[book]DuBois - The Devil’s Chemists (I.G. Farben and WW II)
This is Josiah DuBois' rare and shocking book The Devil’s Chemists - 24 Conspirators of the International Farben Cartel Who Manufacture Wars (1952) which highlights how the I.G. Farben chemical firm manipulated trade relationships to the advantage of the Third Reich and how corporations, businessmen and politicians beholden unto the firm’s non-German cartel partners assisted that manipulation, as well as the postwar rehabilitation and exoneration of both I.G. and its most important personnel. Those personnel and their vast international connections are the primary focus of this fascinating book. In addition, DuBois emphasizes the damage done to America’s international credibility by its postwar preservation of I.G. Farben and other Axis/fascist cartels. One simply cannot understand the history of the 20th century without understanding the role played in world events of the time by the I.G. Farben company, the chemical cartel that grew out of the German dyestuffs industry. Comprising some of the most important individual companies in the history of industrial capitalism, the firm has dominated the dyestuffs, chemical and pharmaceutical industries before and during World War II. The companies that grew out of I.G.’s official dissolution after the war—Bayer, Hoechst, BASF, and Agfa continued to be decisive in world markets. Among the many products developed by I.G. or its member companies are aspirin, heroin, Novocain, methadone (originally named Dolophine in honor of Adolph Hitler) and Zyklon B (the poison gas used in the extermination centers of World War II.) The author sets forth the international scope and economic impact of the company, its role as the spine of the industrial war-making economy of the Third Reich and the firm’s elevation of Hitler to his position of power. As one observer noted, “Hitler was Farben and Farben was Hitler.” Much of the impact that the company wielded derived from its international dominance of the chemical, rubber, petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries through its cartel arrangements with partner firms in other countries. Farben’s foreign counterparts had much to do with letting the company and its executives—many of them war criminals of the first order—off the hook after World War II. Farben’s cartel partners abroad constituted an inventory of the wealthiest and most powerful corporations in the world. In the United States, the major firms with which Farben did business included: Du Pont, the Standard Oil companies, General Motors, Ford Motor Company, Union Carbide, Dow Chemical and Texaco. In turn, these corporate giants wielded controlling political influence in the United States through the elected and appointed officials in their sway. Attempts at reducing Farben’s influence in the United States before and during World War II, as well as efforts at holding the company and its top executives to account for their crimes after the war were neutralized by the cartel’s corporate hirelings. Many of names of the combatants on both sides are important and, to older and better-educated readers, familiar. Behind the actions of many world figures prominent in the mid-20th century, we can observe the effects of their relationship to I.G. The author details the war crimes trials of key I.G. personnel and, in so doing, illustrates the pernicious nature of the cartel system Farben embodied and successfully, ruthlessly exploited. He relates how “anti-Communism” was used to mask and exonerate the I.G. defendants who are the focal point of the book. Published in 1952 it reflects the anxiety provoked in the West by the German “Ostpolitik” that is the primary focus of T.H. Tetens’ Germany Plots with the Kremlin. Noting blossoming German trade with the former Soviet Union in the early 1950’s, as well as the proposals by some German political figures to assume a position of neutrality, many observers pushed to appease the residual Reich elements at every opportunity. Many in positions of influence in the United States felt that the possibility that Germany might align itself with the USSR mandated a Carte Blanche attitude on the part of the US diplomacy. DuBois discusses one of the most serious outgrowths of the preservation of the cartels in Japan and Germany and the Cold War policy of establishing right-wing “bulwark” states to guard against the spread of communism. Preserving the dominance of fascist economic interests alienated those who had suffered under the yoke of Axis occupation. The Devil’s Chemists provides a window into a realm of corporate political economics that continues to wield a decisive role in world affairs even today. 375 pages, few pictures. A must read for everyone.
