josef (eds.). American Policy and the Reconstruction of Germany, 1945–1955. Cambridge and New York: German Historical Institute and Cambridge University Press. pp. 433–454.
  • Spicka, Mark E. (2018). "The Devil's Chemists on Trial: The American Prosecution of I.G. Farben at Nuremberg". In Michalczyk, John J. (ed.). Nazi Law: From Nuremberg to Nuremberg. London and New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-350-00724-6.
  • Stokes, Raymond (1994). Opting for Oil: The Political Economy of Technological Change in the West German Chemical Industry, 1945–1961. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Strzelecka, Irena (2000). "Experiments". In Długoborski, Wacław; Piper, Franciszek (eds.). Auschwitz, 1940–1945. Central Issues in the History of the Camp. Volume 2: The Prisoners, their Life and Work. Oświęcim: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
  • Tammen, Helmuth (1978). Die I.G. Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft (1925–1933): Ein Chemiekonzern in der Weimarer Republik (in German). Berlin: H. Tammen. ISBN 978-3-88344-001-9.
  • "Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10, October 1946 – April 1949" (PDF). VIII: "The I. G. Farben Case". Washington, D.C.: Nuernberg Military Tribunals, United States Government Printing Office. 1952. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  • The United Nations War Crimes Commission (1949). (PDF). London: His Majesty's Stationery Office. pp. 1–67. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 December 2008.

Further reading Edit

Books and articles

  • Bernstein, Bernard (1946). "Elimination of German Resources for War". Washington, D.C.: United States Department of War, United States Government Printing Office.
  • Borkin, Joseph (1943). Germany's Master Plan: The Story of the Industrial Offensive. New York: Duell, Sloan And Pearce.
  • Borkin, Joseph (1990). Die unheilige Allianz der IG Farben. Eine Interessengemeinschaft im Dritten Reich (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag. ISBN 978-3-593-34251-1.
  • Bower, Tom (1995) [1981]. Blind Eye to Murder: Britain, America and the Purging of Nazi Germany—A Pledge Betrayed (2nd revised ed.). London: Little, Brown.
  • Cornwell, John (2004). Hitler's Scientists: Science, War, and the Devil's Pact. London: Penguin Books.
  • Dubois Jr., Josiah E. (1952). (PDF). Boston, MA: Beacon Press. ASIN B000ENNDV6. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 April 2011.
  • Du Bois, Josiah Ellis; Johnson, Edward (1953). Generals in Grey Suits: The Directors of the International 'I. G. Farben' Cartel, Their Conspiracy and Trial at Nuremberg. London: Bodley Head.
  • Higham, Charles (1983). Trading With the Enemy. New York: Delacorte Press. ISBN 978-0-440-09064-9.
  • Karlsch, Rainer; Stokes, Raymond G (2003). Faktor Öl: die Mineralölwirtschaft in Deutschland 1859–1974 (in German). Munich: C.H. Beck. ISBN 978-3-406-50276-7.
  • Kreikamp, Hans-Dieter (1977). "Die Entflechtung der I.G. Farbenindustrie A.G. und die Gründung der Nachfolgegesellschaften" (PDF). Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (in German). Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag. 25 (2): 220–251. Retrieved 27 October 2008.
  • Lesch, John E., ed. (2000). The German Chemical Industry in the Twentieth Century. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.
  • Moonman, Eric (21 November 1990). "Shares spoil (letter)". The Guardian. p. 18.
  • López-Muñoz, F.; García-García, P.; Alamo, C. (2009). "The pharmaceutical industry and the German National Socialist Regime: I.G. Farben and pharmacological research". Journal of Clinical Pharmacy and Therapeutics. 34 (1): 67–77. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2710.2008.00972.x. PMID 19125905. S2CID 6922723.
  • Maguire, Peter (2010). Law and War: International Law and American History. New York: Columbia University Press.
  • Plumpe, Gottfried (1990). Die I.G. Farbenindustrie AG: Wirtschaft, Technik und Politik 1904–1945 (in German) (Schriften zur Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte ed.). Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. ISBN 978-3-428-06892-0.
  • Sandkühler, Thomas; Schmuhl, Hans-Walter (1993). "Noch einmal: Die I. G. Farben und Auschwitz". Geschichte und Gesellschaft (in German). 19 (2): 259–267. JSTOR 40185695.
  • Stokes, Raymond (1988). Divide and Prosper: The Heirs of I.G. Farben under Allied Authority, 1945–1951. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Tenfelde, Klaus (2007). Stimmt die Chemie? : Mitbestimmung und Sozialpolitik in der Geschichte des Bayer-Konzerns. Essen: Klartext. ISBN 978-3-89861-888-5
  • Tully, John (2011). The Devil's Milk: A Social History of Rubber. New York: Monthly Review Press.
  • Wagner, Bernd C.; Frei, Norbert; Steinbacher, Sybille; Grotum, Thomas; Parcer, Jan, eds. (2000). Darstellungen und Quellen zur Geschichte von Auschwitz, 4 volumes. Munich: K.G. Saur.
  • White, Joseph Robert (1 October 2001). ""Even in Auschwitz... Humanity Could Prevail": British POWs and Jewish Concentration-Camp Inmates at IG Auschwitz, 1943–1945". Holocaust and Genocide Studies. 15 (2): 266–295. doi:10.1093/hgs/15.2.266.

