Hell's Cartel_IG Farben and the Making of Hitler's War Machine

by Diarmuid Jeffreys

  “‘That the Jewish’”: NI 838, Burth to Küpper.

  “By this time”: For threats to workers, see Piper, Auschwitz Prisoner Labor; and Borkin, The Crime.

  “‘The population at Auschwitz’”: NI 11696, affidavit by Charles Coward.

  “But what of direct”: For destruction of documents (and for footnote), see chapter 14. For visits of IG management to Auschwitz, see NI 14889, Auschwitz weekly reports nos. 70–71, Sept. 21, 1942; NI 15256, Auschwitz weekly reports nos. 76–77, Nov. 15, 1942; NI 7604, affidavit by C. Schneider, April 22, 1947; NI 5168, affidavit by F. Jaehne, May 19, 1947; and Borkin, The Crime. For Dürrfeld’s conversation with Höss, see NI 7183, deposition by R. Höss, Jan. 1, 1947.

  NI 10040, letter from Krauch to Himmler, July 27, 1943.

  “In any event”: NI-5168, affidavit by F. Jaehne, May 29, 1947.

  “‘In a loud voice’”: NMT, trial transcript, pp. 13566–615.

  “Struss said”: For Struss’s conversations with ter Meer and Ambros, see NMT trial transcript, pp. 13566–615. For other Vorstand members, see NI 9811, affidavit by C. Lautenschläger; NI 7604, affidavit by C. Schneider; NI 5197, affidavit by G. von Schnitzler.

  “For others on the Vorstand”: For the IG’s connection to Degesch and Zyklon B, see NI 9098, NI 9150, NI 12073, NI 12075, NI 6363, and NI 9540. For Peters, see NI 9113, affidavit by G. Peters. For Tesch and Mauthausen figures, see Hayes, Industry and Ideology. For Höss quotation, see Höss, Commandant of Auschwitz. Also cited in Lebor and Boyes, Surviving Hitler: Choices, Corruption, and Compromise in the Third Reich.

  NI 9093; and Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews.

  “But Mann clearly knew”: For details on Mengele, see Gilbert, The Holocaust. For details of the Mozes twins, including quotation, see Mozes Kor, Echoes from Auschwitz; and Jeffreys, Aspirin.

  “‘I have enclosed the first check’”: Quoted in ABC News 20/20 report on class action suit contemplated by survivors of the Nazi slave labor program (July 11, 1999).

  “Other IG staff”: For details of Vetter’s experiments and his quotation, see Cohen, “The Ethics of Using Medical Data from Nazi Experiments.” See also Lifton, The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. Bayer letter to Höss quoted in Strzelecki, “Experiments.”

  “The experiments at Auschwitz”: Further details contained in NMT, vols. 1 and 2. For Tauboeck episode see NI 3963, affidavit by K. Tauboeck, June 18, 1947.

  “‘It is clear that’”: NMT, vol. 1, p. 9193.

  “The matter had arisen”: For Speer’s account of the meeting, see Speer, Inside the Third Reich. For establishment of Dyhernfurth, see NI 6788, affidavit by O. Ambros, May 1, 1947. For Ambros’s recollections of meeting with Hitler, see NI 1044, testimony of Otto Ambros.

  See Harris and Paxman, A Higher Form of Killing; and Tucker, War of Nerves: Chemical Warfare from World War I to Al-Qaeda.

  “Although they had survived”: For bombing of IG plants, see United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) Oil Division, Ludwigshafen-Oppau Works of IG Farbenindustrie AG, Ludwigshafen, Germany, Jan. 1947. For explosion, see BASF UA, C13, “Direktionspostsitzung am 30 Juli 1943.”

  USSBS (United States Strategic Bombing Survey), Oil Division Final Report, 1947.

  “It was much the same”: USSBS, Oil Division Final Report, 1947; and USSBS, Physical Damage Division Report no. 64, IG Farbenindustrie AG, Leverkusen, Germany, 1945.

