Hell's Cartel

by Diarmuid Jeffreys

  “As far as the mechanics”: As it turned out, only two trials in the NMT series (the Medical and Milch cases) were concluded before the IG Farben case began. Several were shorter than the IG trial and ran for only a few months, some started and finished later, and others were not in session all the time, but at one point between October and November 1947 Taylor had concurrent prosecutorial responsibility for seven major war crimes trials. For DuBois biographical details, see his The Devil’s Chemists; and Borkin, The Crime. Of those lawyers who had assisted at the earlier IMT, Drexel Sprecher was the most prominent. See Sprecher, Inside the Nuremberg Trial.

  “The team encountered”: For the early days of the investigation and the difficulties of gathering documents, see DuBois’s account in The Devil’s Chemists. I was also informed by the recollections of Belle Mayer—or, as she became after her posttrial marriage to William Zeck, another of the Farben prosecution team, Belle Mayer Zeck. (As an attorney working in the U.S. Treasury during the war, Belle Mayer had helped its assistant general counsel Bernard Bernstein during one of the first postwar investigations into IG Farben. See Elimination of German Resources for War.)

  “For several months”: DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists.

  “The lawyer hurried down”: Ibid. Also recollections of Belle Mayer Zeck.

  “His tail now up”: For code words and destruction, see NMT, vol. 7, p. 446, and PRO FO 312 81141.

  “‘When, on 20 February’”: DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists.

  “Not every trail”: Ibid., Belle Mayer Zeck.

  “Paper evidence wasn’t”: Avey and other POWs were approached by Morris Amchan, one of the U.S. prosecution team, via the War Office in London (conversations with Avey and John Melville, 2005). The depositions and affidavits can all be seen in the Record Group 238 T301 section of the U.S. National Archives.

  “It was a good”: For DuBois’s concerns, see his The Devil’s Chemists.

  “Much would center”: For problems with early interrogations, see Taylor, Final Report to the Secretary of the Army. For influence of defense lawyers, contrast Krauch’s statements about Germany’s war intentions made (a) to interrogators in September 1945 (see Elimination of German Resources for War, exhibit 33, interrogation of Dr. Krauch, Sept. 27, 1945) and (b) in testimony on the same subject at the trial (NMT, vol. 7, p. 1130).

  “‘The IG took on’”: NMT, vol.7, p. 1514.

  “But von Schnitzler”: Von Schnitzler’s earliest and most damning statements were made between May and September 1945 to investigators based in an old Reichsbank building in Frankfurt, to which the baron was brought daily from his cell at the city’s Preungesheim prison. Subsequently, owing to pressure on cell space, he was moved around more frequently—sometimes held under house arrest at Oberursel, at other times in various jails in the Frankfurt region. With pressured investigators taking hundreds of witness statements and conducting dozens of concurrent interrogations, von Schnitzler was often kept waiting in custody with former Vorstand colleagues, such as Fritz ter Meer. For the effect this had on him, see NMT, vol 7, p. 1502.

  “As a result”: Ibid.

  “The news left many”: DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists.

  “On May 4, 1947”: All details and quotations taken from the indictment, U.S. v. Carl Krauch et al., in NMT, vol. 7, pp. 10–80.

  “But he barely”: For George A. Dondero quotations, see Congressional Record, July 9, 1947, p. 8564.

  “Having never been”: Ibid., DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists.

  “The timing of the attack”: For judge’s background and DuBois response to Stars and Stripes incident, see DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists; and Borkin, The Crime.

  “DuBois spent”: DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists; Belle Mayer Zeck; and Taylor, Final Report to the Secretary of the Army.

  15. Trial

  “There is more”: Telford Taylor’s quotations from NMT, vol. 7, pp. 99–116. Belle Mayer quotation from DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists.

  “To illustrate this argument”: For example of charts, see NI 10042, “organization chart of the IG Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft.”

  “‘Mr. Prosecutor’”: DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists, p. 82.

  “A particular low point”: For the broad sweep of the case, see NMT, vol. 7, pp. 745–1209. For examples of von Schnitzler’s pretrial statements, see NMT, vol. 7, p. 1514; von Schnitzler affidavits in NI 5197, NI 5193, NI 5196, and NI 5467; and Elimination of German Resources for War, exhibit 36, statement of von Schnitzler, Aug. 30, 1945. For Curtis Shake on von Schnitzler, see DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists, p. 78.

  “Meanwhile, away from court”: For Rankin’s remarks, see Congressional Record, Nov. 28, 1947, p. 10938. For judge’s questions about Jews on the prosecution, see DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists, pp. 182, 193. For Drexel Sprecher, see Bower, Blind Eye to Murder. For Mrs. Morris and the wives of defendants, Bower, Blind Eye to Murder; and Belle Mayer.

  “And so the case”: For Morris’s remarks in this and following paragraph, see DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists, 93, 95.

  “Testimony from witnesses”: For Szpilfogel’s testimony, see NMT, mimeographed trial transcript, pp. 2629–61.

  “For the defendants”: “German Industrialists Tribunal,” Times, Dec. 9, 1947; and DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists.

  “Inevitably the defendants”: DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists; and conversation with David Gordon.

  “But twenty-three men”: DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists; and Belle Mayer. For ter Meer, see DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists, p. 85; and NMT, vol. 7, p. 859

  For ter Meer’s absence from prison and meeting with Struss, DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists.

