IG Farben

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IG Farben (short for Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG, "syndicate of dyestuff corporations", and also called I.G. Farbenfabriken) was a German conglomerate of chemical companies. It was founded in 1925, though the major companies that formed it had been working together closely since World War I.

The company was founded by Carl Duisberg and Hermann Hummel^[1]. Initially many of these companies produced dyes, but they soon began research into more advanced chemistry. IG Farben held a near monopoly on chemical production. During the National Socialist (Nazi) era, they began manufacturing Zyklon B, which was a poison commonly used at the time for delousing. During the Holocaust, it was used as the lethal agent in the gas chambers of the death camps of Auschwitz and Majdanek. The company was a major user of slave labour.

The IG Farben Building, headquarters for the conglomerate in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, was completed in 1931.

Contents 1 Conglomeration 2 World War II 3 Break-up and liquidation 4 Holocaust Memorial controversy 5 IG Farben in fiction 6 See also 7 References 8 Further reading

[edit] Conglomeration

IG Farben consisted of the following major companies and several smaller ones.

• AGFA (Aktien-Gesellschaft für Anilin-Fabrikation), Berlin
• Cassella, Frankfurt
• BASF (Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik), Ludwigshafen (nominal survivor)
• Bayer, Leverkusen
• Farbwerke Hoechst (now Sanofi-Aventis), Höchst
• Chemische Werke Hüls, Marl (founded in 1938)
• Chemische Fabrik Kalle, Biebrich

[edit] World War II

During the planning of the invasion of Czechoslovakia and Poland, IG Farben cooperated closely with Nazi officials and directed which chemical plants should be secured and delivered to IG Farben.^[2]

In 1941, an investigation exposed a "marriage" cartel between United States-based Standard Oil Co. and I.G. Farben.^[3][4] (see^[5] and^[6]) It also brought new evidence concerning complex price and marketing agreements between DuPont, a major investor in and producer of leaded gasoline, U.S. Industrial Alcohol Co. and their subsidiary, Cuba Distilling Co. The investigation was eventually dropped, like dozens of others in many different kinds of industries, due to the need to enlist industry support in the war effort. However, the top directors of many oil companies agreed to resign and oil industry stocks in molasses companies were sold off as part of a compromise worked out. (see^[7][8] but see^[9])

IG Farben built a factory (named Buna Chemical Plant) for producing synthetic oil and rubber (from coal) in Auschwitz, which was the beginning of SS activity and camps in this location during the Holocaust. At its peak in 1944, this factory made use of 83,000 slave laborers.^[10] The pesticide Zyklon B, for which IG Farben held the patent, was manufactured by Degesch (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung), which IG Farben had 42.2 percent (in shares) of and which had IG managers in its Managing Committee.

Of the 24 directors of IG Farben indicted in the so-called IG Farben Trial (1947-1948) before a U.S. military tribunal at the subsequent Nuremberg Trials, 13 were sentenced to prison terms between one and eight years. Some of those indicted in the trial were subsequently made leaders of the post-war companies that split off from IG Farben, including those who were sentenced at Nuremberg.

[edit] Break-up and liquidation

Due to the severity of the war crimes committed by IG Farben during World War II, the company was considered to be too corrupt to be allowed to continue to exist. The Soviet Union seized most of IG Farben's assets located in the Soviet occupation zone (see Morgenthau Plan), as part of their reparation payments. The Western Allies however, in 1951, split the company up into its original constituent companies. The four largest quickly bought the smaller ones, and today only Agfa, BASF, and Bayer remain, while Hoechst merged with the French Rhône-Poulenc Rorer to form Aventis, now based in Strasbourg, France.

After the Holocaust, I.G. Farben joined with Americans to develop chemical warfare agents. Together they founded the "Chemagrow Corporation" in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chemagrow Corporation employed German and American specialists for the U.S. Army Chemical Corps. Dr. Otto Bayer was I.G. Farben's research director. He developed and tested chemical warfare agents with Dr. Gerhard Schrader.^{[citation needed]}

Even though the company was officially liquidated in 1952, it continued to be traded on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange as a trust, holding a few real estate assets until it was finally wound up on November 10, 2003 by its liquidators. It had contributed 500,000 DM (£160,000 or €255,646) towards a foundation for former captive laborers under the Nazi regime. The remaining property, worth DM 21 million (£6.7 million or €10.7 million), went to a buyer. During this lengthy period, the holding company had been continually criticized for failing to pay any compensation to the former laborers, which was the stated reason for its continued existence after 1952.^{[citation needed]} The company, in turn, blamed the ongoing legal disputes with the former captive laborers as being the reason it could not be legally dissolved and the remaining assets distributed as reparations. Nevertheless, it refused to join a national compensation fund that was set up in 2001 to pay people who had suffered.^[11] Each year, the company's annual meeting in Frankfurt was the site of demonstrations by hundreds of protesters.^[12]

[edit] Holocaust Memorial controversy

In 2003 Degussa (now known as Evonik), a company closely associated with IG Farben during the Nazi period, was involved in a major controversy surrounding its involvement in the construction of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe ("Holocaust Memorial") in Berlin. Degussa produced the anti-graffiti substance Protectosil used to cover the stelae which are the major element in the memorial. The dispute arose mainly because Degussa had also owned 42.2 percent of the shares in Degesch (a subsidiary), at the time when that company was producing Zyklon B. The board of trustees of the memorial ultimately decided that, given the cost of eliminating Degussa's role in the project at that relatively late stage, the use of Protectosil ought to continue, despite protests from many Jewish groups.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] IG Farben in fiction

• Der Rat der Götter "The Council of the Gods" (DEFA 1951, director Kurt Maetzig) is an East German film about IG Farben's role in World War II and the subsequent trial. See: Rat der Götter, Der at the Internet Movie Database
• I.G. Farben plays a major part in Thomas Pynchon's novel Gravity's Rainbow.
• I.G. Farben plays a part in Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious.
• I.G. Farben is a character played by Dennis Hopper in the film Straight to Hell (1987).
• I.G. Farben is the name on the business card that Bud (played by Harry Dean Stanton) gives out to Mr. Pakman in the 1984 film Repo Man.
• I.G. Farben is one of Germany's most skilled research teams in the computer strategy game Hearts of Iron II.
• In William Styron's novel Sophie's Choice, the protagonist meets a fictionalized I.G. Farben executive in pre-war Poland and during her internment at Auschwitz.
• I.G. Farben of Germany was mentioned to have taken over Du Pont in Kurt Vonnegut's Hocus Pocus.
• Correspondence from I.G. Farben to the Commandant of Auschwitz requesting female prisoners to test a drug on is included in David Markson's novel Vanishing Point.
• I.G. Farben is mentioned by the Wehrmacht commandant of Auschwitz in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1992).

[edit] See also

• IG Farben Building
• Nerve agent
• Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
• Wiedergutmachung

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Borkin, Joseph (1978). The Crime and Punishment of IG Farben. New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-02-904630-0. 
• DuBois, Josiah (1952). The Devil's Chemists: 24 Conpirators of the International Farben Cartel Who Manufacture Wars. Boston: Beacon Press. 
• Hager, Thomas (2007). The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug. New York: Three Rivers Press. ISBN 1-4000-8214-5. 
• Profit Over Life--The Nuremberg Pharma Tribunal. www.pharma-over-life.org. Retrieved on 2008-06-11.