External links Edit

  • Documents and clippings about IG Farben in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
  • Official website of the IG Farben successor BASF
  • Official website of the IG Farben successor Bayer
  • Official website of the IG Farben successor Hoechst (now Sanofi-Aventis)
  • Stock Market Prices of IG Farben
  • "Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10, October 1946 – April 1949" (PDF). VIII: "The I. G. Farben Case". Washington, D.C.: Nuernberg Military Tribunals, United States Government Printing Office. 1952. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

farben, farbenindustrie, full, interessengemeinschaft, farbenindustrie, german, industry, syndicate, stock, corporation, commonly, known, german, dyestuffs, german, chemical, pharmaceutical, conglomerate, formed, 1925, from, merger, chemical, companies, basf, . I G Farbenindustrie AG in full Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG German for Dye industry syndicate stock corporation commonly known as IG Farben German for IG Dyestuffs was a German chemical and pharmaceutical conglomerate Formed in 1925 from a merger of six chemical companies BASF Bayer Hoechst Agfa Chemische Fabrik Griesheim Elektron de and Chemische Fabrik vorm Weiler Ter Meer 1 it was seized by the Allies after World War II and divided back into its constituent companies a I G Farbenindustrie AGIG Farben Building Frankfurt completed in 1931 and seized by the Allies in 1945 as the headquarters of the Supreme Allied Command In 2001 it became part of the University of Frankfurt TypeAktiengesellschaftIndustryChemicalsPredecessorsBASF Bayer Hoechst Agfa Griesheim Elektron Weiler Ter Meer 1 Founded2 December 1925Defunct1952 liquidation started 31 October 2012 liquidation accomplished FateLiquidatedSuccessorsAgfa BASF Bayer Hoechst now Sanofi HeadquartersFrankfurt am MainKey peopleCarl Bosch Carl Duisberg Hermann Schmitz Edmund ter Meer Arthur von WeinbergNumber of employees330 000 in 1943 including slave labour 2 IG Farben was once the largest company in Europe and the largest chemical and pharmaceutical company in the world 4 IG Farben scientists made fundamental contributions to all areas of chemistry and the pharmaceutical industry Otto Bayer discovered the polyaddition for the synthesis of polyurethane in 1937 5 and three company scientists became Nobel laureates Carl Bosch and Friedrich Bergius in 1931 for their contributions to the invention and development of chemical high pressure methods 6 and Gerhard Domagk in 1939 for the discovery of the antibacterial effects of prontosil 7 The company had ties in the 1920s to the liberal German People s Party and was accused by the Nazis of being an international capitalist Jewish company 8 A decade later it was a Nazi Party donor and after the Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933 a major government contractor providing significant material for the German war effort Throughout that decade it purged itself of its Jewish employees the remainder left in 1938 9 Described as the most notorious German industrial concern during the Third Reich 10 in the 1940s the company relied on slave labour from concentration camps including 30 000 from Auschwitz 11 and was involved in medical experiments on inmates at both Auschwitz and the Mauthausen concentration camp 12 13 One of its subsidiaries supplied the poison gas Zyklon B that killed over one million people in gas chambers during the Holocaust b 15 The Allies seized the company at the end of the war in 1945 a and the US authorities put its directors on trial Held from 1947 to 1948 as one of the subsequent Nuremberg trials the IG Farben trial saw 23 IG Farben directors tried for war crimes and 13 convicted 16 By 1951 however all of them were released from prison early after the U S military instituted good time credits in its war crime program 17 18 What remained of IG Farben in the West was split in 1951 into its six constituent companies then again into three BASF Bayer and Hoechst a These companies continued to operate as an informal cartel and played a major role in the West German Wirtschaftswunder Following several later mergers the main successor companies are Agfa BASF Bayer and Sanofi In 2004 the University of Frankfurt housed in the former IG Farben head office set up a permanent exhibition on campus the Norbert Wollheim memorial for the slave labourers and those killed by Zyklon B 19 Contents 1 Early history 1 1 Background 1 2 Foundation 1 3 Products 2 World War II and the Holocaust 2 1 Growth and slave labour 2 2 Medical experiments 2 3 Zyklon B 2 4 Seizure by the Allies 2 5 IG Farben trial 3 Liquidation 4 IG Farben in media 5 See also 6 References 6 1 Notes 6 2 Citations 6 3 Works cited 7 Further reading 8 External linksEarly history EditBackground Edit At the beginning of the 20th century the German chemical industry dominated the world market for synthetic dyes Three major firms BASF Bayer and Hoechst produced several hundred different dyes Five smaller firms Agfa Cassella Chemische Fabrik Kalle Chemische Fabrik Griesheim Elektron and Chemische Fabrik vorm Weiler ter Meer concentrated on high quality specialty dyes In 1913 these eight firms produced almost 90 percent of the world supply of dyestuffs and sold about 80 percent of their production abroad 20 The three major firms had also integrated upstream into the production of essential raw materials and they began to expand into other areas of chemistry such as pharmaceuticals photographic film agricultural chemicals and electrochemicals Contrary to other industries the founders and their families had little influence on the top level decision making of the leading German chemical firms which was in the hands of professional salaried managers 21 Because of this unique situation the economic historian Alfred Chandler called the German dye companies the world s first truly managerial industrial enterprises 22 Carl Duisberg chairman of Bayer argued in 1904 for a merger of Germany s dye and pharmaceutical companies 23 With the world market for synthetic dyes and other chemical products dominated by the German industry German firms competed vigorously for market shares Although cartels were attempted they lasted at most for a few years Others argued for the formation of a profit pool or Interessen Gemeinschaft abbr IG lit community of interest 24 In contrast the chairman of Bayer Carl Duisberg argued for a merger During a trip to the United States in the spring of 1903 he had visited several of the large American trusts such as Standard Oil U S Steel International Paper and Alcoa 25 In 1904 after returning to Germany he proposed a nationwide merger of the producers of dye and pharmaceuticals in a memorandum to Gustav von Bruning the senior manager at Hoechst 26 page needed Hoechst and several pharmaceutical firms refused to join Instead Hoechst and Cassella made an alliance based on mutual equity stakes in 1904 This prompted Duisberg and Heinrich von Brunck chairman of BASF to accelerate their negotiations In October 1904 an Interessen Gemeinschaft between Bayer BASF and Agfa was formed also known as the Dreibund or little IG Profits of the three firms were