Battles & Wars › Between the wars › World War II
IG Farben
1925–1952; Auschwitz-Monowitz plant 1941–45· Arms maker, factory or program· Arms makers & war industry
Well documentedSolid records, physical evidence or scientific consensus.
The giant German chemical company formed in 1925, which helped arm Nazi Germany and used slave labor at Auschwitz.
See it on the Battles & Wars map →What happened
In 1925 BASF, Bayer, Hoechst and three other firms merged into IG Farben, then Europe's largest company. It made dyes, drugs, film, fertilizer and explosives, and pioneered fuel and rubber made from coal, key to Nazi plans for self-sufficiency. Its chemists discovered the nerve agents tabun and sarin. From 1941 it built a plant at Auschwitz worked by prisoners, and it co-owned Degesch, the firm holding the Zyklon B license. After the war the Allies broke it up.
Why it matters
It is the leading example of a corporation's complicity in Nazi crimes, and of how the chemical industry and modern war became intertwined.
How we know
The 1947–48 Nuremberg trial of IG Farben's executives, company files seized by the Allies, survivor testimony such as Primo Levi's, and histories by Peter Hayes and others.
Still debated
How much its board knew about Zyklon B's use is debated; the Nuremberg judges acquitted the executives on that charge. Thirteen were convicted of other crimes, with sentences of up to eight years.
Connections (3)
▸IG Farben merged the German chemical firms behind WWI Poison gasWell documented
The connection
In World War I, BASF, Bayer and Hoechst made chlorine, phosgene and mustard gas, and Bayer's Carl Duisberg worked closely with Fritz Haber's gas program. The firms formed a wartime alliance in 1916 and merged in 1925. In 1936–38 IG Farben chemist Gerhard Schrader discovered tabun and sarin; Germany made thousands of tonnes of tabun but never used it.
When and how
Leverkusen, Ludwigshafen and Hoechst, 1915–18; Schrader's laboratory at Leverkusen, 1936–38; the tabun plant at Dyhernfurth, Silesia, 1942–45.
How we know
Company records, Allied intelligence reports after both wars, and the IG Farben trial documents.
Debates and open questions
Why Hitler never used nerve gas is debated: fear of Allied retaliation, a belief the Allies had it too, or his own gassing in 1918.
▸IG Farben ran a slave-labor plant in the complex of Auschwitz-BirkenauWell documented
The connection
In 1941 IG Farben chose a site next to Auschwitz for a giant synthetic rubber and fuel plant, drawn by coal, water, railways and SS prisoner labor, for which it paid the SS a daily fee. From 1942 it held prisoners in its own camp, Monowitz. Prisoners judged too weak to work were sent to the Birkenau gas chambers.
When and how
Monowitz (Monowice), near Oświęcim, Poland, 1941–45; IG executives Otto Ambros and Heinrich Bütefisch, plant manager Walter Dürrfeld; prisoners included Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel.
How we know
IG Farben trial records, company letters, SS files, and survivor testimony, including Primo Levi's If This Is a Man.
Debates and open questions
Deaths are estimated at about 10,000 to 30,000, depending on whether subcamps are counted; estimates vary. The plant never produced synthetic rubber in quantity.
▸IG Farben co-owned the firm that supplied Zyklon B for The HolocaustWell documented
The connection
Zyklon B was a cyanide pesticide sold for delousing. Its license belonged to Degesch, owned 42.5% by IG Farben, along with Degussa and Goldschmidt. From 1941 the SS used it in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek; most of the roughly 1.1 million people murdered at Auschwitz were killed with it.
When and how
Degesch, Frankfurt; distributors Tesch & Stabenow of Hamburg and Heerdt-Lingler; Auschwitz, from the first gassings in September 1941 through 1944.
How we know
Shipping records and invoices, the 1946 British trial of Tesch & Stabenow's owners, and the IG Farben trial documents.
Debates and open questions
Who knew what is still argued. Degesch's manager, Gerhard Peters, was convicted in West Germany in 1949 but acquitted at a 1955 retrial; IG's board was never shown to know.