  “Inevitably, the killed”: For one calculation of numbers of “foreign workers,” see NI 11411, affidavit by K. Hauptmann, Nov. 17, 1947, with specific numbers for Ludwigshafen-Oppau in BASF UA, C621/2, “Der Mensch.” See also Hayes, Industry and Ideology, which puts the number at rather less, some eighty-three thousand, or 36 percent of the IG workforce, by 1944. For conditions and discipline in work camps, see Abelshauser et al., German Industry.

  For Krupp, see Manchester, The Arms of Krupp. For others see Tooze, The Wages of Destruction.

  “For the IG’s”: For Krauch’s Knight’s Cross, see Borkin, The Crime. For Göring’s rivalry with Himmler, Goebbels, and Bormann, see Read, The Devil’s Disciples. For Krauch’s waning authority and relationship with Speer and Kehrl, see Hayes, Industry and Ideology.

  “But for Krauch”: For bombing campaign, see USSBS, Oil Division Final Report; and NI 3767. Speer quotations in Speer, Inside the Third Reich.

  “Göring, eager”: NMT, vol. 7, p. 1109.

  “In early June”: For further raids, see USSBS, Oil Division Final Report; and Speer, Inside the Third Reich.

  13. Götterdämmerung

  “Although it was”: For slightly contrasting views of the atmosphere in Germany in early 1944, see Burleigh, The Third Reich; and Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

  “Surprisingly this state”: Other firms that had established plants in or near Auschwitz by 1944: the Herman Göring Werke, the Berg und Hütten-werkgesellschaft Teschen, Friedrich Krupp AG, the Weischel Union Metallwerke, Siemens-Schukert, Oberschlesischen Hüttenwerke, Schlesischen Schuhwerke, Schlesische Feinweberei, and Deutsche Gasrusswerke—with several more set up elsewhere in Upper Silesia. They all used concentration camp and POW labor, though none to the same extent as IG Farben. For further details, see Allen, Hitler’s Slave Lords; Herbert, Hitler’s Foreign Workers: Enforced Foreign Labor in Germany under the Third Reich; and Piper, Auschwitz Prisoner Labor.

  “The gassings, too”: For closure of Operation Reinhard death camps, the influx of Hungarian deportees to Auschwitz, and footnote, see Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, and Gilbert, The Holocaust.

  “‘A fortnight after my arrival’”: Levi, If This Is a Man.

  “The machine”: For first methanol production and celebration, see Wagner, IG Auschwitz, and Tooze, The Wages of Destruction.

  “‘We weren’t allowed’”: Conversation with Denis Avey, Jan. 2005.

  “From mid-1944”: Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies; Steinbacher, Auschwitz; Wagner, IG Auschwitz. For the USAF’s view of the bombing, see Grant, “Twenty Missions in Hell.”

  “As the German camp”: For Salomon Kohn quote, see NI 10824, testimony of Salomon Kohn, NMT, vol. 12, Maurer trial, p. 206.

  “‘when the earth’”: Levi, If This Is a Man.

  “Things were no better”: Conversation with Denis Avey, Jan. 2005.

  “The raids effectively”: For Stoss Kommando from Ludwigshafen, see Abelshauser et al., German Industry. For SS closing down camp, see Strzelecki, The Evacuation, Dismantling, and Liberation of KL Auschwitz. For inmates left behind, see NI 11956, report by Dürrfeld. For fate of Fürstengrube inmates, see Gilbert, The Holocaust; and Strzelecki, The Evacuation.

  “Thousands perished”: Aharon Beilin quoted in Gilbert, The Holocaust. See Gilbert also for fate of Monowitz Jews.