pooled with BASF and Bayer getting 43 percent each and Agfa 14 percent of all profits 27 The two alliances were loosely connected with each other through an agreement between BASF and Hoechst to jointly exploit the patent on the Heumann Pfleger indigo synthesis 28 Within the Dreibund Bayer and BASF concentrated on dye while Agfa increasingly concentrated on photographic film Although there was some cooperation between the technical staff in production and accounting there was little cooperation between the firms in other areas Neither were production or distribution facilities consolidated nor did the commercial staff cooperate In 1908 Hoechst and Cassella acquired 88 percent of the shares of Chemische Fabrik Kalle As Hoechst Cassella and Kalle were connected by mutual equity shares and were located close to each other in the Frankfurt area this allowed them to cooperate more successfully than the Dreibund although they also did not rationalize or consolidate their production facilities 29 Foundation Edit See also IG Farben Building Completed in 1930 the IG Farben Building in Frankfurt was seized by the Americans after the war In 1996 it was transferred to the German government and in 2001 to the University of Frankfurt Share of the I G Farbenindustrie AG issued in December 1925IG Farben was founded in December 1925 as a merger of six companies BASF 27 4 percent of equity capital Bayer 27 4 percent Hoechst including Cassella and Chemische Fabrik Kalle 27 4 percent Agfa 9 percent Chemische Fabrik Griesheim Elektron 6 9 percent and Chemische Fabrik vorm Weiler Ter Meer 1 9 percent 1 The supervisory board members became widely known as and were said to call themselves jokingly the Council of Gods Rat der Gotter 30 The designation was used as the title of an East German film The Council of the Gods 1950 Painting from Hermann Groeber The IG Farben supervisory board commonly known as the Council of Gods in 1926 c In 1926 IG Farben had a market capitalization of 1 4 billion ℛ ℳ equivalent to 6 billion 2021 euros and a workforce of 100 000 of which 2 6 percent were university educated 18 2 percent were salaried professionals and 79 2 percent were workers 1 BASF was the nominal survivor all shares were exchanged for BASF shares Similar mergers took place in other countries In the United Kingdom Brunner Mond Nobel Industries United Alkali Company and British Dyestuffs merged to form Imperial Chemical Industries in September 1926 In France Etablissements Poulenc Freres and Societe Chimique des Usines du Rhone merged to form Rhone Poulenc in 1928 31 The IG Farben Building headquarters for the conglomerate in Frankfurt am Main Germany was completed in 1931 In 1938 the company had 218 090 employees 32 This section may be confusing or unclear to readers In particular see talk page Please help clarify the section There might be a discussion about this on the talk page December 2020 Learn how and when to remove this template message IG Farben was controversial on both the far left and far right partly for the same reasons related to the size and international nature of the conglomerate and the Jewish background of several of its key leaders and major shareholders citation needed Far right newspapers of the 1920s and early 1930s accused it of being an international capitalist Jewish company The liberal and business friendly German People s Party was its most pronounced supporter Not a single member of the management of IG Farben before 1933 supported the Nazi Party four members or a third of the IG Farben supervisory board were themselves Jewish 8 The company ended up being the largest single contribution to the successful Nazi election campaign of 1933 33 there is also evidence of secret contributions to the party in 1931 and 1932 34 Throughout the 1930s the company underwent a process of Aryanization and by 1938 Jewish employees had been dismissed and the Jews on the board had resigned The remaining few left in 1938 after Hermann Goring issued a decree as part of the Nazis Four Year Plan announced in 1936 that the German government would make foreign exchange available to German firms to fund construction or purchases overseas only if certain conditions were met which included making sure the company employed no Jews 9 Products Edit IG Farben facilities in Germany 1932IG Farben s products included synthetic dyes nitrile rubber polyurethane prontosil and chloroquine The nerve agent Sarin was first discovered by IG Farben 35 The company is perhaps best known for its role in producing the poison gas Zyklon B One product crucial to the operations of the Wehrmacht was synthetic fuel made from lignite using the coal liquefaction process IG Farben scientists made fundamental contributions to all areas of chemistry Otto Bayer discovered the polyaddition for the synthesis of polyurethane in 1937 5 Several IG Farben scientists were awarded a Nobel Prize Carl Bosch and Friedrich Bergius were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1931 in recognition of their contributions to the invention and development of chemical high pressure methods 6 Gerhard Domagk was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1939 for the discovery of the antibacterial effects of prontosil 7 World War II and the Holocaust EditGrowth and slave labour Edit Further information Monowitz concentration camp Buna Werke IG Farben facilities in Germany 1943 Map of the Auschwitz concentration camp complex in German occupied Poland showing Auschwitz I II and III and the IG Farben plant Aerial photograph of Auschwitz June 1944 showing the IG Farben plant IG Farben has been described as the most notorious German industrial concern during the Third Reich 10 When World War II began it was the fourth largest corporation in the world and the largest in Europe 36 In February 1941 Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler signed an order 37 supporting the construction of an IG Farben Buna N synthetic rubber plant known as Monowitz Buna Werke or Buna near the Monowitz concentration camp part of the Auschwitz concentration camp complex in German occupied Poland Monowitz came to be known as Auschwitz III Auschwitz I was the administrative centre and Auschwitz II Birkenau the extermination camp The IG Farben plant s workforce consisted of slave labour from Auschwitz leased to the company by the SS for a low daily rate 38 One of IG Farben s subsidiaries supplied the poison gas Zyklon B that killed over one million people in gas chambers 39 Company executives said after the war that they had not known what was happening inside the camps According to the historian Peter Hayes the killings were an open secret within Farben and people worked at not reflecting upon what they knew 40 In 1978 Joseph Borkin who investigated the company as a United States Justice Department lawyer quoted an American report Without I G s immense productive facilities its far reaching research varied technical expertise and overall concentration of economic power Germany would not have been in a position to start its aggressive war in September 1939 41 The company placed its resources technical capabilities and overseas contacts at the German government s disposal The