CHAPTER TWO
The Empire of I.G. Farben
Farben was Hitler and Hitler was Farben. (Senator Homer T. Bone to Senate Committee on Military Affairs, June 4, 1943.)
On the eve of World War II the German chemical complex of I.G. Farben was the largest chemical manufacturing enterprise in the world, with extraordinary political and economic power and influence within the Hitlerian Nazi state. I. G. has been aptly described as "a state within a state."
The Farben
cartel dated from 1925, when organizing genius Hermann Schmitz (with Wall
Street financial assistance) created the super-giant chemical enterprise out of
six already giant German chemical companies — Badische Anilin, Bayer, Agfa, Hoechst,
Weiler-ter-Meer, and Griesheim-Elektron. These companies were merged to become
Inter-nationale Gesellschaft Farbenindustrie A.G. — or I.G. Farben for short.
Twenty years later the same Hermann Schmitz was put on trial at Nuremburg for
war crimes committed by the I. G. cartel. Other I. G. Farben directors were
placed on trial but the American affiliates of I. G. Farben and the American
directors of I. G. itself were quietly forgotten; the truth was buried in the
archives.
It is these
U.S. connections in Wall Street that concern us. Without the capital supplied
by Wall Street, there would have been no I. G. Farben in the first place and
almost certainly no Adolf Hitler and World War II.
German bankers
on the Farben Aufsichsrat (the
supervisory Board of Directors)1 in the late
1920s included the Hamburg banker Max War-burg, whose brother Paul Warburg was
a founder of the Federal Reserve System in the United States. Not
coincidentally, Paul Warburg was also on the board of American I. G., Farben's
wholly owned U.S. subsidiary. In addition to Max Warburg and Hermann Schmitz,
the guiding hand in the creation of the Farben empire, the early Farben Vorstand included Carl Bosch, Fritz ter
Meer, Kurt Oppenheim and George von Schnitzler.2 All except Max
Warburg were charged as "war criminals" after World War II.
In 1928 the
American holdings of I. G. Farben (i.e., the
Bayer Company, General Aniline Works, Agfa Ansco, and Winthrop Chemical
Company) were organized into a Swiss holding company, i. G. Chemic
(Inter-nationale Gesellschaft fur Chemisehe Unternehmungen A. G.), controlled
by I. G. Farben in Germany. In the following year these American firms merged
to become American I. G. Chemical Corporation, later renamed General Aniline
& Film. Hermann Schmitz, the organizer of I. G. Farben in 1925, became a
prominent early Nazi and supporter of Hitler, as well as chairman of the Swiss
I. G. Chemic and president of American I. G. The Farben complex both in Germany
and the United States then developed into an integral part of the formation and
operation of the Nazi state machine, the Wehrmacht and the S.S.
I. G. Farben is
of peculiar interest in the formation of the Nazi state because Farben
directors materially helped. Hitler and the Nazis to power in 1933. We have
photographic evidence (see page 60) that I.G. Farben contributed 400,000 RM to
Hitler's political "slush fund." It was this secret fund which
financed the Nazi seizure of control in March 1933. Many years earlier Farben
had obtained Wall Street funds for the 1925 cartelization and expansion in
Germany and $30 million for American I. G. in 1929, and had Wall Street
directors on the Farben board. It has to be noted that these funds were raised
and directors appointed years before Hitler was promoted as the German
dictator.
Qualified
observers have argued that Germany could not have gone to war in 1939 without
I. G. Farben. Between 1927 and the beginning of World War II, I.G. Farben
doubled in size, an expansion made possible in great part by American technical
assistance and by American bond issues, such as the one for $30 million offered
by National City Bank. By 1939 I. G. acquired a participation and managerial
influence in some 380 other German firms and over 500 foreign firms. The Farben
empire owned its own coal mines, its own electric power plants, iron and steel
units, banks, research units, and numerous commercial enterprises. There were
over 2,000 cartel agreements between I. G. and foreign firms — including
Standard Oil of New Jersey, DuPont, Alcoa, Dow Chemical, and others in the
United States, The full story of I,G, Farben and its world-wide activities
before World War II can never be known, as key German records were destroyed in
1945 in anticipation of Allied victory. However, one post-war investigation by
the U.S. War Department concluded that:
Without I.G.'s
immense productive facilities, its intense research, and vast international
affiliations, Germany's prosecution of the war would have been unthinkable and
impossible; Farben not only directed its energies toward arming Germany, but
concentrated on weakening her intended victims, and this double-barreled
attempt to expand the German industrial potential for war and to restrict that
of the rest of the world was not conceived and executed "in the normal
course of business." The proof is overwhelming that I. G. Farben officials
had full prior knowledge of Germany's plan for world conquest and of each
specific aggressive act later undertaken ....3
Directors of
Farben firms (i.e., the "I. G.