  “The IG meanwhile”: For the IG’s departure from Auschwitz, see NI 11956, report by Dürrfeld; and Strzelecki, The Evacuation. The figure of 150,000 workers is my own estimate and includes all those—voluntary and forced foreign laborers, Reich German IG Farben employees, Organization Todt workers, POWs, Poles, and Jewish concentration camp inmates—who were engaged at some point between March 1941 and January 1945 in constructing the Buna-Werke, the Monowitz camp, IG housing at Auschwitz, the Buna-Werke railway halt and waterworks, as well as those in closely related supplementary labor for the IG at SS gravel, cement, and brick plants at or near Auschwitz and mines at Fürstengrube, Janina, and elsewhere in the region. It is impossible to be absolutely certain of the numbers involved, not least because of the extraordinary turnover among concentration camp inmates, whose average life expectancy was somewhere between two and three months (and down to four to six weeks at Fürstengrube in 1944). Nevertheless, readers in search of more detailed analyses can find them in Setkiewicz, “Wybrane problemy z historii IG Werk Auschwitz” [Selected problems in the history of IG Werke Auschwitz], and Piper, Auschwitz Prisoner Labor. The figure of thirty-five thousand to forty thousand deaths is based on NI 7967, an aff
idavit by prisoner Ervin Schulhof, who compiled card indexes of inmate workers for the IG management at Monowitz; NI 12070, an affidavit by S. Budziaszek, a Monowitz camp doctor who made his own calculations; and statistics compiled by Franciszek Piper for Auschwitz Prisoner Labor. While this figure is generally accepted, it does not include those prisoners murdered by the SS on the march away from the IG’s camp at Monowitz in January 1945, or those moved away from the IG’s employ at Monowitz to other labor assignments at Auschwitz and then murdered, or those transported directly to Monowitz to labor for the IG but rejected after selection at the railhead and taken by the SS straight to the gas chambers at Birkenau. For a typical Nuremberg prosecutor’s estimate, see DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists.

  “The IG’s partners”: Strzelecki, The Evacuation; and Gilbert, The Holocaust

  “For the eight hundred”: Levi, If This Is a Man; and Strzelecki, The Evacuation

  “‘They did not greet us’”: Levi, The Truce.

  “The Russians”: Strzelecki, The Evacuation; and Levi, The Truce.

  “In Germany”: For details of the Allied response to reports coming from Auschwitz, including the first BBC broadcast warnings, see Swiebocki, London Has Been Informed: Reports by Auschwitz Escapees.

  “Hermann Schmitz”: For July 1944 attempts on Hitler’s life, see Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. For Schmitz’s deteriorating mental state, see RG 239 M892, Schmitz V/173, affidavit by Dr. Singer. For Schmitz’s tea cozy habit, see Hayes, Industry and Ideology. For Schmitz’s involvement with attempts to reach Dulles, see Lebor and Boyes, Surviving Hitler.

  “Some members of the Vorstand”: For von Knieriem’s memo, see BASF UA, IG A. 281, “Aufteilung der IG.” For Wilhelm Mann’s continued devotion to the Nazi cause, see Duisberg, Nur ein Sohn. For Max Ilgner, see DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists. For von Schnitzler’s movements, see Martin, All Honourable Men. For Carl Wurster, see BASF UA, A.865, “Kurze Beschreibung der Ereignisse in den letzen Tagen vor der Besetzung von Ludwigshafen am Rhein durch amerikanische Truppen,” June 4, 1947. For Bütefisch, see BIOS FR 1698, Interrogation of Dr Bütefisch, January 1946. For Ambros, see PRO (Public Record Office), WO 219/1986 and PRO WO 208/2182. For movements of von Knieriem, Mann, and Hörlein, see DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists. For destruction of documents, see NMT, vol. 7, p. 467, affidavit by Dr. Struss, and Elimination of German Resources for War, p. 980, interrogation of Dr. Struss, July 21, 1945.

  “A few days”: Recollections of Ernst Struss in DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists.

