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Fritz Roessler and Nazism: The Observations of a German Industrialist, 1930–37

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Peter Hayes
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Extract

In the summer of 1985, I visited a number of German corporate archives in search of reflective writings, diaries, memoirs, private commentaries on economic or political affairs, and the like by important German businessmen of this century. Much of the trip proved disappointing, probably because little of the sort of material I wanted ever came into being, let alone remains to be found. Executives are not given as a rule, regardless of their day or domicile, to ruminative prose. At the Degussa AG in Frankfurt, however, the archivist pointed me toward a discovery: the Biographische Unterlagen of Dr. Friedrich (Fritz) Roessler (1870–1937), the son of Degussa's founder, member of its five- to six-man managing group (Direktion) from 1901 to 1924, and chairman of its supervisory board (Aufsichtsrat) from the latter date until his death.

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Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , March 1987 , pp. 58 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1987

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References

The author wishes to thank the American Council of Learned Societies, which provided a Grant-in-Aid that funded research for this article, and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, which sponsored a conference on "Unternehmer und Regime im Dritten Reich," at which a first version of this essay was presented in March 1987.

1. Unless otherwise indicated, my summary of the early history of Degussa draws on the two very professional histories published by the Firmenarchiv der Degussa AG and prepared by DrWolf, Frau Mechthild: Von Frankfurt in die Welt: Stationen in der Geschichte der Degussa AG (Frankfurt, 1987)Google Scholar, and Von Frankfurt in die Welt: Aus der Geschichte der Degussa AG (Frankfurt, 1983–1987)Google Scholar, the latter being a series of pamphlets. An earlier, in some respects still useful “official” history is DrPinnow, Hermann, Werden und Wesen der Deutschen Gold- und Silber Scheideanstalt vormals Roessler [Frankfurt, 1948].Google Scholar

2. Firmenarchiv der Degussa AG, Frankfurt, Biographische Unterlagen Dr. Fritz Roessler, “Zur Geschichte der Scheideanstalt,” Abschrift, p. 13 [1925]. This document is a retyped collation of six separate essays produced by Roessler between 1925 and 1937: a fourteen-page portrait of his father, four segments of Roessler's company history (1896–1924, dated Oct. 1925; 1925–27, marked Dec. 1927; 1927–32, labeled Jan. 1933; and 1933–36, completed in Jan. 1937), and a section headed “Persönliches … 1927 bis 1936,” begun in Jan. 1933 and finished in Jan. 1937. The originals of these essays also remain in the Degussa-Archiv. I have found them to be identical with the Abschrift save for trivial typographical errors. Because the Abschrift is consecutively paginated, citing it (by page number), rather than the originals, here will both shorten my footnotes and ease following up on them. I have therefore adopted that practice, but added to each reference in brackets the date of authorship for the passage(s) cited.

3. See Wolf, Mechthild, Heinrich Roessler 1845–1924: Ein halbes Jahrhundert Degussa-Geschichte (Frankfurt, 1984)Google Scholar, as well as Roessler, Heinrich, Lebenserinnerungen (Frankfurt, 1906)Google Scholar. On the Deutsche Volkspartei, see the entry in Fricke, Dieter et al. , Die bürgerlichen Parteien in Deutschland, 1 (Leipzig, 1968): 637–44Google Scholar, and Hunt, James C., The People's Party in Württemberg and Southern Germany, 1890–1914 (Stuttgart, 1975)Google Scholar. There is an excellent concise description of the Demokratischer Verein in Gillesen, Günther, Auf verlorenem Posten, Die Frankfurter Zeitung im Dritten Reich (Berlin, 1986), 541, n. 31.Google Scholar

4. Chickering, Roger, Imperial Germany and a World Without War (Princeton, 1975), 175.Google Scholar

5. Roessler's remarks to a meeting of the Zentrale für Arbeiter-Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen at Hagen in 1905, quoted in Wolf, Heinrich Roessler, 52.

6. “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 6, 22 [1925].

7. Quoted in Wolf, Heinrich Roessler, 63–64. For useful background, see Chickering, Roger, “A Voice of Moderation in Imperial Germany: The ‘Verband für Internationale Verständigung,’ 1911–1914,” Journal of Contemporary History 8 (1973): 147–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 12 [1925].Google Scholar

9. Ibid., 13 [1925].

10. Ibid., 16–17 [1925].

11. Ibid., 19–21, 25, 30–31 [1925]; Degussa-Archiv, Dr Fritz Roessler, “Meine öffentliche Tätigkeit seit 1897: Niedergeschrieben 1931/32,” 12; and, for the dividend figure, Wolf, Mechthild, “1898–Start in die chemische Grossindustrie,” Von Frankfurt in die Welt: Aus der Geschichte der Degussa AG (Frankfurt, 1984), 8.Google Scholar

12. “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 12, 37 [1925].

13. “Meine öffentliche Tätigkeit,” 13, 59 [1931/1932].