Farben officials" referred to in the investigation) included not only
Germans but also prominent American financiers. This 1945 U.S. War Department
report concluded that I.G.'s assignment from Hitler in the prewar period was to
make Germany self-sufficient in rubber, gasoline, lubricating oils, magnesium,
fibers, tanning agents, fats, and explosives. To fulfill this critical
assignment, vast sums were spent by I.G. on processes to extract these war
materials from indigenous German raw materials - in particular the plentiful
German coal resources. Where these processes could not be developed in Germany
,they were acquired from abroad under cartel arrangements. For example, the
process for iso-octane, essential for aviation fuels, was obtained from the
United States,
... in fact
entirely [from] the Americans and has become known to us in detail in its
separate stages through our agreements with them [Standard Oil of New Jersey]
and is being used very extensively by us.4
The process for
manufacturing tetra-ethyl lead? essential for aviation gasoline, was obtained
by I. G. Farben from the United States, and in 1939 I.G. was sold $20 million
of high-grade aviation gasoline by Standard Oil of New Jersey. Even before
Germany manufactured tetra-ethyl lead by the American process it was able to
"borrow" 500 tons from the Ethyl Corporation. This loan of vital
tetra-ethyl lead was not repaid and I.G. forfeited the $1 million security.
Further, I.G. purchased large stocks of magnesium from Dow Chemical for
incendiary bombs and stockpiled explosives, stabilizers, phosphorus, and
cyanides from the outside world.
In 1939, out of
43 major products manufactured by I.G., 28 were of "primary concern"
to the German armed forces. Farben's ultimate control of the German war
economy, acquired during the 1920s and 1930s with Wall Street assistance, can
best be assessed by examining the percentage of German war material output
produced by Farben plants in 1945. Farben at that time produced 100 percent of
German synthetic rubber, 95 percent of German poison gas (including all the
Zyklon B gas used in the concentration camps), 90 percent of German plastics,
88 percent of German magnesium, 84 percent of German explosives, 70 percent of
German gunpowder, 46 percent of German high octane (aviation) gasoline, and 33
percent of German synthetic gasoline.5 (See Chart 2-1
and Table 2-1.)
|
Table
2-1: German Army (Wehrmacht) Dependence on I.G. Farben Production (1943):
|
||
|
Product
|
Total
German Production
|
Percent
Produced by
I.G. Farben |
|
Synthetic Rubber
|
118,600
tons
|
100
|
|
Methanol
|
251,000
tons
|
100
|
|
Lubricating Oil
|
60,000
tons
|
100
|
|
Dyestuffs
|
31,670
tons
|
98
|
|
Poison Gas
|
—
|
95
|
|
Nickel
|
2,000
tons
|
95
|
|
Plastics
|
57,000
tons
|
90
|
|
Magnesium
|
27,400
tons
|
88
|
|
Explosives
|
221,000
tons
|
84
|
|
Gunpowder
|
210,000
tons
|
70
|
|
High Octane (Aviation)
Gasoline |
650,000
tons
|
46
|
|
Sulfuric Acid
|
707,000 tons
|
35
|
|
|
|
|
Dr. von
Schnitzler, of the I.G. Farben Aufsichsrat,
made the following pertinent statement in 1943:
It is no
exaggeration to say that without the services of German chemistry performed
under the Four Year Plan the prosecution of modern war would have been
unthinkable.6
Unfortunately,
when we probe the technical origins of the more important of these military
materials — quite apart from financial Support for Hitler — we find links to
American industry and to American businessmen. There were numerous Farben
arrangements with American firms, including cartel marketing arrangements,
patent agreements, and technical exchanges as exemplified in the Standard
Oil-Ethyl technology transfers mentioned above. These arrangements were used by
I.G. to advance Nazi policy abroad, to collect strategic information, and to
consolidate a world-wide chemical cartel.