  “Several of the prosecution”: For Minskoff quotations and DuBois’s response, see The Devil’s Chemists, p. 99.

  “The Norwegian”: For Feinberg’s testimony, see NMT, mimeographed trial transcript, pp. 3810–15.

  “Ervin Schulhof”: NMT trial transcript, pp. 3600–11.

  “Leon Staischak”: DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists. p. 224.

  “Then there was”: For Vitek’s testimony, see NMT, trial transcript, pp. 3957–85.

  “British POWs”: NMT trial transcript, pp. 3692–99, 3920–27, 3845–53, and 3815–27.

  “Some of the most compelling”: U.S. National Archives RG 238 T301 2059, 43–44.

  “Even Ernest Strauss”: NMT trial transcript, pp. 13566–615.

  “The complacency”: Conversation with David Gordon.

  “The defense tried its best”: For testimony and cross-examination of Gerhard Dietrich, see NMT trial transcript, pp. 13752–71.

  “When Minskoff”: DuBois The Devil’s Chemists, p. 230.

  For Bütefisch, see NMT, vol. 7, pp. 768f.

  “Some defense tactics”: For Weinberg’s rescue, see NI 13678 and U.S. National Archives RG M892, Schmitz 4/53, affidavit by Rudolf Graf von Spreti. For Ollendorf, see NI 13522 and NMT, vol. 7, pp. 628–29.

  “Toward the end of the trial”: For Mann, see NMT, vol. 8, p. 1164.

  “Probably the most effective”: For Krauch defense, see NMT, vol. 7, p. 719.

  “‘Surely, I thought’”: DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists, p. 338.

  “Three judges”: A railroad car containing dimethyl ether had burst and caused the explosion. See Abelshauser et al., German Industry. For Shake’s remarks, see NMT, vol. 8, p. 1081.

  For the court’s ruling and verdicts on July 29–30, see NMT, vol. 8, pp. 1082–196.

  For sentences, see NMT, vol. 8, p. 1205.

  “When the chief judge”: For Hebert, see NMT, vol. 8, p. 1204.

  “For much of the day”: DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists, p. 339. For Telford Taylor’s evident frustration with the failure of the system, see Taylor, Final Report to the Secretary of the Army.

  “Outside the court”: For Taylor, see News Chronicle (London), Aug. 1, 1948. For Judge Daly’s remarks, see NMT, vol. 9; and NMT, trial transcript, pp. 13231–402.

  “This was little”: For DuBois’s return hom
e, his shipboard meeting with Judge Herbert, and the quotation, see The Devil’s Chemists.

  “Some years later”: Ibid.

  “But Judge Paul Hebert”: For Hebert’s dissenting opinion, see NMT, vol. 8, pp. 1205–325.

  Epilogue

  “Although General Eisenhower”: For rebirth of Bayer, BASF, and Hoechst in 1951, see New York Times, Dec. 27, 1951. For reports on early and sustained recovery, see, e.g., Time, July 7, 1952, and October 17, 1960; Business, February 1970; and Fortune, August 1977.

  “Today that success”: For Bayer today, see www.bayer.com.

  “The BASF Group”: See www.corporate.basf.com.

  “Hoechst is the only one”: See www.sanofi-aventis.com or the archived Hoechst Web site at www.archive.hoechst.com.

  “Not surprisingly”: For the background to Wollheim’s case against IG Farben, see Ferencz, Less Than Slaves.

  “‘The fundamental principles’”: Ibid. See also Wollheim v. IG Farben in Liquidation, Frankfurt District Court, June 10, 1953, file 2/3/0406/51.

  “Wollheim’s victory”: Ferencz, Less Than Slaves.

  “Their answer”: For the successor companies’ position on responsibility and compensation, see Ferencz, Less Than Slaves, and their Web sites, cited above.

  “They may well have”: For defendants’ reactions, or lack of them, see Times, Aug. 3, 1948.

  “He did not have”: For McCloy’s decision to release IG Farben defendants and others, and political consequences, see Bower, Blind Eye to Murder.

  “And so the IG”: The laxity of the regime at Landsberg may be judged from a remark by Fritz von Bülow, one of the convicted defendants in the Krupp trial, who described his time at the prison as “one long, sunlit holiday.” For this quotation and the footnote about Krupp’s release, see Manchester, The Arms of Krupp. Fritz ter Meer’s remark about Americans on his release is quoted in Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, p. 697. For Georg von Schnitzler’s release, see Time, Jan. 2, 1950. For his wife’s reported presence, see News Chronicle, Jan. 8, 1950.

  “The freed men”: Details of the posttrial careers of the IG defendants are drawn from Borkin, The Crime (which relies on Bayer and Hoechst annual reports from the 1950s); Abelshauser et al., German Industry; Fortune, August 1977; Mann and Plummer, The Aspirin Wars; ter Meer, Die IG Farben Industrie; Verg, Plumpe, and Schultheis, Milestones; www.dr-rath-foundation.org/pharmaceutical_business; Stokes, Divide and Prosper: The Heirs of I. G. Farben under Allied Authority; Meinzer, 125 Jahre BASF; and the Web sites of the successor companies, cited above.

  “‘He is a man’”: DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists, p. 356.

  “On February 6, 1959”: See seating plan in BASF UA, W 1/2/8, “Die Herren Mitglieder des Vorstandes der ehemaligen IG Farbenindustrie,” Feb. 6, 1959.

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