minutes of a meeting of the Commercial Committee on 10 September 1937 noted It is generally agreed that under no circumstances should anybody be assigned to our agencies abroad who is not a member of the German Labor Front and whose positive attitude towards the new era has not been established beyond any doubt Gentlemen who are sent abroad should be made to realize that it is their special duty to represent National Socialist Germany The Sales Combines are also requested to see to it that their agents are adequately supplied with National Socialist literature 42 This message was repeated by Wilhelm Rudolf Mann who chaired a meeting of the Bayer division board of directors on 16 February 1938 and who in an earlier meeting had referred to the miracle of the birth of the German nation The chairman points out our incontestable being in line with the National Socialist attitude in the association of the entire Bayer pharmaceutica and insecticides beyond that he requests the heads of the offices abroad to regard it as their self evident duty to collaborate in a fine and understanding manner with the functionaries of the Party with the DAF German Workers Front et cetera Orders to that effect again are to be given to the leading German gentlemen so that there may be no misunderstanding in their execution 43 By 1943 IG Farben was manufacturing products worth three billion marks in 334 facilities in occupied Europe almost half its workforce of 330 000 men and women consisted of slave labour or conscripts including 30 000 Auschwitz prisoners Altogether its annual net profit was around 500 million ℛ ℳ equivalent to 2 billion 2021 euros 2 In 1945 according to Raymond G Stokes it manufactured all the synthetic rubber and methanol in Germany 90 percent of its plastic and organic intermediates 84 percent of its explosives 75 percent of its nitrogen and solvents around 50 percent of its pharmaceuticals and around 33 percent of its synthetic fuel 44 Medical experiments Edit Staff of the Bayer group at IG Farben conducted medical experiments on concentration camp inmates at Auschwitz and at the Mauthausen concentration camp 12 45 At Auschwitz they were led by Bayer employee Helmuth Vetter an Auschwitz camp physician and SS captain and Auschwitz physicians Friedrich Entress and Eduard Wirths Most of the experiments were conducted in Birkenau in Block 20 the women s camp hospital The patients were suffering from and in many cases had been deliberately infected with typhoid tuberculosis diphtheria and other diseases then were given preparations named Rutenol Periston B 1012 B 1034 B 1036 3582 and P 111 According to prisoner physicians who witnessed the experiments after being given the drugs the women would experience circulation problems bloody vomiting and painful diarrhea containing fragments of mucus membrane Of the 50 typhoid sufferers given 3852 15 died 40 of the 75 tuberculosis patients given Rutenol died 46 For one experiment which tested an anaesthetic Bayer had 150 women sent from Auschwitz to its own facility They paid RM 150 per woman all of whom died as a result of the research the camp had asked for RM 200 per person but Bayer had said that was too high 47 A Bayer employee wrote to Rudolf Hoss the Auschwitz commandant The transport of 150 women arrived in good condition However we were unable to obtain conclusive results because they died during the experiments We would kindly request that you send us another group of women to the same number and at the same price 48 Zyklon B Edit Between 1942 and 1945 a cyanide based pesticide Zyklon B was used to kill over one million people mostly Jews in gas chambers in Europe including in the Auschwitz II and Majdanek extermination camps in German occupied Poland 49 The poison gas was supplied by an IG Farben subsidiary Degesch Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Schadlingsbekampfung MbH or German Company for Pest Control 39 Degesch originally supplied the gas to Auschwitz to fumigate clothing that was infested with lice which carried typhus Fumigation took place within a closed room but it was a slow process so Degesch recommended building small gas chambers which heated the gas to over 30 C and killed the lice within one hour The idea was that the inmates would be shaved and showered while their clothes were being fumigated 50 The gas was first used on human beings in Auschwitz 650 Soviet POWs and 200 others in September 1941 51 Peter Hayes compiled the following table showing the increase in Zyklon B ordered by Auschwitz figures with an asterisk are incomplete One ton of Zyklon B was enough to kill around 312 500 people 52 Production and sales of Zyklon B 1938 1945 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944Sales thousands of marks 257 337 448 366 506 544Percentage of total Degesch earnings 30 38 57 48 39 52Production short tons 160 180 242 194 321 411 231Volume ordered by Auschwitz short tons 8 2 13 4 2 2 Percentage of production ordered by Auschwitz 2 5 3 3 1 0 Volume ordered by Mauthausen not an extermination camp 0 9 1 5 Zyklon B container in the Auschwitz museum Heinrich Himmler second left visits the IG Farben Auschwitz plant July 1942 IG Farben Auschwitz factory Several IG Farben executives said after the war that they did not know about the gassings despite the increase in sales of Zyklon B to Auschwitz IG Farben owned 42 5 percent of Degesch shares and three members of Degesch s 11 person executive board Wilhelm Rudolf Mann Heinrich Horlein and Carl Wurster were directors of IG Farben 53 Mann who had been an SA Sturmfuhrer 54 was the chair of Degesch s board Peter Hayes writes that the board did not meet after 1940 and that although Mann continued to review the monthly sales figures for Degesch he could not necessarily have inferred from them the uses to which the Auschwitz camp was putting the product 14 IG Farben executives did visit Auschwitz but not Auschwitz II Birkenau where the gas chambers were located 55 Other IG Farben staff appear to have known Ernst Struss secretary of the IG Farben s managing board testified after the war that the company s chief engineer at Auschwitz had told him about the gassings 56 The general manager of Degesch is said to have learned about the gassings from Kurt Gerstein of the SS 55 According to the post war testimony of Rudolf Hoss the Auschwitz commandant he was asked by Walter Durrfeld de technical manager of the IG Farben Auschwitz plant whether it was true that Jews were being cremated at Auschwitz Hoss replied that he could not discuss it and thereafter assumed that Durrfeld knew 57 Durrfeld a friend of Hoss denied knowing about it 58 Hayes writes that the inmates of Auschwitz III which supplied the slave labour for IG Farben were well aware of the gas chambers in part because of the stench from the Auschwitz II crematoria and in part because IG Farben supervisors in the camp spoke about the gassings including using the threat of them to make the inmates work harder 59 Charles Coward a British POW who had been held at Auschwitz III told the IG Farben trial The population at Auschwitz was fully aware that people were being gassed and burned On one occasion they complained about the stench of