Inside IG Farben: Hoechst During the Third Reich

Description

In 1925, the three leading chemical firms in Germany - BASF, Bayer, and Hoechst - merged, together with some smaller firms, to become IG Farben. IG Farben became, like no other firm, synonymous with the participation of German industry in the most heinous crimes of the Nazi regime. This book deals in depth with one of IG Farben's leading factories, Hoechst, during the Third Reich. On the basis of long and meticulous archival research, including previously inaccessible company records, the author describes and analyzes the relationship between management and employees, and with the Nazi party and its organizations. The exclusion and persecution of employees, particularly Jewish employees, is revealed, as is the extent of Hoechst's involvement in the exploitation of forced labor, and its active participation in human experiments in concentration camps. Throughout, the author sheds light on the motivations of those responsible for this conduct.

Stephan H. Lindner is Professor of Interdependence of Technological and Social Change at the University of the Bundeswehr in Munich. He published the German version of Inside IG Farben in 2005 to great reviews in German newspapers and academic journals.

"Recommended." -Choice "...Lindner's study is an important contribution not only in understanding the undertakings of this single plant of the IG Farben concern. It is also...a remarkably notable contribution to our knowledge of social relationships between managers and employees in German industry during the Third Reich." -Jonas Scherner, EH.NET "Stephan H. Lindner's work is a micro-history of the Hoechst factories and laboratories during the National Socialist years." -L. M. Stallbaumer-Beishline, H-German "Both in its sources and in its focus, Lindner's work sets itself apart from other analyses of the subject and demonstrates how National Socialism shaped the conduct of iddle and upper management in a division of one of the most significant corporations of its time." -Jeffrey Allan Johnson, Chemical Heritage Newsmagazine "...first objective study of Hoechst." -Anthony Stranges, Technology and Culture "Lindner has written an honest and complex book motivated by an unsparing desire to tell the whole truth. He eschews blanket condemnations, and his judgment remains differentiated throughout. A good part of the strength of Lindner's book lies in his multifaceted examination of countless individual cases in all their ramifications." -Hermann Beck, Central European History "Stephan Lindner's Inside IG Farben takes us into the belly of the beast with a sober, surprisingly well-documented analysis of one of the larger of those corporations, the complex of factories and laboratories of Hoechst in Frankfurt. The story is as revealing as it is chilling." -ISIS, ALAN BEYERCHEN "Lindner has set a high standard for future studies of the complicity of the business community with dictatorial states." -Jeffery Lewis, Business History Review "...Lindner's well-written study provides new insights into the workings of one the most significant companies of the Nazi economy." -Armin Grunbacher, European History Quarterly "...exceptionally well-researched and conscientiously written volume..." -Dr. Diane Cypkin, Martyrdom & Resistance