  “The Allies had certainly”: Ellis, The Defeat in Germany, and Pohlenz, “Leverkusen und das Bayer-Werke in den Jahren 1944–46.” For firearms, see Bayer Leverkusen Archives 12/13/1, “Entwurf zur Niederschrift detr TC in Leverkusen am 14 April 1945.” For April 14 takeover by U.S. troops, see Pohlenz, “Leverkusen und das Bayer-Werke.”

  CIOS XX111–25, Miscellaneous Chemicals: IG Farbenindustrie AG Elberfeld and Leverkusen, 27 April 1945; and USSBS (United States Strategic Bombing Survey), Oil Division Final Report.

  “It was much”: For Hoechst, see CIOS ER 31, IG Farben-Hoechst. For Ludwigshafen, see USSBS, Oil Division, Ludwigshafen-Oppau Works of IG Farbenindustrie AG, Ludwigshafen, Germany. For the fate of eastern plants, see Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, and Abelshauser et al., German Industry.

  “But the Allies’ interest”: For Project Paperclip (and footnote), see Bar-Zohar, The Hunt for German Scientists, 1944–60, and Lasby, Project Paperclip.

  “Inevitably, the IG”: For Allies’ March 25 visit to Ludwigshafen and the quotation, see CIOS evaluation report 27, May 27, 1945. For dismantling of equipment, see CIOS, Report on Investigations by Fuels and Lubricants Teams at the IG Farbenindustrie AG Works at Ludwigshafen and Oppau. For footnote (on fate of documents), see PRO BT 11/2578, PROBT 211/11, and PRO, BT 211/17. For fuel scientists at Leuna, see U.S. Archives RG260 OMGUS HQ AG 1945/6 231.2. For Bütefisch (including footnote), see BIOS FR 1698, Interrogation of Dr Bütefisch, January 1946.

  “But no IG technology”: For Tarr’s search for Schrader and Ambros, see PRO WO 219/1986 and PRO WO 208/2182.

  “Schrader was found”: For Ambros in Gendorf, see PRO WO 208/2182; and DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists.

  “The unit’s commanding”: Ibid. See also PRO WO 219/1986 and PRO WO 208/2182; BIOS, Final Report FR 138, Interrogation of German Chemical Warfare Personnel, 1945. For Ambros’s transfer, see PRO BT 211/25.

  “Ambros never arrived”: PRO BT 211/25.

  Harris and Paxman, A Higher Form of Killing; and Tucker, War of Nerves.

  “Other IG officials”: For the best overview of Germany in the immediate aftermath of the war, see Botting, In the Ruins of the Reich. Graffiti cited in Beevor, Berlin: The Downfall, 1945.

  “In these circumstances”: For watch lists and difficulties of enforcing them, see Bower, Blind Eye to Murder: Britain, America, and the Purging of Nazi Germany; A Pledge Betrayed. For early conclusions of U.S. investigators, see preface to Elimination of German Resources for War by Colonel Bernard Bernstein, director, Division of Investigation of Cartel and External Assets, Office of Military Government, Nov. 1945. Bernstein was a former assistant general counsel at the U.S. Treasury Department.

  Bower, Blind Eye to Murder.

  “Two of these officials”: For account of Nixon and Martin’s arrival at the IG’s Frankfurt headquarters, see Martin, All Honorable Men; and DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists.

  Martin, All Honorable Men; and DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists.

  PRO FO 371 66564/U.634.

  “In the meantime”: For meeting with Schnitzler, see Martin, All Honorable Men; and SHAEF report in PRO FO 371 66564/U.634.

  “Hermann Schmitz”: SHAEF report in PRO FO 371 66564/U.634.

  But Major Edmund Tilley”: Quotations and account in DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists.

  “As the last”: For Potsdam Conference, see Donnison, Civil Affairs and Military Government, North-West Europe.

  “This meant the end”: See U.S. National Archives, RG 238, United States Group Control Council, Report on the Investigation of IG Farbenindustrie, Sept. 12, 1945; and PRO FO 236, Allied Control Council, Nov. 30, 1945.