the burning bodies Of course all of the Farben people knew what was going on Nobody could live in Auschwitz and work in the plant or even come down to the plant without knowing what was common knowledge to everybody 60 Mann Horlein and Wurster directors of both IG Farben and Degesch were acquitted at the IG Farben trial in 1948 of having supplied Zyklon B for the purpose of mass extermination The judges ruled that the prosecution had not shown that the defendants or executive board had any persuasive influence on the management policies of Degesch or any significant knowledge as to the uses to which its production was being put 53 In 1949 Mann became head of pharmaceutical sales at Bayer 54 Horlein became chair of Bayer s supervisory board 61 Wurster became chair of the IG Farben board helped to reestablish BASF as a separate company and became an honorary professor at the University of Heidelberg 62 Durrfeld was sentenced to eight years but had his sentence commuted to time served in 1951 by John McCloy the U S High Commissioner for Germany under massive political pressure after which he joined the management or supervisory boards of several chemical companies 58 Seizure by the Allies Edit Further information Allied occupied Germany Occupation zones of Germany 1945 American British French and Soviet The company destroyed most of its records as it became clear that Germany was losing the war In September 1944 Fritz ter Meer a member of IG Farben s supervisory board and future chair of Bayer s board of directors and Ernst Struss secretary of the company s managing board are said to have made plans to destroy company files in Frankfurt in the event of an American invasion 63 As the Red Army approached Auschwitz in January 1945 to liberate it IG Farben reportedly destroyed the company s records inside the camp 64 and in the spring of 1945 the company burned and shredded 15 tons of paperwork in Frankfurt 63 The Americans seized the company s property under General Order No 2 pursuant to Military Government Law No 52 2 July 1945 which allowed the US to disperse ownership and control of such of the plants and equipment seized under this order as have not been transferred or destroyed The French followed suit in the areas they controlled 65 On 30 November 1945 Allied Control Council Law No 9 Seizure of Property owned by I G Farbenindustrie and the Control Thereof formalized the seizure for knowingly and prominently building up and maintaining German war potential 66 2 The division of property followed the division of Germany into four zones American British French and Soviet 65 In the Western occupation zone the idea of destroying the company was abandoned as the policy of denazification evolved 10 in part because of a need for industry to support reconstruction and in part because of the company s entanglement with American companies notably the successors of Standard Oil In 1951 the company was split into its original constituent companies The four largest quickly bought the smaller ones citation needed In January 1955 the Allied High Commission issued the I G Liquidation Conclusion Law 67 naming IG Farben s legal successor as IG Farbenindustrie AG in Abwicklung IGiA 68 I G Farbenindustrie AG in Liquidation 67 IG Farben trial Edit Further information IG Farben trial In 1947 the American government put IG Farben s directors on trial The United States of America vs Carl Krauch et al 1947 1948 also known as the IG Farben trial was the sixth of 12 trials for war crimes the U S authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany Nuremberg against leading industrialists of Nazi Germany There were five counts against the IG Farben directors The defendants in the dock on the first day of the IG Farben trial 27 August 1947 the planning preparation initiation and waging of wars of aggression and invasions of other countries committing war crimes and crimes against humanity through the plunder and spoliation of public and private property in countries and territories that came under German occupation committing war crimes and crimes against humanity through participating in the enslavement and deportation for slave labor of civilians from German occupied territories and of German nationals participation by defendants Christian Schneider Heinrich Buetefisch and Erich von der Heyde in the SS a recently declared criminal organization and participation in a common plan or conspiracy to commit crimes against peace 69 16 Of the 24 defendants arraigned one fell ill and his case was discontinued The indictment was filed on 3 May 1947 the trial lasted from 27 August 1947 until 30 July 1948 The judges were Curtis Grover Shake presiding James Morris Paul M Hebert and Clarence F Merrell as an alternate judge Telford Taylor was the chief counsel for the prosecution Thirteen defendants were found guilty 69 with sentences ranging from 18 months to eight years 70 All were cleared of the first count of waging war 69 The heaviest sentences went to those involved with Auschwitz 70 which was IG Farben s Upper Rhine group 71 Ambros Butefisch Durrfeld Krauch and ter Meer were convicted of participating in enslavement and deportation for slave labor 72 All defendants who were sentenced to prison received early release Most were quickly restored to their directorships and other positions in post war companies and some were awarded the Federal Cross of Merit 73 Those who served prison sentences included Director IG Farben position Sentence years Post sentence SourcesCarl Krauch Chair of the supervisory board member of Goring s Office of the Four Year Plan Six 72 Joined supervisory board of the Bunawerke Huls GmbHHermann Schmitz CEO Reichstag member Four 72 Board member Deutsche Bank in Berlin Honorary chair Rheinische Stahlwerke AG board 74 16 Fritz ter Meer Supervisory board member Seven 72 Chair Bayer AG board board member of several firms 75 16 Otto Ambros Supervisory board member manager of IG Farben Auschwitz Eight 72 Board member of Chemie Grunenthal active during the thalidomide scandal Feldmuhle and Telefunken economic consultant in Mannheim 76 16 Heinrich Butefisch Supervisory board member head of fuel sector at IG Farben Auschwitz Six 72 Board member for Deutsche Gasolin AG Feldmuhle and Papier und Zellstoffwerke AG consultant and board member for Ruhrchemie AG Oberhausen 77 16 Walter Durrfeld de Technical manager of IG Farben Auschwitz Eight 72 58 Georg von Schnitzler Chair Chemical Committee Five 72 President Deutsch Ibero Amerikanische Gesellschaft 78 16 Max Ilgner Supervisory board member Three 72 Chair of the board of a chemistry firm in Zug 79 16 Heinrich Oster Alternate board member BASF board member Two 72 Gelsenberg AG board member 80 16 Those acquitted included Director IG Farben position Outcome Post sentence SourceCarl Wurster Board member head of IG Farben s Upper Rhine Business Group Acquitted IG Farben board chair and led the reestablishment of BASF After retiring joined or chaired supervisory boards in Bosch Degussa and Allianz 62 Fritz Gajewski Board member manager of Agfa division Acquitted Chair of the board of Dynamit Nobel 81 Christian Schneider Acquitted Joined supervisory boards of Suddeutsche Kalkstickstoff