From Cooperation to Complicity: Degussa in the Third Reich

by Peter Hayes

The Degussa corporation played a pivotal role in the processing of plundered precious metals in Nazi-occupied Europe and controlled the production and distribution of Zyklon B, the infamous pesticide used to gas the inmates of Auschwitz and Majdanek concentration camps, during the Third Reich. Peter Hayes traces the extent of the corporation's involvement in these and other Nazi war crimes, including the Aryanization of Jewish-owned property and the exploitation of forced labor, and delineates the motivations for such conduct.

Genres: History, Holocaust

394 pages, Hardcover

First published September 20, 2004

About the author

Peter F. Hayes is professor emeritus of history at the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University, and chair of the Academic Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Specializing in the Holocaust, genocide and the history of modern Germany, Hayes is the author or editor of 10 books, including Industry and Ideology: IG Farben in the Nazi Era (1987), a prize-winning study of the IG Farben corporation. He has been described as the leading scholar of the historiography of industry in Nazi Germany.

Reviews

[Phillip Tigue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Serious scholarly approach to the producer of Zyklon B (the chemical used at Auschwitz). Some very interesting results from the author's research. Functionalist. Exhaustive business history.