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The Devil’s Chemists – 24 Conspirators of the International Farben Cartel Who Manufacture Wars
Like Ambruster’s Treason’s Peace, Josiah DuBois’s The Devil’s Chemists highlights how the I.G. Farben chemical firm manipulated trade relationships to the advantage of the Third Reich. In addition, the book illustrates how corporations, businessmen and politicians beholden unto the firm’s non-German cartel partners assisted that manipulation, as well as the postwar rehabilitation and exoneration of both I.G. and its most important personnel. Those personnel are the primary focus of Josiah Du Bois’s The Devil’s Chemists. In addition, DuBois emphasizes the damage done to America’s international credibility by its postwar preservation of I.G. Farben and other Axis/fascist cartels.
One cannot understand the history of the 20th century without understanding the role played in world events of the time by the I.G. Farben company, the chemical cartel that grew out of the German dyestuffs industry. Comprising some of the most important individual companies in the history of industrial capitalism, the firm has dominated the dyestuffs, chemical and pharmaceutical industries before and during World War II. The companies that grew out of I.G.’s official dissolution after the war—Bayer, Hoechst, BASF, and Agfa continued to be decisive in world markets. Among the many products developed by I.G. or its member companies are aspirin, heroin, Novocain, methadone (originally named Dolophine in honor of Adolph Hitler) and Zyklon B (the poison gas used in the extermination centers of World War II.)
Both the Ambruster and DuBois texts set forth the international scope and economic impact of the company, its role as the spine of the industrial war-making economy of the Third Reich and the firm’s elevation of Hitler to his position of power. As one observer noted, “Hitler was Farben and Farben was Hitler.” Much of the impact that the company wielded derived from its international dominance of the chemical, rubber, petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries through its cartel arrangements with partner firms in other countries. Farben’s foreign counterparts had much to do with letting the company and its executives—many of them war criminals of the first order—off the hook after World War II.
Farben’s cartel partners abroad constituted an inventory of the wealthiest and most powerful corporations in the world. In the United States, the major firms with which Farben did business included: Du Pont, the Standard Oil companies, General Motors, Ford Motor Company, Union Carbide, Dow Chemical and Texaco. In turn, these corporate giants wielded controlling political influence in the United States through the elected and appointed officials in their sway. Attempts at reducing Farben’s influence in the United States before and during World War II, as well as efforts at holding the company and its top executives to account for their crimes after the war were neutralized by the cartel’s corporate hirelings. Many of names of the combatants on both sides are important and, to older and better-educated readers, familiar. Farben exerted a profound influence in other countries as well.
Behind the actions of many world figures prominent in the mid-20th century, we can observe the effects of their relationship to I.G. As discussed in The Nazis Go Underground, Neville Chamberlain was a major stockholder in Imperial Chemicals, I.G.’s major cartel partner in the United Kingdom. Chamberlain’s “weakness” in the Munich summit with Hitler assumes a different light when evaluated against his holdings in Imperial. In Falange, Alan Chase describes Wilhelm von Faupel, the prime mover behind the establishment of the Spanish Falange and its international component, the Falange Exterior. Faupel derived much of his considerable influence within the Third Reich from his status as an “I.G. General.”
In The Devil’s Chemists, DuBois details the war crimes trials of key I.G. personnel and, in so doing, illustrates the pernicious nature of the cartel system Farben embodied and successfully, ruthlessly exploited. On page “x” of the preface, DuBois explains:
“ . . . In condensing 150 large volumes of testimony within one average-size book, a great deal of material has necessarily been eliminated. Nevertheless, I believe that every significant aspect of this historic criminal trial has been brought to the attention of the reader. . . .”
DuBois relates how “anti-Communism” was used to mask and exonerate the I.G. defendants who are the focal point of the book. On page 355, DuBois writes:
“ . . . Yet the two judges accepted the fiction that Farben was the simple prototype of ‘Western Capitalism.’ By implication, this placed the Ter Meers and Schmitzes alongside the stockholders and directors of many international firms whose policies sometimes stood out clearly against war. . . . This commercial stereotype reached its greatest exaggeration in the case of Max Ilgner. The Tribunal rewrote into innocence even the aggressive deeds he admitted, raising th...