One of the more
horrifying aspects of I.G. Farben's cartel was the invention, production, and
distribution of the Zyklon B gas, used in Nazi concentration camps. Zyklon B
was pure Prussic acid, a lethal poison produced by I.G. Farben Leverkusen and
sold from the Bayer sales office through Degesch, an independent license
holder. Sales of Zyklon B amounted to almost three-quarters of Degesch
business; enough gas to kill 200 million humans was produced and sold by I.G.
Farben. The Kilgore Committee report of 1942 makes it clear that the I.G.
Farben directors had precise knowledge of the Nazi concentration camps and the
use of I.G. chemicals. This prior knowledge becomes significant when we later
consider the role of the American directors in I.G.'s American subsidiary. The
1945 interrogation of I.G. Farben director yon Schnitzler reads:
Q. What did you
do when they told you that I.G. chemicals was [sic] being used to kill, to murder people held in concentration
camps?
A. I was
horrified.
Q. Did you do
anything about it?
A. I kept it
for me [to myself] because it was too terrible .... I asked Muller-Cunradi is
it known to you and Ambros and other directors in Auschwitz that the gases and
chemicals are being used to murder people.
Q. What did he
say?
A. Yes: it is
known to all I.G. directors in Auschwitz.7
There was no
attempt by I.G. Farben to halt production of the gases — a rather ineffective
way for von Schnitzler to express any concern for human life, "because it
was too terrible."
The Berlin N.W.
7 office of I.G. Farben was the key Nazi overseas espionage center. The unit
operated under Farben director Max Ilgner, nephew of I.G. Farben president
Hermann Schmitz. Max Ilgner and Hermann Schmitz were on the board of American
I.G., with fellow directors Henry Ford of Ford Motor Company, Paul Warburg of
Bank of Manhattan, and Charles E. Mitchell of the Federal Reserve Bank of New
York.
The
so-called statistics department of N.W. 7 (known as VOW1) was created in 1929
and evolved into the economic intelligence arm of the Wehrmacht.
At the outbreak
of war in 1939 VOWI employees were ordered into the Wehrmacht but in fact
continued to perform the same work as when nominally under I.G. Farben. One of
the more prominent of these Farben intelligence workers in N.W. 7 was Prince
Bernhard of the Netherlands, who joined Farben in the early 1930s after
completion of an 18-month period of service in the black-uniformed S.S.8
The U.S. arm of
the VOWI intelligence network was Chemnyco, Inc. According to the War
Department,
Utilizing
normal business contacts Chemnyco was able to transmit to Germany tremendous
amounts of material ranging from photographs and blueprints to detailed descriptions
of whole industrial plants.9
Chemnyco's vice
president in New York was Rudolph Ilgner, an American citizen and brother of
American I, G. Farben director Max Ilgner. In brief, Farben operated VOWI, the
Nazi foreign intelligence operation, before World War II and the VOWI operation
was associated with prominent members of the Wall Street Establishment through
American I.G. and Chemnyco.
The U.S. War
Department also accused I.G. Farben and its American associates of spearheading
Nazi psychological and economic warfare programs through dissemination of
propaganda via Farben agents abroad, and of providing foreign exchange for this
Nazi propaganda. Farben's cartel arrangements promoted Nazi economic warfare —
the outstanding example being the voluntary Standard Oil of New Jersey
restriction on development of synthetic rubber in the United States at the
behest of I. G. Farben. As the War Department report puts it:
The story in
short is that because of Standard Oil's determination to maintain an absolute
monopoly of synthetic rubber developments in the United States, it fully
accomplished I.G.'s purpose of preventing United States production by
dissuading American rubber companies from undertaking independent research in
developing synthetic rubber processes.10
In 1945 Dr.
Oskar Loehr, deputy head of the I.G. "Tea Buro," confirmed that I. G.
Farben and Standard Oil of New Jersey operated a "preconceived plan"
to suppress development of the synthetic rubber industry in the United States,
to the advantage of the German Wehrmacht and to the disadvantage of the United
States in World War II.
Dr. Loehr's
testimony reads (in part) as follows:
Q. Is it true
that while the delay in divulging the buna [synthetic rubber] processes to
American rubber companies was taking place, Chemnyco and Jasco were in the
meantime keeping I.G. well informed in regard to synthetic rubber development
in the U.S.?
A. Yes.
Q. So that at
all times I.G. was fully aware of the state of the development of the American
synthetic rubber industry?
A. Yes.
Q. Were you
present at the Hague meeting when Mr. Howard [of Standard Oil] went there in
1939?