Werke AG Trostberg and Rheinauer Holzhydrolyse GmbH Mannheim 82 Hans Kuhne Acquitted Took a position at Bayer Elberfeld 83 Carl Lautenschlager Acquitted Research associate at Bayer Elberfeld 84 Wilhelm Rudolf Mann Head of pharmaceutical sales for the Bayer division of IG Farben member of the Sturmabteilung Acquitted Resumed his position at Bayer Also presided over the GfK Society for Consumer Research and the Foreign Trade Committee of the BDI Federation of German Industry 85 Heinrich Gattineau Acquitted Joined the board and supervisory council of WASAG Chemie AG and Mitteldeutsche Sprengstoff Werke GmbH 86 Liquidation EditAgfa BASF and Bayer remained in business Hoechst spun off its chemical business in 1999 as Celanese AG before merging with Rhone Poulenc to form Aventis which later merged with Sanofi Synthelabo to form Sanofi Two years earlier another part of Hoechst was sold in 1997 to the chemical spin off of Sandoz the Muttenz Switzerland based Clariant The successor companies remain some of the world s largest chemical and pharmaceutical companies citation needed Although IG Farben was officially put into liquidation in 1952 this did not end the company s legal existence The purpose of a corporation s continuing existence being in liquidation is to ensure an orderly wind down of its affairs As almost all its assets and all its activities had been transferred to the original constituent companies IG Farben was from 1952 largely a shell company with no real activity 87 IG Farben building in 2007In 2001 IG Farben announced that it would formally wind up its affairs in 2003 It had been continually criticized over the years for failing to pay compensation to the former labourers its stated reason for its continued existence after 1952 was to administer its claims and pay its debts The company in turn blamed ongoing legal disputes with the former captive labourers for its inability to be legally dissolved and have the remaining assets distributed as reparations 88 On 10 November 2003 its liquidators filed for insolvency 89 but this did not affect the existence of the company as a legal entity While it did not join a national compensation fund set up in 2001 to pay the victims it contributed 500 000 DM 160 000 stg or 255 646 towards a foundation for former captive labourers under the Nazi regime The remaining property worth DM 21 million 6 7 million or 10 7 million went to a buyer 90 Each year the company s annual meeting in Frankfurt was the site of demonstrations by hundreds of protesters 88 Its stock denominated in Reichsmarks traded on German markets until early 2012 As of 2012 update it still existed as a corporation in liquidation 91 IG Farben in media EditFilm and television IG Farben is the company said to be supporting German terror activities and research of uranium ores in Brazil after World War II in Alfred Hitchcock s film noir Notorious 1946 The Council of the Gods 1951 produced by DEFA director Kurt Maetzig is an East German film about IG Farben s role in World War II and the subsequent trial IG Farben is the name of the arms dealer played by Dennis Hopper in the 1987 independent film Straight to Hell directed by Alex Cox 92 In one of the deleted scenes from Repo Man repo man Bud uses a phony business card with IG Farben as a company name to distract a man while his daughter s car is repossessed In Foyle s War series eight episode 1 High Castle Foyle tours Monowitz as part of his investigation of the murder of a London University professor who as a translator for the Nuremberg Trials becomes involved with an American industrialist who owns a petroleum company and a German war criminal named Linz who also turns up dead in his cell Linz s firm IG Farben had hired from the SS forced laborers incarcerated at Monowitz Literature IG Farben plays a prominent role in Thomas Pynchon s novel Gravity s Rainbow primarily as the manufacturer of the elusive and mysterious plastic product Imipolex G The company also plays a prominent role in Philip K Dick s alternative history novel The Man in the High Castle IG Farben is the German consortium that buys Du Pont in the Kurt Vonnegut novel Hocus Pocus Games In the Hearts of Iron series developed by Paradox Interactive IG Farben is one of several Design Companies that may be selected to provide a bonus to technology research for Germany other options include Siemens and Krupp 93 better source needed See also EditAmerican IG Bernard Bernstein Interhandel I G Chemie Nuremberg Trials bibliographyReferences EditNotes Edit a b c Peter Hayes 2001 O ne of the first acts of the American occupation authorities in 1945 was to seize the enterprise as punishment for knowingly and prominently building up and maintaining German war potential Two years later twenty three of the firm s principal officers went on trial By the time John McCloy the American high commissioner for Germany pardoned the last of them in 1951 IG Farben scarcely existed Its holdings in the German Democratic Republic had been nationalized those in the Federal Republic had been divided into six later chiefly three separate corporations BASF Bayer and Hoechst 3 Also see Law No 9 PDF Allied Control Council Archived PDF from the original on 22 September 2018 Peter Hayes 2001 I t was Zyklon B a granular vaporizing pesticide that asphyxiated the Jews of Auschwitz and a subsidiary of IG the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Schadlingsbekampfung MbH German Vermin Combating Corporation or Degesch that controlled the manufacture and distribution of the Zyklon IG s 42 5 percent of the stock in Degesch translated into three seats on its Administrative Committee occupied by members of Farben s own Vorstand board of directors Heinrich Hoerlein Carl Wurster and Wilhelm R Mann who acted as chairman But this body ceased to meet after 1940 Though Mann continued to review the monthly sales figures for Degesch he could not necessarily have inferred from them the uses to which the Auschwitz camp was putting the product 14 Standing left to right Arthur von Weinberg Carl Muller Edmund ter Meer Adolf Haeuser Franz Oppenheim Seated Theodor Plieninger Ernst von Simson Carl Bosch Walther vom Rath Wilhelm Kalle Carl von Weinberg and Carl Duisberg Citations Edit a b c d Tammen 1978 p 195 a b c Hayes 2001 pp xxi xxii Hayes 2001 p xxii Hager 2006 p 74 a b Nicholson 2006 p 61 a b The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1931 Nobel Foundation Retrieved 27 October 2008 Carl Bosch Nobel Foundation Carl Bosch 1874 1940 Wollheim Memorial Archived from the original on 9 October 2016 a b The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1939 Nobel Foundation Retrieved 27 October 2008 Gerhard Domagk Nobel Foundation a b Baumler 1988 p 277ff a b Hayes 2001 p 196 a b c Spicka 2018 p 233 Hayes 2001 pp xxi xxii Dickerman 2017 p 440 a b Lifton amp Hackett 1998 p 310 Other doctor perpetrators Auschwitz Birkenau Memorial and Museum Archived from the original on 15 April 2016 a b Hayes 2001 p 361 Bartrop 2017 pp 742 743 Neumann 2012 p 115 a b c d e f g h i United Nations War Crimes Commission 1949 Schwartz 2001 p 439 Finder Joseph 12 April 1992 Ultimate Insider Ultimate Outsider The New York Times Heller