One cannot understand the history of the 20th century without understanding the role played in world events of the time by the I.G. Farben company, the chemical cartel that grew out of the German dyestuffs industry. Comprising some of the most important individual companies in the history of industrial capitalism, the firm has dominated the dyestuffs, chemical and pharmaceutical industries before and during World War II. The companies that grew out of I.G.’s official dissolution after the war—Bayer, Hoechst, BASF, and Agfa continued to be decisive in world markets. Among the many products developed by I.G. or its member companies are aspirin, heroin, Novocain, methadone (originally named Dolophine in honor of Adolph Hitler) and Zyklon B (the poison gas used in the extermination centers of World War II.)
Both the Ambruster and DuBois texts set forth the international scope and economic impact of the company, its role as the spine of the industrial war-making economy of the Third Reich and the firm’s elevation of Hitler to his position of power. As one observer noted, “Hitler was Farben and Farben was Hitler.” Much of the impact that the company wielded derived from its international dominance of the chemical, rubber, petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries through its cartel arrangements with partner firms in other countries. Farben’s foreign counterparts had much to do with letting the company and its executives—many of them war criminals of the first order—off the hook after World War II.
Farben’s cartel partners abroad constituted an inventory of the wealthiest and most powerful corporations in the world. In the United States, the major firms with which Farben did business included: Du Pont, the Standard Oil companies, General Motors, Ford Motor Company, Union Carbide, Dow Chemical and Texaco. In turn, these corporate giants wielded controlling political influence in the United States through the elected and appointed officials in their sway. Attempts at reducing Farben’s influence in the United States before and during World War II, as well as efforts at holding the company and its top executives to account for their crimes after the war were neutralized by the cartel’s corporate hirelings. Many of names of the combatants on both sides are important and, to older and better-educated readers, familiar. Farben exerted a profound influence in other countries as well.
Behind the actions of many world figures prominent in the mid-20th century, we can observe the effects of their relationship to I.G. As discussed in The Nazis Go Underground, Neville Chamberlain was a major stockholder in Imperial Chemicals, I.G.’s major cartel partner in the United Kingdom. Chamberlain’s “weakness” in the Munich summit with Hitler assumes a different light when evaluated against his holdings in Imperial. In Falange, Alan Chase describes Wilhelm von Faupel, the prime mover behind the establishment of the Spanish Falange and its international component, the Falange Exterior. Faupel derived much of his considerable influence within the Third Reich from his status as an “I.G. General.”
In The Devil’s Chemists, DuBois details the war crimes trials of key I.G. personnel and, in so doing, illustrates the pernicious nature of the cartel system Farben embodied and successfully, ruthlessly exploited. On page “x” of the preface, DuBois explains:
“ . . . In condensing 150 large volumes of testimony within one average-size book, a great deal of material has necessarily been eliminated. Nevertheless, I believe that every significant aspect of this historic criminal trial has been brought to the attention of the reader. . . .”
DuBois relates how “anti-Communism” was used to mask and exonerate the I.G. defendants who are the focal point of the book. On page 355, DuBois writes:
“ . . . Yet the two judges accepted the fiction that Farben was the simple prototype of ‘Western Capitalism.’ By implication, this placed the Ter Meers and Schmitzes alongside the stockholders and directors of many international firms whose policies sometimes stood out clearly against war. . . . This commercial stereotype reached its greatest exaggeration in the case of Max Ilgner. The Tribunal rewrote into innocence even the aggressive deeds he admitted, raising th...
347 pages, Unknown Binding
Published January 1, 1952
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January 8, 2019
Account of the trial of the I.G. Farben executives written by the head prosecutor. Shocking and frustrating.
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