A. No.
Q. Who was
present?
A. Mr. Ringer,
who was accompanied by Dr. Brown of Ludwigshafen. Did they tell you about the
negotiations?
A. Yes, as far
as they were on the buna part of it.
Q. Is it true
that Mr. Howard told I.G. at this meeting that the developments in the U.S. had
reached such a stage that it would no longer be possible for him to keep the
information in regard to the buna processes from the American companies?
A. Mr. Ringer
reported it.
Q. Was it at
that meeting that for the first time Mr. Howard told I.G. the American rubber
companies might have to be informed of the processes and he assured I.G. that
Standard Oil would control the synthetic rubber industry in the U.S.? Is that
right?
A. That is
right. That is the knowledge I got through Mr. Ringer.
Q. So that in
all these arrangements since the beginning of the development of the synthetic
rubber industry the suppression of the synthetic rubber industry in the U.S.
was part of a preconceived plan between I.G. on the one hand and Mr. Howard of
Standard Oil on the other?
A. That is a
conclusion that must be drawn from the previous facts.11
I.G. Farben was
pre-war Germany's largest earner of foreign exchange, and this foreign exchange
enabled Germany to purchase strategic raw materials, military equipment, and
technical processes, and to finance its overseas programs of espionage,
propaganda, and varied military and political activities preceding World War
II. Acting on behalf of the Nazi state, Farben broadened its own horizon to a
world scale which maintained close relations with the Nazi regime and the
Wehrmacht. A liaison office, the Vermittlungsstelle
W, was established to maintain communications between I.G. Farben and the
German Ministry of War:
The aim of this
work is the building up o.[ a tight organ izatton for armament in the I.G.
which could be inserted without difficulty in the existing organization of the
I.G. and the individual plants. In the case of war, I.G. will be treated by the
authorities concerned with armament questions as one big plant which, in its
task for the armament, as far as it is possible to do so from the technical
point of view, will regulate itself without any organizational influence from
outside (the work in this direction was in principle agreed upon with the
Ministry of War Wehrwirtschaftsant) and from this office with the Ministry of
Economy. To the field of the work of the Vermittlungsstelle W belongs, besides
the organizational set-up and long-range planning, the continuous collaboration
with regard to the armament and technical questions with the authorities of the
Reich and with the plants of the I.G.12
Unfortunately
the files of the Vermittlungsstelle offices
were destroyed prior to the end of the war, although it is known from other
sources that from 1934 onwards a complex network of transactions evolved
between I.G. and the Wehrmacht. In 1934 I. G. Farben began to mobilize for war,
and each I.G. plant prepared its war production plans and submitted the plans
to the Ministries of War and Economics. By 1935-6 war games were being held at
I.G. Farben plants and wartime technical procedures rehearsed.13 These
war games were described by Dr. Struss, head of the Secretariat of I.G.'s
Technical Committee:
It is true that
since 1934 or 1935, soon after the establishment of the Vermittlungsstelle W in
the different works, theoretical war plant games had been arranged to examine
how the effect of bombing on certain factories would materialize. It was
particularly taken into consideration what would happen if 100- or 500-kilogram
bombs would fall on a certain factory and what would be the result of it. It is
also right that the word Kriegsspiele was used for it.
The
Kriegsspiele were prepared by Mr. Ritter and Dr. Eckell, later on partly by Dr.
yon Brunning by personal order on Dr. Krauch's own initiative or by order of
the Air Force, it is not known to me. The tasks were partly given by the
Vermittlung-sstelle W and partly by officers of the Air Force. A number of
officers of all groups of the Wehrmacht (Navy, Air Force, and Army)
participated in these Kriegsspiele.