Kevin Jon 11 October 2012 The Nuremberg Military Tribunals and the Origins of International Criminal Law OUP Oxford ISBN 978 0 19 165286 8 Norbert Wollheim Memorial Goethe Universitat Frankfurt Archived from the original on 24 September 2018 IG Farben Haus Geschichte und Gegenwart in German Fritz Bauer Institute Archived from the original on 14 March 2007 Aftalion amp Benfey 1991 p 104 Chandler 2004 p 475 Chandler 2004 pp 474 485 Chandler 2004 p 481 Beer 1981 pp 124 125 Chandler 2004 p 479 Beer 1981 pp 124 125 Duisberg 1923 Beer 1981 pp 125 134 Tammen 1978 p 11 Chandler 2004 p 480 Kaiser Arvid 16 August 2015 Die Weltmarktfuhrer von gestern manager magazin Aftalion amp Benfey 1991 pp 140 143 Fiedler 1999 p 49 Borkin 1978 p 71 Sasuly 1947 p 66 Evans 2008 p 669 van Pelt amp Dwork 1996 p 198 Schmaltz 2018 p 215 Dickerman 2017 p 440 a b Bartrop 2017 pp 742 743 Hayes 2003 p 346 Borkin 1978 p 1 for more on Borkin Pearson Richard 6 July 1979 Joseph Borkin Antitrust Lawyer Author Dies The Washington Post IG Farben trial pp 1281 1282 IG Farben trial p 1282 Stokes 1994 p 70 Other doctor perpetrators Auschwitz Birkenau Memorial and Museum Archived from the original on 15 April 2016 Strzelecka 2000 p 362 Strzelecka 2000 p 363 Rees 2006 p 179 Jacobs 2017 pp 312 314 Worthington Daryl 20 May 2015 IG Farben Opens Factory at Auschwitz New Historian Archived from the original on 22 May 2015 Strzelecka 2000 p 363 citing Sehn Jan 1957 Konzentrationslager Oswiecim Brzezinka Auf Grund von Dokumentation und Beweisquellen Warsaw Wydawnictwo Prawnicze p 89ff also see Rees 2006 p 179 for Hoss Jeffreys 2008 p 278 Neumann 2012 p 115 van Pelt amp Dwork 1996 pp 219 221 Hilberg 1998 p 84 also see Hayes 2001 p 362 Hayes 2001 p 362 a b United Nations War Crimes Commission 1949 p 24 a b Wilhelm Rudolf Mann 1894 1992 Wollheim Memorial Fritz Bauer Institute Archived from the original on 26 January 2012 a b Hayes 2001 p 363 Maguire 2010 p 146 Hayes 2001 p 364 a b c Walther Durrfeld 1899 1967 Wollheim Memorial Fritz Bauer Institute Archived from the original on 25 March 2016 Hayes 2001 p 364 also see Benedikt Kautsky hearing of witness 29 January 1953 Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Wiesbaden HHStAW Sec 460 No 1424 Wollheim v I G Farben Vol II pp 257 264 IG Farben trial p 606 Borkin 1978 p 144 Maguire 2010 p 146 Philipp Heinrich Horlein 1882 1954 Wollheim Memorial Fritz Bauer Institute Archived from the original on 4 September 2018 a b Carl Wurster 1900 1974 Wollheim Memorial Fritz Bauer Institute Archived from the original on 31 August 2018 a b Borkin 1978 p 134 Borkin 1978 p 134 Hilberg 2003 p 1049 a b Abelshauser et al 2003 p 337 Law No 9 PDF Allied Control Council Archived PDF from the original on 22 September 2018 Kontrollratsgesetz Nr 9 Verfassungen der Welt www verfassungen de Archived from the original on 19 April 2017 a b I G Farben in Liquidation from the 1950s to 1990 Wollheim Memorial Archived from the original on 9 June 2017 Abelshauser et al 2003 p 335 a b c Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings Case 6 The IG Farben Case Holocaust Encyclopedia United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archived from the original on 14 June 2018 a b Abelshauser et al 2003 p 339 Abelshauser et al 2003 p 340 a b c d e f g h i j United States of America v Carl Krauch et al p 7 Jeffreys 2008 pp 321 341 Hermann Schmitz 1881 1960 Wollheim Memorial Retrieved 25 February 2012 Fritz Friedrich Hermann ter Meer 1884 1967 Wollheim Memorial Retrieved 25 February 2012 Otto Ambros 1901 1990 Wollheim Memorial Retrieved 25 February 2012 Heinrich Butefisch 1894 1969 Wollheim Memorial Retrieved 25 February 2012 Georg von Schnitzler 1884 1962 Wollheim Memorial Retrieved 25 February 2012 Max Ilgner 1899 1966 Wollheim Memorial Retrieved 25 February 2012 Heinrich Oster 1878 1954 Wollheim Memorial Retrieved 25 February 2012 Friedrich Fritz Gajewski 1885 1965 Wollheim Memorial Retrieved 25 February 2012 Christian Schneider 1887 1972 Wollheim Memorial Retrieved 25 February 2012 Hans Kuhne 1880 1969 Wollheim Memorial Retrieved 25 February 2012 Carl Ludwig Lautenschlager 1888 1962 Wollheim Memorial Retrieved 25 February 2012 Wilhelm Rudolf Mann 1894 1992 Wollheim Memorial Retrieved 25 February 2012 Heinrich Gattineau 1905 1985 Wollheim Memorial Retrieved 25 February 2012 Business actors in armed conflict towards a new humanitarian agenda PDF a b IG Farben to be dissolved BBC News 17 September 2001 Ehemalige Zwangsarbeiter gehen leer aus Der Spiegel 10 November 2003 Charles Jonathan 10 November 2003 Former Zyklon B maker goes bust BBC News Marek Michael 20 November 2012 Norbert Wollheim gegen IG Farben Deutsche Welle Carr Jay Straight to Hell Bypasses Substance The Boston Globe Wednesday July 1 1987 Retrieved February 4 2020 List of design companies HOI4 Wiki Retrieved 12 February 2020 Works cited Edit Abelshauser Werner von Hippel Wolfgang Johnson Jeffrey Allan Stokes Raymond G 2003 German Industry and Global Enterprise BASF The History of a Company New York Cambridge University Press Aftalion Fred Benfey Otto Theodor 1991 A History of the International Chemical Industry Philadelphia PA University of Pennsylvania Press ISBN 978 0 8122 8207 8 Bartrop Paul R 2017 Zyklon B In Bartrop Paul R Dickerman Michael eds The Holocaust An Encyclopedia and Document Collection Volume 1 Santa Barbara ABC CLIO pp 742 743 Baumler Ernst 1988 Die Rotfabriker Familiengeschichte eines Weltunternehmens Hoechst in German Munich and Zurich Piper ISBN 978 3 492 10669 6 Beer John Joseph 1981 The Emergence of the German Dye Industry Manchester NH Ayer Company Publishers ISBN 978 0 405 13835 5 Borkin Joseph 1978 The Crime and Punishment of IG Farben New York London The Free Press division of Macmillan Publishing Co ISBN 978 0 02 904630 2 Chandler Alfred DuPont 2004 Scale and Scope The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism Cambridge MA Belknap Press of Harvard University Press ISBN 978 0 674 78995 1 Dickerman Michael 2017 Monowitz In Bartrop Paul R Dickerman Michael eds The Holocaust An Encyclopedia and Document Collection Volume 1 Santa Barbara ABC CLIO pp 439 440 Duisberg Carl 1923 1904 Denkschrift uber die Vereinigung der deutschen Farbenfabriken Abhandlungen Vortrage und Reden aus den Jahren 1882 1921 Berlin pp 343 369 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location missing publisher link van Pelt Robert Jan Dwork Deborah 1996 Auschwitz 1270 to the Present New York and London W W Norton and Company ISBN 9780393039337 Evans Richard J 2008 The Third Reich at War London Penguin Fiedler Martin 1999 Die 100 grossten Unternehmen in Deutschland nach der Zahl ihrer Beschaftigten 1907 1938 1973 und 1995 Zeitschrift fur Unternehmensgeschichte in German 44 1 32 66 doi 10 1515 zug 1999 0104 S2CID 165110552 Hager Thomas 2006 The Demon under the Microscope New York Harmony Books ISBN 978 1 4000 8214 8 Hayes Peter 2001 1987 Industry and Ideology IG Farben in the Nazi Era Cambridge Cambridge University Press Hayes Peter Fall 2003 Auschwitz Capital of the Holocaust Holocaust and Genocide Studies 17 2 330 350 doi 10 1093 hgs dcg005 Hilberg Raul 2003 1961 The Destruction of the European Jews New Haven and London Yale University