14. Ibid., 5.

15. Ibid., 23; “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 38 [1925]. For a brief summary of the organization of Frankfurt city government, see Rebentisch, Dieter, Ludwig Landmann: Frankfurter Oberbürgermeister der Weimarer Republik (Wiesbaden, 1975), 65–66.Google Scholar

16. “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 33–36, 38 [1925].

17. On the profits, Ibid., 60 [1927]; on the loss of foreign properties, Wolf, Mechthild, “1914–‘In Europa gehen die Lichter aus,’” Von Frankfurt in die Welt: Aus der Geschichte der Degussa AG (Frankfurt, 1985), 5–6Google Scholar; and on Degussa's relative size, Siegrist, Hannes, “Deutsche Grossunternehmen vom späten 19. Jahrhundert bis zur Weimarer Republik,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 6 (1980): 97.Google Scholar

18. “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 12–13 [1925].

19. See Roessler, Fritz, “Die Verständigung zwischen Arbeitgeber und Arbeitnehmer,” in Thimme, Friedrich, Vom inneren Frieden des deutschen Volkes (Leipzig, 1916), 339–42.Google Scholar

20. See Degussa-Archiv, Biographische Unterlagen Fritz Roessler, “Auszüge und Mitteilungen für die Werksangehörigen der Deutschen Gold- und Silber-Scheideanstalt vorm. Roessler,” nr. 1/2 (Jan.-Feb. 1923), 7; and Wolf, “1914–‘In Europa gehen die Lichter aus,’” 7–8.

21. Roessler, “Auszüge und Mitteilungen,” 1923, 6; “Meine öffentliche Tätigkeit,” 21 [1931/1932].

22. Ibid., 41 [1931/32].

23. “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 36–43 [1925].

24. Degussa-Archiv, Fritz Roessler, “Nationalsozialismus, Dezember 1933,” 8.

25. Ibid., 18.

26. “Meine öffentliche Tätigkeit,” 42, 47 [1931/1932].

27. “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 17, 19[1925].

28. “Meine öffentliche Tätigkeit,” 48–51 [1931/1932].

29. “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 13 [1925], and “Nationalsozialismus, Dez. 1933,” 12.

30. I have borrowed this suggestive phrase from Koshar, Rudy, Social Life, Local Politics, and Nazism (Chapel Hill, 1986); see esp. 52–53, 150–64Google Scholar.

31. “Nationalsozialismus, Dez. 1933,” 1. On 6 Sept. 1985, Gertrud Stravlino, Roessler's niece and Menzel's former wife, told me that he first joined the Party in Munich in 1921. His Party membership file at the Berlin Document Center, which bears the extraordinarily low number 1830, shows that he renewed his affiliation on 15 Apr. 1925, just two months after the refounding of the NSDAP, dropped out at the end of Jan. 1927, and returned to the fold for good on 1 Oct. 1929.

32. “Nationalsozialismus, Dez. 1933,” I; and “Nachtrag zur Niederschrift ‘Meine öffentliche Tätigkeit,’ Sommer 1936,” 2.

33. “Nationalsozialismus, Dez. 1933,” 2–3.

34. Ibid., 2, 4. On the Gutbrod brothers and Pietzsch, see Hayes, Peter, Industry and Ideology: IG Farben in the Nazi Era (New York, 1987), 68, 97, 247.Google Scholar

35. “Nationalsozialismus, Dez. 1933,” 5; Köhler, Barbara, “Die Nationalsoziahsten in der Frankfurter Stadtverordnetenversammlung 1929 bis 1933,” Archiv Frankfurts Geschichte und Kunst 59 (1985): 475–83Google Scholar. See also Rebentisch, Dieter, “Persönlichkeit und Karrierreverlauf der nationalsozialistischen Führungskader in Hessen 1928–1945,” Hessische Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte 33 (1983): 293–331.Google Scholar

36. “Nationalsozialismus, Dez. 1933,” 3–4.

37. Ibid., 5.

38. “Meine öffentliche Tätigkeit,” 42 [1931/32].

39. See “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 64–65, 73–75 [1933]; Wolf, , “1924–Internationale Geschäftsbeziehungen kommen wieder in Gang,” and “1930–Trotz Weltwirtschaftskrise: Ausbau des Fabrikationsprogramms,” Von Frankfurt in die Welt: Aus der Geschichte der Degussa AG (Frankfurt, 1985)Google Scholar; and Tammen, Hellmuth, Die I.G. Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft (1925–1933) (Berlin, 1978), 19 (on Degussa's relative size).Google Scholar

40. “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 137 [1937]. Concerning the general turning away from Nazism on the part of the German upper bourgeoisie in autumn 1932, see, most recently, Thomas Childers, “The Limits of National Socialist Mobilisation: The Election of 6 November 1932 and the Fragmentation of the Nazi Constituency,” in Childers, Thomas et al. , eds., The Formation of the Nazi Constituency (Totowa, N.J., 1986), 232–59, esp. 244–45.Google Scholar

41. Turner, Henry Ashby Jr, German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler (New York, 1985)Google Scholar, and Faschismus und Kapitalismus in Deutschland (Göttingen, 1972).Google Scholar

42. “Nationalsozialismus, Dez. 1933,” 7, 8, 11.

