They Killed; They Got Away

By Steve Rodan

I.G. Farben played a crucial role in Hitler's Final Solution. It built the death machine that included gas chambers, slave labor and war material that maintained the extermination of six million Jews.

After World War II, I.G. Farben escaped the fury of the Allies. Indeed, it returned as one of Germany's biggest and most profitable companies. How did this conglomerate, during the war the largest chemical and pharmaceutical company in the world, survive the axe? You could thank Switzerland and the United States.

Like many entities in Germany, I.G. Farben, formed in 1925 through a merger of six firms, was tied to the liberal elite and even accused by Hitler's men as being an "international Jewish company." Gustav Stresemann, chancellor during the Weimar Republic, put it this way: "Without I.S. and coal, I can have no foreign policy."

But when Hitler took over Germany in 1933, I.G. Farben became a major donor to the Nazi Party. The company fired its Jewish employees and turned into one of the most enthusiastic proponents of the extermination of Jews. It supplied Zyklon B for the gas chambers, participated in medical experiments -- actually torture and mutilation -- in Auschwitz and Mauthausen and used tens of thousands as slaves in occupied Poland.

"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.," a U.S. report said.

The man seen as most responsible for Zyklon B was a Jewish chemist named Fritz Haber. A Nobel Prize winner, he was known as the "father of chemical warfare" from his work in weaponizing chlorine and other poison gas during World War I. In 1933, Haber was forced out of I.G. Farben but invited by Zionist Organization leader Chaim Weizmann to head his institute in Palestine. He died on the way to the holy land.

Worldwide network

In the 1930s, I.G. Farben, which developed synthetic fuel, plastics and nerve gas, established a worldwide network meant to further Hitler's interests. The company was everywhere, including the United States. There, it operated as General Aniline and Film, said to have focused on the manufacture of dyes and held patents on processes that could help any war effort. I.G. Farben was careful to hide its involvement in General Aniline, which kept its Jewish employees into the war. The German board members of General Aniline insisted that it was owned by I.G. Chemie, a Swiss company. To keep its ownership secret, General Aniline president Dietrich Schmitz tried to fire the American members of the board in 1941.

Led by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. government acted swiftly against General Aniline after Washington entered the war. Days after Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the Treasury Department kicked out the Germans and brought in 17 Secret Service agents to run the giant corporation and prevent leakage of secrets to Germany. A month later, Treasury fired five German-born executives, by now naturalized U.S. citizens. Vice President Rudolph Hutz, in charge of production, was arrested. In February 1942, Treasury seized the assets of the company and directed operations to help the American war effort.

But the no-nonsense U.S. response began to wither as World War II came to a close. Treasury urged the administration to break up General Aniline, particularly the elimination of any German interests. The fear was that the company would become a tool of post-Hitler Germany for perhaps another war.

"We have consistently urged the eradication of enemy control over property in the United States and the taking of every step to preclude the possibility of the reestablishment of such control after the war," a Treasury memo in August 1945 read. "In this connection, the program for dealing with German and Japanese assets jointly recommended to the President by the Alien Property Custodian, the Department of State and the Treasury Department provided that the Custodian continue to eliminate German and Japanese property vested by the Custodian and be liquidated and sold as soon as practicable." [1]

But Washington now needed Germany for the Cold War against the Soviet Union and Hitler's former assets were deemed too valuable to eliminate. Powerful attorneys were representing General Aniline and its purportedly parent company, I.G. Chemie. The attorneys came with plenty of documents that claimed that General Aniline was never part of I.G. Farben and that it was a purely American company. The result was government inaction.

The American attitude extended to I.G. Farben in Germany. Suddenly, the wartime board of directors were portrayed as benign and even helpful to certain Jews. Jewish employees testified that chairman Herman Schmitz had protected some of them by sending them to posts outside Germany. [2]

All freed

I.G. Farben survived World War II. Although 23 of its directors were tried for war crimes and 13 convicted, all of the executives were released by 1951. The company was split up but formed a cartel with its former subsidiaries, including Bayer. In 1964, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, whose father was a leading advocate of Nazi Germany, approved the sale of General Aniline, with more than $560 million said to have returned to I.G. Chemie. Kennedy, now running for U.S. Senate, promised Jewish leaders that he would increase American aid to Israel and liberalize immigration quotas. [3]

General Aniline survived World War II and expanded its product line. In 1968, it became GAF and more than 20 years later became a private concern. In 2001, GAF filed for bankruptcy. I.G. Farben survived as well. By 1952, the company was officially placed into liquidation. But I.G. Farben continued well into the 21st Century. Despite annual protests, the company refused to compensate former slave laborers. It got away with contributing 500,000 marks to establish a foundation. Its former headquarters became a memorial for the slaves and those killed by Zyklon B.

Notes

1. Michael L. Hoffman to Harry White. Re: Sale of vested property by APC. Aug. 29, 1945. NARA

2. The Crime and Punishment of I. G. Farben. Joseph Borkin. Page 166. Free Press, 1978

3. Kennedy Appeals to Jews in Election Drive. Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Sept. 24, 1964.

Below: The opening of the I.G. Farben trial at Nuremberg, Aug. 27, 1947.