History: Bayer Aspirin – Ties to Hitler

IG Farben, makers of Bayer Aspirin was the single largest contributor to Hitler’s campaign.

I came across an article that detailed the ties of IG Farben (original makers of Bayer aspirin) to Hitler and how they helped the rise of the Nazi leader. That article is here: Popular Pharmaceutical Company Bayer Bought Concentration Camp Victims in WWII

And I thought to myself, how has that not been greatly publicized. In today’s political climate, there is a certain “calling out” of those who have historically wronged the world. I would think that this would be one of those instances. However, until today, I had never heard of the association between the two.

According to the Holocaust Research Project:

IG Farben was a German Limited Company that was a conglomerate of eight leading German chemical manufacturers, including Bayer, Hoechst and BASF, which at the time were the largest chemical firms in existence.

Prior to the First World War these firms had established a “community of interests – Interessengemeinschaft – hence the initials I.G. which merged into a single company on the 25 December 1925, thus constituting the largest chemical enterprise, in the whole world.

…An IG Farben plant was at Waldenburg. In the middle of 1942 a new section of the concentration camp – Auschwitz – Monowitz was established, close to the site of the I.G. Farben works, to house the prisoners working there and thereby save the time-consuming daily march from and to the main camp – Auschwitz 1.

The prisoner’s performance however, never came close to IGF’s expectations and was always considerably inferior to that of workers who had their liberty.

…After the defeat of the Third Reich at the International Military Tribunal held in Nuremberg, the United States, as the occupying power, conducted trials against the top officials of three major industrial concerns- Krupp, Flick, and I. G. Farben.

The IG Farben Trial was the largest of all industrial trials. All defendants were indicted for the same crimes as the Krupp defendants: planning and waging of wars of aggression, conspiracy for this purpose, economic plundering, and forced labour and enslavement of prisoners of wars, deported persons, and concentration-camp inmates. Furthermore, three defendants were indicted for SS membership.