The places
which were hit by bombs were marked in a map of the plant so that it could be
ascertained which parts of the plant were damaged, for example a gas meter or
an important pipe line. As soon as the raid finished, the management of the
plant ascertained the damages and reported which part of the plant had to stop
working; they further reported what time would be required in order to repair
the damages. In a following meeting the consequences of the Kriegsspiele were
described and it was ascertained that in the case of Leuna [plant] the damages
involved were considerably high; especially it was found out that alterations
of the pipe lines were to be made at considerable cost.14
Consequently,
throughout the 1930s I. G. Farben did more than just comply with orders from
the Nazi regime. Farben was an initiator and operator for the Nazi plans for
world conquest. Farben acted as a research and intelligence organization for
the German Army and voluntarily initiated Wehrmacht projects. In fact the Army
only rarely had to approach Farben; it is estimated that about 40 to 50 percent
of Farben projects for the Army were initiated by Farben itself. In brief, in
the words of Dr, von Schnitzler:
Thus, in acting
as it had done, I.G. contracted a great responsibility and constituted a
substantial aid in the chemical domain and decisive help to Hitler's foreign
policy, which led to war and to the ruin of Germany. Thus, I must conclude that
I.G. is largely responsible for Hitler's policy,
This miserable
picture of pre-war military preparation was known abroad and had to be sold —
or disguised — to the American public in order to facilitate Wall Street
fund-raising and technical assistance on behalf of I. G. Farben in the United
States. A prominent New York public relations firm was chosen for the job of
selling the I.G. Farben combine to America. The most notable public relations
firm in the late 1920s and 1930s was Ivy Lee & T.J. Ross of New York. Ivy
Lee had previously undertaken a public relations campaign for the Rockefellers,
to spruce up the Rockefeller name among the American public. The firm had also
produced a syncophantic book entitled USSR,
undertaking the same clean-up task for the Soviet Union — even while Soviet
labor camps were in full blast in the late 20s and early 30s.
From 1929
onwards Ivy Lee became public relations counsel for I. G. Farben in the United
States. In 1934 Ivy Lee presented testimony to the House Un-American Activities
Committee on this work for Farben.15 Lee
testified that I.G. Farben was affiliated with the American Farben firm and
"The American I.G. is a holding company with directors such people as
Edsel Ford, Walter Teagle, one of the officers of the City Bank .... " Lee
explained that he was paid $25,000 per year under a contract made with Max
Ilgner of I.G. Farben. His job was to counter criticism levelled at I.G. Farben
within the United States. The advice given by Ivy Lee to Farben on this problem
was acceptable enough:
In the first
place, I have told them that they could never in the world get the American
people reconciled to their treatment of the Jews: that that was just foreign to
the American mentality and could never be justified in the American public
opinion, and there was no use trying.
In the second
place, anything that savored of Nazi propaganda in this country was a mistake
and ought not to be under. taken. Our people regard it as meddling with
American affairs, and it was bad business.16
The initial
payment of $4,500 to Ivy Lee under this contract was made by Hermann Schmitz,
chairman of I.G. Farben in Germany. It was deposited in the New York Trust
Company under the name of I. G. Chemic (or the "Swiss I.G.," as Ivy
Lee termed it). However, the second and major payment of $14,450 was made by
William von Rath of the American I.G. and also deposited by Ivy Lee in New York
Trust Company, for the credit of his personal account. (The firm account was at
the Chase Bank.) This point about the origin of the funds is 'important when we
consider the identity of directors of American I.G., because payment by
American I.G. meant that the bulk of the Nazi propaganda funds were not of
German origin. They were American funds
earned in the U.S. and under control of American directors, although used for
Nazi propaganda in the United States.
In other words,
most of the Nazi propaganda funds handled by Ivy Lee were not imported from Germany.
The use to
which these American funds were put was brought out under questioning by the
House Un-American Activities Committee:
Mr. DICKSTEIN.
As I understand you, you testified that you received no propaganda at all, and
that you had nothing to do with the distribution of propaganda in this country?
Mr. LEE. I did
not testify I received none Mr. Dickstein.
Mr. DICKSTEIN.
I will eliminate that part of the question, then.
Mr. LEE. I
testified that I disseminated none whatever.
Mr. DICKSTEIN.
Have you received or has your firm received any propaganda literature from
Germany at any time?
Mr. LEE. Yes,
sir.
Mr. DICKSTEIN.
And when was that?
Mr. LEE. Oh, we
have received — it is a question of what you call propaganda. We have received
an immense amount of literature.
Mr. DICKSTEIN.
You do not know what that literature was and what it contained?
Mr. LEE. We
have received books and pamphlets and newspaper clippings and documents, world
without end.
Mr. DICKSTEIN.
I assume someone in your office would go over them and see what they were?
Mr. LEE. Yes,
sir.
Mr. DICKSTEIN.
And then after you found out what they were, I assume you kept copies of them?
Mr. LEE. In
some cases, yes: and in some, no. A great many of them, of course, were in
German, and I had what my son sent me. He said they were interesting and
significant, and those I had translated or excerpts of them made.17
Finally, Ivy
Lee employed Burnham Carter to study American new paper reports on Germany and
prepare suitable pro-Nazi replies. It should be noted that this German
literature was not Farben literature, it was official Hitler literature:
Mr. DICKSTEIN.