Press Hilberg Raul 1998 1994 Auschwitz and the Final Solution In Berenbaum Michael Gutman Yisrael eds Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp Bloomington Indiana University Press pp 81 92 ISBN 9780253208842 Jacobs Steven Leonard 2017 I G Farben In Bartrop Paul R Dickerman Michael eds The Holocaust An Encyclopedia and Document Collection Volume 1 Santa Barbara ABC CLIO pp 312 314 Jeffreys Diarmuid 2008 Hell s Cartel IG Farben and the Making of Hitlers War Machine New York Metropolitan Books Henry Holt and Company ISBN 978 0 8050 9143 4 Lifton Robert Jay Hackett Amy 1998 Nazi Doctors In Berenbaum Michael Gutman Yisrael eds Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp Bloomington Indiana University Press pp 301 316 ISBN 9780253208842 Schmaltz Florian 2018 Auschwitz III Monowitz Main Camp aka Buna In Megargee Geoffrey P ed Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933 1945 Volume 1 Bloomington United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Indiana University Press pp 215 220 Neumann Boaz 2012 National Socialism Holocaust and Ecology In Stone Dan ed The Holocaust and Historical Methodology New York Berghahn Books Nicholson John W 2006 The Chemistry of Polymers London Royal Society of Chemistry ISBN 978 0 85404 684 3 Records of the United States Nuernberg War Crimes Trials United States of America v Carl Krauch et al Case VI PDF National Archives Archived PDF from the original on 20 July 2017 Rees Laurence 2006 2005 Auschwitz A New History New York PublicAffairs Sasuly Richard 1947 IG Farben New York Boni amp Gaer Schwartz Thomas Alan 2001 1994 John J McCloy and the Landsberg Cases In Diefendorf Jeffrey M Frohn Axel Rupieper Hermann Josef eds American Policy and the Reconstruction of Germany 1945 1955 Cambridge and New York German Historical Institute and Cambridge University Press pp 433 454 Spicka Mark E 2018 The Devil s Chemists on Trial The American Prosecution of I G Farben at Nuremberg In Michalczyk John J ed Nazi Law From Nuremberg to Nuremberg London and New York Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN 978 1 350 00724 6 Stokes Raymond 1994 Opting for Oil The Political Economy of Technological Change in the West German Chemical Industry 1945 1961 New York Cambridge University Press Strzelecka Irena 2000 Experiments In Dlugoborski Waclaw Piper Franciszek eds Auschwitz 1940 1945 Central Issues in the History of the Camp Volume 2 The Prisoners their Life and Work Oswiecim Auschwitz Birkenau State Museum Tammen Helmuth 1978 Die I G Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft 1925 1933 Ein Chemiekonzern in der Weimarer Republik in German Berlin H Tammen ISBN 978 3 88344 001 9 Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No 10 October 1946 April 1949 PDF VIII The I G Farben Case Washington D C Nuernberg Military Tribunals United States Government Printing Office 1952 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a Cite journal requires journal help The United Nations War Crimes Commission 1949 Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals Volume X The I G Farben and Krupp trials PDF London His Majesty s Stationery Office pp 1 67 Archived from the original PDF on 11 December 2008 Further reading EditBooks and articles Bernstein Bernard 1946 Elimination of German Resources for War Washington D C United States Department of War United States Government Printing Office Borkin Joseph 1943 Germany s Master Plan The Story of the Industrial Offensive New York Duell Sloan And Pearce Borkin Joseph 1990 Die unheilige Allianz der IG Farben Eine Interessengemeinschaft im Dritten Reich in German Frankfurt am Main Campus Verlag ISBN 978 3 593 34251 1 Bower Tom 1995 1981 Blind Eye to Murder Britain America and the Purging of Nazi Germany A Pledge Betrayed 2nd revised ed London Little Brown Cornwell John 2004 Hitler s Scientists Science War and the Devil s Pact London Penguin Books Dubois Jr Josiah E 1952 The Devil s Chemists PDF Boston MA Beacon Press ASIN B000ENNDV6 Archived from the original PDF on 9 April 2011 Du Bois Josiah Ellis Johnson Edward 1953 Generals in Grey Suits The Directors of the International I G Farben Cartel Their Conspiracy and Trial at Nuremberg London Bodley Head Higham Charles 1983 Trading With the Enemy New York Delacorte Press ISBN 978 0 440 09064 9 Karlsch Rainer Stokes Raymond G 2003 Faktor Ol die Mineralolwirtschaft in Deutschland 1859 1974 in German Munich C H Beck ISBN 978 3 406 50276 7 Kreikamp Hans Dieter 1977 Die Entflechtung der I G Farbenindustrie A G und die Grundung der Nachfolgegesellschaften PDF Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte in German Munich Oldenbourg Verlag 25 2 220 251 Retrieved 27 October 2008 Lesch John E ed 2000 The German Chemical Industry in the Twentieth Century Dordrecht Springer Netherlands Moonman Eric 21 November 1990 Shares spoil letter The Guardian p 18 Lopez Munoz F Garcia Garcia P Alamo C 2009 The pharmaceutical industry and the German National Socialist Regime I G Farben and pharmacological research Journal of Clinical Pharmacy and Therapeutics 34 1 67 77 doi 10 1111 j 1365 2710 2008 00972 x PMID 19125905 S2CID 6922723 Maguire Peter 2010 Law and War International Law and American History New York Columbia University Press Plumpe Gottfried 1990 Die I G Farbenindustrie AG Wirtschaft Technik und Politik 1904 1945 in German Schriften zur Wirtschafts und Sozialgeschichte ed Berlin Duncker amp Humblot ISBN 978 3 428 06892 0 Sandkuhler Thomas Schmuhl Hans Walter 1993 Noch einmal Die I G Farben und Auschwitz Geschichte und Gesellschaft in German 19 2 259 267 JSTOR 40185695 Stokes Raymond 1988 Divide and Prosper The Heirs of I G Farben under Allied Authority 1945 1951 Berkeley University of California Press Tenfelde Klaus 2007 Stimmt die Chemie Mitbestimmung und Sozialpolitik in der Geschichte des Bayer Konzerns Essen Klartext ISBN 978 3 89861 888 5 Tully John 2011 The Devil s Milk A Social History of Rubber New York Monthly Review Press Wagner Bernd C Frei Norbert Steinbacher Sybille Grotum Thomas Parcer Jan eds 2000 Darstellungen und Quellen zur Geschichte von Auschwitz 4 volumes Munich K G Saur White Joseph Robert 1 October 2001 Even in Auschwitz Humanity Could Prevail British POWs and Jewish Concentration Camp Inmates at IG Auschwitz 1943 1945 Holocaust and Genocide Studies 15 2 266 295 doi 10 1093 hgs 15 2 266 External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to IG Farben Documents and clippings about IG Farben in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW Official website of the IG Farben successor BASF Official website of the IG Farben successor Bayer Official website of the IG Farben successor Hoechst now Sanofi Aventis Stock Market Prices of IG Farben Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No 10 October 1946 April 1949 PDF VIII The I G Farben Case Washington D C Nuernberg Military Tribunals United States Government Printing Office 1952 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a Cite journal requires journal help Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title IG Farben amp oldid 1172362481, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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