43. “Nachtrag zur … ‘Meine öffentliche Tätigkeit,’” 1 [1936]; “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 101–2 [1937].

44. “Nationalsozialismus, Dez. 1933,” 6.

45. Ibid.; “Nachtrag,” 14 [1936].

46. “Nationalsozialismus, Dez. 1933,” 7; “Nachtrag,” 13 [1936].

47. “Nachtrag,” passim; for the quoted passage, 13 [1936].

48. “Nationalsozialismus, Dez. 1933,” 18; see also, 8.

49. “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 137–38 [1937], as corrected concerning Schlosser by his Party membership card at the Berlin Document Center. He joined the NSDAP as of 1 May 1933, was expelled for being a Freemason in Oct. 1934, and was reinstated in 1940.

50. “Nationalsozialismus, Dez. 1933,” 16–17. Sec for the background to Roessler's observations, James, Harold, The German Slump (Oxford, 1986), chap. 3, esp. 88–90.Google Scholar

51. “Nationalsozialismus, Dez. 1933,” 9.

52. “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 82 [1933].

53. “Nationalsozialismus, Dez. 1933,” 10.

54. Ibid., 10–11.

55. See “Nachtrag,” passim, but esp. 18 [1936].

56. On the acquisitions, see nn. 65–67 below and the discussion to which they refer; on the removals from Degussa's Aufsichtsrat, “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 98 [1937]; and on the Corps Suevia, “Nachtrag,” 13 (for the quotation) and 15 [1936].

57. “Nachtrag,” 16 [1936]; “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 124–25 [1937].

58. “Nationalsozialismus, Dez. 1933,” 12–14, 17.

59. Ibid., 16.

60. “Nachtrag,” 18 [1936].

61. “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 102 [1937]; , Wolf, “1936—Degussa erwirbt die Firma Dr L. C. Marquart AG,” Aus Frankfurt in die Welt: Aus der Geschichte der Degussa AG (Frankfurt, 1986), 3Google Scholar; and Bundesarchiv Koblenz, ZSg 127, Bd. 837, “Die Ergebnisse der grossen deutschen Chemieunternehmungen,” Die chemische Industrie, 9.IX.38.

62. “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 116–17, 119[1937].

63. This and the following paragraph rest upon “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 103–4, 111–15 [1937]; and on , Wolf, “1930–Trotz Weltwirtschaftskrise: Ausbau des Fabrikationsprogramms,” Von Frankfurt in die Welt: Aus der Geschichte der Degussa AG (Frankfurt, 1985)Google Scholar.

64. “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 120, 125 [1937]; Bundesarchiv Koblenz, ZSg 127, Bd. 837, Die chemische Industrie, 9.IX.38 and 9.IX.39.

65. “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 117, 122, 126–27 [1937]. Roessler's estimate of the drop in sales to Henkel was probably somewhat excessive.

66. Ibid., 122–25 [1937]; Degussa-Archiv, IW46.4./1 (Homburg), IW24.4./1 (Degea), and IW21.2./1 (Marquart); and Wolf, “1933–Degussa in der Zeit des politischen Umbruchs,” 4–6, and “1936—Degussa erwirbt die Firma Dr. L.C. Marquart AG,” 6–7, both in Von Frankfurt in die Welt: Aus der Geschichte der Degussa AC (Frankfurt, 1986).Google Scholar

67. See Wolf, “1933,” 6, and “1936,” 7–8. On IG Farben' position, Degussa-Archiv, IW46.4./1, Memorandum by Bernau, 1 Aug. 1933, 1–2. On Dr. Hömes, who was paid 30,000 marks as compensation, see Degussa-Archiv, IW24.5./2, Memorandum by Busemann “Personalverhältnisse/Auer Ges.,” 14 Nov. 1934. On the financial settlement with Klopfer, Degussa-Archiv, IW21.2./1, Hermann Schlosser to Leo Klopfer, 16 Feb. 1938, and Klopfer to Schlosser, 24 Sept. 1948.

68. “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 100 [1937]. On the Trustees of Labor, which historians have often misdescribed as agents of corporate interests, see Barkai, Avraham, Das Wirtschaftssystem des Nationahozialismus (Cologne, 1977), 98–100Google Scholar, and Hayes, Industry and Ideology, 120.

69. “Nationalsozialismus, Dez. 1933,” 12.

70. “Zur Geschichte,” Abschrift, 128–29 [1937].

71. On the ownership and operations of Degesch (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schäd-lingsbekämpfung), see Hilberg, Raul, The Destruction of the European Jews (New York, 1973), 567–70Google Scholar, and Hayes, Industry and Ideology, 361–63. As the latter work explains, it is by no means clear that even the chairman of Degussa's Aufsichtsrat would have learned of Zyklon's homicidal application at Auschwitz.

72. See “Meine öffentliche Tätigkeit,” 59 [1931/32].