Replies

http://www.stockmaven.com/medrepcB2.htm
Stock Maven Research Center

Bayer, IG Farben and World War II: Slave Labour and Deadly Gas

Bayer (along with BASF and Hoechst) was an original member of the IG Farben group. During WWII, IG Farben built a synthetic rubber and oil plant complex called Monowitz close to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Inmates worked as slave labour for IG Farben,[216] and when they were too weak to work they were killed in the gas chambers. IG Farben subsidiary Degesch manufactured Zyklon B, the gas used in the concentration camp gas chambers.[217]

Bayer head Carl Duisberg personally propagated the concept of forced labour during WW1.[218] The company placed itself under a large burden of guilt due to its heavy involvement in the planning, preparation and implementation of both world wars. The International War Crimes Tribunal pronounced the company guilty for its share of responsibility in the war and the crimes of the Nazi dictatorship.

On 29 July 1948, sentences for mass murder and slavery were handed down at the Nuremberg trials to twelve Farben executives. The longest sentence of only seven years was dealt out was to Dr. Fritz ter Meer, a top executive and scientist on the IG Farben managing board.[219]

After the war, IG Farben separated into three giant corporations: Bayer, Hoechst and BASF. On 1 August 1963, Bayer celebrated its 100th anniversary at the Cologne fairgrounds. The opening speech was delivered by Dr. Fritz ter Meer, not only out of prison but - a convicted mass murderer -elevated to the position of Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Bayer.[220]

More than eight million people had to do slave work for the Nazi war industry, and none ever received compensation from the companies or the government. David Fishel, one of the few survivors of the camp, sued the companies for compensation. When he was 13 he was forced to work for IG Farben carrying 50-kilo bags of coal and cement when he weighed only 75 pounds.[221]

Bayer, IG Farben and Human Experiments[222]

IG Farben also conducted experiments on humans. Eva Mozes Kor, among the 1,500 sets of twins experimented on by the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele, claims that IG Farben monitored and supervised medical experiments at the Nazi concentration camp where she was interned. She claims the experiments involved toxic chemicals that IG Farben (Bayer) provided. In some of the experiments, the lawsuit states, prisoners were injected with germs known to cause diseases, “to test the effectiveness of various drugs” manufactured by IG Farben. Mengele conducted genetic experiments there in an effort to create a super race of blonde, blue-eyed Aryans who would be born in multiple births. Both Kor and her sister survived their 10-month ordeal in the concentration camp and were liberated by Soviet troops in January 1945. They were nearly 10 years old. According to Irwin Levin (Kor’s Lawyer), IG Farben paid Nazi officials during World War II for access to those confined in the camps and collaborated in Nazi experiments as a form of research and development. The lawsuit sought unspecified punitive damages and the recovery of profits it maintains IG Farben (Bayer) earned as a result of such research.

Eventually Eva Kor and various others were paid out of a fund put up by the German government and the companies. Bayer gave 100 million German Marks to the fund. The entire fund (totalling 10 billion German Marks) was a result of various American lawsuits - without the loss of reputation in the US the companies would never have agreed.