Peter Hayes: Degussa in the Third Reich. From Cooperation to
Complicity. Translated from English by Anne Emmert, Ursula Schäfer and
Heike Schlatterer. Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2004. 486 pages, 34.90 [€].
Peter Hayes' eagerly awaited story of the German gold and silver
refinery can be read in very different ways. Although fundamentally
different in approach, both interpretations are legitimate and well
founded. Most readers will find their expectations confirmed and
recognized in the Frankfurter chemical companies the witches' cauldron
of Nazi aggression and murder, which is the object of hatred of the
"Holocaust industry" has become. Anyone who reads the book carefully
learns, though also with growing amazement that none of the
allegations against the historic core Degussa - is to really harden -
Responsibility for the Holocaust with Zyklon B, enrichment of forced
labor and looted gold. Nevertheless, it allows deep insight into the
dilemmas of entrepreneurs and maneuver the Nazi period.
The first reading speaks for the first production application of
Degussa. Through their furnaces went most of the gold that the Nazis
in occupied Europe claimed as booty or decreased to the victims of the
Holocaust. It produced metal alloys and chemicals, additives for
strategic Buna and steel, which were received as well as the divorced
from her silver in many high-tech weapons of the Wehrmacht. Dual
military equipment such as gas masks and bomb she had also on offer.
Above all, it was at 42.5 percent of the German Society for Pest
Control Ltd. (Degesch) involved in that "insecticides" delivered
Zyklon B, the SS in the years 1942 to 1944 in Auschwitz and Majdanek
to abused, round one million people to murder. Pandora's box contained
a lot more. Had the regime for the gas or nuclear war decided it would
have been the object of the Degussa to provide the necessary
ingredients for these crimes.
This range of products made by Degussa in war and peace into a
thriving enterprise. As early as 1924 to 1933, the value of the small
but mighty company to more than double. After 1938, the momentum to
rise again, so that the value of Degussa in the "Third Reich" then
doubled again. Although the collapse of 1945 a large portion of the
increase was again destroyed by Degussa was rich from the war - as
well as in wealth of know-how. Like most German companies are paying
entrepreneurial opportunism and the unconditional recognition of the
primacy of politics for the long term from Degussa. For this reason,
they had - like all Germans - their share of responsibility for the
crimes that could commit the Nazi regime with its help. But they also
benefited in a material sense of these crimes - robbery of gold,
forced labor and the Holocaust?
Hayes warns his readers not with hypocrisy. Anyone who reads the book
should find humility before the realities of human nature and be able
to "read" the story of the "Third Reich" from 1933 to 1945 - and not
go off the rails a retrospective examination of 1945 to 1933. The only
way to contemporary thinking and maneuver adequately assess. In fact,
the story differs little from the Degussa after 1933 the majority of
German companies. Neither one was in Frankfurt before 1933 supporters
of the Hitler movement, yet you jumped straight to the moving train.
On the contrary, Degussa was initially a lengthy boycott of dentists
exposed, because six of their board positions were occupied by "Jews".
Until 1938, she succeeded well, largely to escape the dreaded arms
race. The threat of a hostile takeover by the early Nazified Henkel
works (of which you as a supplier for "Persil" was dependent) and
increasing pressure from the military planners could finally break the
dams. Degussa made himself indispensable to the regime.
In addition to the Prussian State Mint, Degussa was the only company
that was the sheaths of gold in the situation. "Nazi Gold" - also from
the Holocaust - had therefore almost necessarily go through the
Frankfurt furnaces. Therefore, Degussa was used again in 1947 as a way
station, this time made safe "concentration camp gold", the
international refugee organizations was provided. Before 1945 was
"Nazi Gold" from about 15 percent of gold sales. The vagina of course,
a charge brought only a fraction of what the Reichsbank and the
participating banks drew from this turbid source. Degussa has
benefited much more from the processing of in occupied Europe
purchased at international market prices precious metals.
Even greater attention should Hayes' findings about Auschwitz and
Zyklon B are. What began in 1940 with the "outgassing" of SS
accommodation and the creation of disinfection chambers, took from
April 1941 to one of Tesch & Stabenow (Testa) - the competent, acting
largely independent distributor of Degesch - confusing history. The SS
itself acquired the national license for the use of Zyklon B and was
able to start independently of the experts of the Testa in September
to experiment with the "gasification" to people. Tesch probably
guessed since summer 1942, the murderous abuse of his deliveries, but
let it happen, because he hoped for support from the SS in a dispute
with the Degesch.
It is unlikely that Degussa and Degesch, or even the remaining
shareholders of the abuse of "insecticides" have known. Since only one
percent of total sales of Zyklon B to Auschwitz went and got the win
in only a fraction (RM 1487.50) to Degussa, this was not open to even
out the numbers. The Degesch (not the Degussa) advanced course in a
particular context, also in the vicinity of the Holocaust. She was
inspired by Kurt Gerstein, a fluctuating between resistance and
complicity SS man to move, the alleged "humanization" of euthanasia to
make small quantities of Testa past Zyklon B to Auschwitz without
warning material for disposal. This addition, however, was at this
time due to shortage of raw materials and otherwise scarcely contained
in Zyklon B, so that even in the much larger quantities, the Testa
delivered to Auschwitz, was not effective.
The clarification of the role that Degussa has played in the system of
Nazi crimes, can arise at any time and even doubts about the injustice
of the responsibility of Degussa, but in many cases allows a better
understanding of the causes of corporate compliance. This also applies
to the use of forced labor, which - as the author rightly emphasizes -
not to explain the motive of enrichment. Forced laborers caused the
company - not just at Degussa - usually more expensive than German
workers. He sees the use of this false argument rather an inevitable
consequence of the American legal system that requires this allegation
as a claim for compensation claims basis. Hayes' political history of
the company Degussa is an important step toward convincing realism by
analyzing the role of business in the Nazi era.
