IG FARBEN
I.G. Farbenindustrie AG was a German chemical industry conglomerate. Its name is taken from Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG (lit. Community of interest of the dye industry).
The company was formed in 1925 from a number of major companies that had been working together closely since World War I. During its heyday IG Farben was the
fourth-largest company in the world, after General Motors, U.S. Steel and Standard Oil.
During the planning of the invasion of Czechoslovakia and Poland, IG Farben cooperated closely with Nazi officials and directed which chemical plants should be secured and delivered to IG Farben.
FOUNDING MEMBERS
IG Farben was founded on December 25, 1925, as a merger of the following six companies:
- BASF
- Bayer
- Hoechst (including Cassella and Chemische Fabrik Kalle)
- Agfa
- Chemische Fabrik Griesheim-Elektron
- Chemische Fabrik vorm. Weiler Ter Meer
World War II
During the planning of the invasion of Czechoslovakia and Poland, IG Farben cooperated closely with Nazi officials and directed which chemical plants should be secured and delivered to IG Farben.
In 1941, an investigation exposed a "marriage" cartel between John D. Rockefeller's United States-based Standard Oil Co. and I.G. Farben. It also brought new evidence concerning complex price and marketing agreements between DuPont, a major investor in and producer of leaded gasoline, United States Industrial Alcohol Company and their subsidiary, Cuba Distilling Co. The investigation was eventually dropped, like dozens of others in many different kinds of industries, due to the need to enlist industry support in the war effort. However, the top directors of many oil companies agreed to resign, and oil industry stocks in molasses companies were sold off as part of a compromise worked out.
IG Farben held the patent for the pesticide Zyklon B (used in Holocaust gas chambers), and owned 42.2 percent (in shares) of Degesch which manufactured it. IG Farben also had managers in Degesch's Managing Committee.
Of the 24 directors of IG Farben indicted in the so-called IG Farben Trial (1947–1948) before a U.S. military tribunal at the subsequent Nuremberg Trials,
13 were sentenced to prison terms between one and eight years. Some of those indicted in the trial were subsequently made leaders of the post-war companies that split off from IG Farben, including those who were sentenced at Nuremberg.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IG_Farben
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IG_Farben_Trial