In other words, you receive this material that deals with German conditions
today: You examine it and you advise them. It has nothing to do with the German
Government, although the material, the literature, is official literature of
the Hitler regime. That is correct, is it not?
Mr. LEE. Well,
a good deal of the literature was not official.
Mr. DICKSTEIN.
It was not I.G. literature, was it?
Mr. LEE. No;
I.G. sent it to me.
Mr. DICKSTEIN.
Can you show us one scrap of paper that came in here that had anything to do
with the I.G.?
Mr. LEE. Oh,
yes. They issue a good deal of literature. But I do not want to beg the
question. There is no question whatever that under their authority I have
received an immense amount of material that came from official and unofficial
sources.
Mr. DICKSTEIN.
Exactly. In other words, the material that was sent here by the I.G. was
material spread — we would call it propaganda t by authority of the German
Government. But the distinction that you make in your statement is, as I take
it, that the German Government did not send it to you directly; that it was
sent to you by the I.G.
Mr. LEE. Right.
Mr. DICKSTEIN.
And it had nothing to do with their business relations just now.
Mr. LEE. That
is correct.
Who were the
prominent Wall Street establishment financiers who directed the activities of
American I.G., the I.G. Farben affiliate in the United States promoting Nazi
propaganda?
American I.G.
Farben directors included some of the more prominent members of Wall Street. German
interests re-entered the United States after World War I, and successfully
overcame barriers designed to keep I.G. out of the American market. Neither
seizure of German patents, establishment of the Chemical Foundation, nor high
tariff walls were a major problem.
By 1925,
General Dyestuff Corporation was established as the exclusive selling agent for
products manufactured by Gasselli Dyestuff (renamed General Aniline Works,
Inc., in 1929) and imported from Germany. The stock of General Aniline Works was
transferred in 1929 to American I.G. Chemical Corporation and later in 1939 to
General Aniline & Film Corporation, into which American I.G. and General
Aniline Works were merged. American I.G. and its successor, General Aniline
& Film, is the unit through which control of I.G.'s enterprises in the U.S.
was maintained. The stock authorization of American I.G. was 3,000,000 common A
shares and
3,000,000 common B shares. In return for stock interests in General Aniline
Works and Agfa-Ansco Corporation, I.G. Farben in Germany received all the B
shares and 400,000 A shares. Thirty million dollars of convertible bonds were
sold to the American public and guaranteed as to principal and interest by the
German I.G. Farben, which received an option to purchase an additional
1,000,000 A shares.
|
Table 2-2: The Directors of American I.G.
at 1930:
|
||
|
American
I,G.
Director |
Citizenship
|
Other
Major Associations
|
|
Carl BOSCH
|
German
|
FORD MOTOR CO. A-G
|
|
Edsel B. FORD
|
U.S.
|
FORD MOTOR CO. DETROIT
|
|
Max ILGNER
|
German
|
Directed I.G. FARBEN N.W.7
(INTELLIGENCE) office. Guilty at Nuremberg War Crimes Trials.
|
|
F. Ter MEER
|
German
|
Guilty at Nuremberg War Crimes Trials
|
|
H.A. METZ
|
U.S.
|
Director of I.G. Farben Germany and BANK OF
MANHATTAN (U.S.)
|
|
C.E. MITCHELL
|
U.S.
|
Director of FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF N.Y. and
NATIONAL CITY BANK
|
|
Herman SCHMITZ
|
German
|
On boards of I.G. Farben (President)
(Germany) Deutsche Bank (Germany) and BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS.
Guilty at Nuremberg War Crimes Trials.
|
|
Walter TEAGLE
|
U.S.
|
Director FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF NEW YORK and
STANDARD OIL OF NEW JERSEY
|
|
W.H. yon RATH
|
Naturalized
|
Director of GERMAN GENERAL U.S. ELECTRIC
(A.E.G.)
|
|
Paul M. WARBURG
|
U.S.
|
First member of the FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF
NEW YORK and BANK OF MANHATTAN
|
|
W.E. WEISS
|
U.S.
|
Sterling Products
|
|
Source: Moody's Manual of Investments; 1930, p. 2149. |
||
|
Note:
Walter DUISBERG (U.S.), W. GRIEF (U.S.), and
Adolf KUTTROFF (U.S.) were also Directors of American I.G. Farben at this
period.
