Chapter 15: A Slap On The Wrist

I. G. Farben Industries Trial - 1947
Nuernberg, Germany original photograph - one of 13
Farben at Nuremberg

IG Farben's poison gas expert Otto Ambros - eight years (out in four or less) for slavery and mass murder.

In 1948, a small minority of the IG Farben directors - all of the eye-witnesses - were found guilty in at Nuremberg of mass murder, enslavement and plunder, including Fritz ter Meer. Because of pressure from right wing legislators in the US (who felt the real enemy was "communism - not German businessmen") they were all out of jail within four years. (66)

Despite introducing gas warfare, forced labor, National Socialism and the "Fuhrer Principle," despite encouraging anti-Semitism, despite being the Nazi's biggest financial backers, they were all acquitted of "preparation and waging of aggressive warfare" and "conspiracy" - the court ruled that there was not enough evidence of "knowledge of the immediate result" of their own actions. (67)

Had they all been found guilty, war profiteering might have ended - or at least become more difficult. As in WW1, the war trials were a sham.

Otto Ambrose

Notes

(66) "Bayer Buys Berkeley," Jenny Miller, January, 1992, Z Magazine, p. 23

(67) "The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben," p. 189

Hermann Schmitz

Carl Krauch

Hermann Schmitz being sentenced

U.S. caricature about the insufficient dismantling of I.G. Farben by the Nuremberg War Tribunal.

Several key executives of I.G. Farben who were sentenced to prison, were prematurely pardonned after only a few years - including those executives like Otto Ambros and Fritz ter Meer who were responsible for the crimes in the I.G. Auschwitz Factory.

Former I.G. Farben Director Carl Winnacker
was "back in business" by 1953. By that time he was Chairman of the Board
of chemical multinational Hoechst.