  “What this meant”: For U.S. announcement, see New York Times, Oct. 21, 1945. For forty-seven units, see New York Times, June 18, 1947.

  “But the tide”: For economic problems of occupied Germany, see Donnison, Civil Affairs and Military Government; and Botting, In the Ruins of the Reich.

  14. Preparing the Case

  “The stadium”: Thanks to former prosecution lawyer Belle Mayer Zeck, I know that General Taylor visited the old Nazi parade ground at Nuremberg shortly before the trial. But at this remove it is impossible to know exactly what he did there or what was on his mind. Benjamin Ferencz, one of Telford Taylor’s deputies, wryly suggested to me that the general might merely have been on his way to use the tennis courts that the U.S. Army had installed nearby. Nevertheless, I have novelized the episode in these opening paragraphs to better evoke something of the pretrial atmosphere. Further insights into life in Nuremberg in the period of the war crimes trials (and on the destruction of the city) can be found in Tusa and Tusa, The Nuremberg Trial; Davis, Come as a Conqueror: The U.S. Army’s Occupation of Germany, 1945–49; DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists; Botting, In the Ruins of the Reich; and, albeit to a limited extent, Telford Taylor’s own The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials. For the fate of the 250 Jews in Nuremberg in 1933, see Gilbert, The Holocaust.

  “For most people”: There are numerous accounts of the International Military Tribunal but Taylor’s The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials and Ann and John Tusa’s The Nuremberg Trial are the most readable and compelling. For a highly detailed breakdown of the cases, see Sprecher, Inside the Nuremberg Trial. Sprecher served as a prosecution attorney on the IMT trial and on the IG Farben case.

  “But the IMT”: The twelve cases that made up the NMT series were identified as follows: Medical, Milch, Judges, Pohl, Hostages, RuHSA, Flick, Kr
upp, IG Farben, Einsatzgruppen, Ministries, and High Command. For Flick, see NMT, vol. 6. For Krupp, see NMT, vol. 9.

  Taylor, Final Report to the Secretary of the Army.

  “That such a message”: For background to Control Law No. 8, see Peterson, The American Occupation of Germany.

  Peterson, The American Occupation of Germany; Botting, In the Ruins of the Reich.

  “Although British officials”: For British qualms about the directive, see PRO FO 371 46801/C8985. In this document a senior Foreign Office official, Con O’Neill, wrote, “As an example of systematic and meticulous imbecility, it would be hard to beat.… I hope that we shall be under no illusion that a policy of this kind is the sheerest madness.”

  “This more pragmatic”: For the inadequacy of some British officials and complaints about IG Farben, see Bower, Blind Eye to Murder. For results of Hüls survey, see PRO FO 938/73, Dec. 10, 1946. For number of ex-Nazis increasing despite complaints, see PRO FO 938/73, March 17, 1947.

  See PRO FO 371 57587/U7918, which includes a list of twenty-six German industrialists and bankers against whom Elwyn Jones thought there was a prima facie case. Other British officials were determined to leave the difficult and sensitive task of trying businessmen to the United States alone. That way, as Patrick Dean, a senior Foreign Office official, cynically made clear in a memo to a colleague, “if any of the trials do go wrong and the industrialists escape, the primary political criticism will rest on American shoulders, not ours” (see PRO FO 371 57586/U7295).

  “This view”: For the belief of some American lawyers that IG Farben was suitable for prosecution, see Elimination of German Resources for War. For the potential problems caused the American legal team by the elections, see PRO FO 371 57587/U8088.

  “In mid-1945”: Biographical details and Telford Taylor’s quotation are from Taylor, The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials. See also Ferencz, “Telford Taylor.”

  “After a year”: Taylor, The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials. For quotation, see NMT, vol. 7, prosecution opening statement.