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The management of American I.G. (later General Aniline) was dominated by I.G. or former I.G. officials. (See Table 9..9..) Hermann Schmitz served as president from 1929 to 1936 and was then succeeded by his brother, Dietrich A. Schmitz, a naturalized American citizen, until 1941. Hermann Schmitz, who was also a director of the bank for International Settlements, the "apex" of the international financial control system. He remained as chairman of the board of directors from 1936 to 1939.
The original
board of directors included nine members who were, or had been, members o[ the
board of I.G. Farben in Germany (Hermann Schmitz, carl Bosch, Max Ilgner, Fritz
ter Meer, and Wilfred Grief), or had been previously employed by I.G. Farben in
Germany (Walter Duisberg, Adolph Kuttroff, W.H. yon Rath, Herman A. Metz).
Herman A. Metz was an American citizen, a staunch Democrat in politics and a
former comptroller of the City of New York. A tenth, W.E. Weiss, had been under
contract to I.G.
Directors of
American I.G. were not only prominent in Wall Street and American industry but
more significantly were drawn from a few highly influential institutions:
The remaining
four members of the American I.G. board were prominent American citizens and members
of the Wall Street financial elite: C.E. Mitchell, chairman of National City
Bank and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Edsel B. Ford, president of Ford
Motor Company; W.C. Teagle, another director of Standard Oil of New Jersey;
and, Paul Warburg, first member of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and
chairman of the Bank of Manhattan Company.
Directors of
American I.G. were not only prominent in Wall Street and American industry but
more significantly were drawn from a few highly influential institutions. (See
chart above.)
Between 1929
and 1939 there were changes in the make-up of the board of American I.G. The
number of directors varied from time to time, although a majority always had
I.G. backgrounds or connections, and the board never had less than four
American directors. In 1939 — presumably looking ahead to World War II — an
effort was made to give the board a more American complexion, but despite the
resignation of Hermann Schmitz, Carl Bosch, and Walter Duisberg, and the
appointment of seven new directors, seven members still belonged to the I.G.
group. This I.G. predominance increased during 1940 and 1941 as American
directors, including Edsel Ford, realized the political unhealthiness of I.G.
and resigned.
Several basic
observations can be made from this evidence. First, the board of American I.G.
had three directors from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the most
influential of the various Federal Reserve Banks. American I.G. also had
interlocks with Standard Oil of New Jersey, Ford Motor Company, Bank of
Manhattan (later to become the Chase Manhattan), and A.E.G. (German General
Electric). Second, three members of the board of this American I.G. were found
guilty at Nuremburg War Crimes Trials. These were the German, not the American,
members. Among these Germans was Max Ilgner, director of the I.G. Farben N.W. 7
office in Berlin, i.e., the Nazi
pre-war intelligence office. If the directors of a corporation are collectively
responsible for the activities of the corporation, then the American directors
should also have been placed on trial at Nuremburg, along with the German
directors — that is, if the purpose of the trials was to determine war guilt.
Of course, if the purpose of the trials had been to divert attention away from
the U.S. involvement in Hitler's rise to power, they succeeded very well in
such an objective.
Footnotes
1German firms have
a two-tier board of directors. The Aufsichsrat
concerns itself with overall supervision, including financial policy, while
the Vorstand is concerned with
day-to-day management.
2Taken from Der Farben-Konzern 1928, (Hoppenstedt,
Berlin: I928), pp. 4-5.
4Ibid, p. 945.
6Ibid, p. 947.
7Elimination of German Resources.
8Bernhard is today
better known for his role as chairman of the secretive, so-called Bilderberger
meetings. See U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Special Committee on
Un-American Activities, Investigation of
Nazi Propaganda Activities and Investigation of Certain other Propaganda
Activities. 73rd Congress, 2nd Session, Hearings No. 73-DC-4. (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1934), Volume VIII, p. 7525.
9Ibid p. 949.
10Ibid p. 952.
11Ibid p. 1293.
12Ibid p. 954.
13Ibid p. 954.
14Ibid, pp. 954-5.
15U.S. Congress.
House of Representatives, Special Committee on Un-American Activities, Investigation of Nazi Propaganda Activities
and Investigation of Certain Other Propaganda Activities, op. cit.
16Ibid, p.
178.
17Ibid, p. 183.
18Ibid, p. 188.
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