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Carl Bosch and Carl Krauch: Chemistry and the Political Economy of Germany, 1925–1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Peter Hayes
Peter Hayes
Affiliation:
Professor of History, Northwestern University, Harris Hall, Evanston, IL 60201.
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Abstract

Carl Bosch and Carl Krauch, accomplished scientists and prominent executives in the BASF and IG Farben chemical corporations, were drawn together by mutual admiration and common technical interests. In the Nazi era, however, they came to embody competing liberal and nationalist conceptions of German political economy. This article examines their relationship, the reasons for their divergent stances, and their individual contributions to the economic and productive power of the Third Reich. Ironically, Bosch's understanding of his industry, his nation, and scientific progress led him to oppose the Nazis, but also to lay the basis for their recruitment of Krauch and the German chemical industry for their expansionist purposes.

Type
Papers Presented at the Forty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , June 1987 , pp. 353 - 363
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1987

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References

1 For a polite, contemporary description of this pattern, see Schwarz, , Goldschmidt & Co., Die I.G. Farbenindustrie und ihre Bedeurung (Berlin, 1926), p. 6.Google Scholar

2 See Gross, Hermann, Further Facts and Figures Relating to the Deconcentration of the I.G. Farbenindustrie Akriengesellschaft (Kiel, 1950), pp. 35–40,Google Scholar on Farben's relative size. For fuller treatments of the industry's long consolidation process, see Hayes, Peter, Industry and Ideology: IG Farben in the Nazi Era (New York, 1987), pp. 7–16, and the sources cited there.Google Scholar

3 On Bosch's career, see the rather worshipful account of Holdermann, Karl, Im Banne der Chemie. Carl Bosch, Leben und Werke (Düsseldorf, 1953).Google Scholar

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7 Quoted in Winschuh, Josef, Männer, Traditionen, Signale (Berlin, 1940), pp. 50–52.Google Scholar

8 Quoted by Krauch, Carl in United States National Archives, Record Group 238, M892, Records of the United States of America vs. Carl Krauch et al. (Case VI), Reel 15, p. 5122.Google Scholar

9 Unternehmensarchiv der BASF AG, Signatur W1, Bosch's remarks in Vienna upon receipt of the Exner Medal, December 16, 1932.

10 Holdermann, Im Banne der Chemie, pp. 266–67, quoting Bosch's speech to the Association of German Chemists in May 1921.Google Scholar

11 See fn. 9.Google Scholar

12 The quoted remarks appear in Rauschning, Hermann, The Voice of Destruction (New York, 1940), pp. 24, 191.Google Scholar On Nazi economic thought, see Turner, Henry A., “Hitlers Einstellung zu Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft vor 1933,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 1 (1976), pp. 89–117;Google Scholar Peter Kruger, “Zu Hitlers ‘nationalsozialistischen Wirtschaftserkenntnissen’,” Turner, Henry A., “Hitlers Einstellung zu Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft vor 1933,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 1 (1976), pp. 89–117;., 6 (1980), pp. 263–82;Google Scholar and the three excellent publications of Avraham Barkai: “Sozialdarwinismus und Antiliberalismus in Hitlers Wirtschaftskonzept,” Ibid., 3 (1977), pp. 406–17; “Die Wirtschaftsauffassung der NSDAP,” Aus Politik und Zeirgeschichte, Beilage 9 (1975), pp. 3–16; and Das Wirzschaftssystem des Nationalsozialismus (Köln, 1977).Google Scholar

13 Hayes, Peter, Industry and Ideology, chap. 2.Google Scholar

14 Ibid., chaps. 3–5, for detailed documentation.

15 Holdermann, Im Banne der Chemie, pp. 293–97, 301–2, 305–7.Google Scholar

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18 The description is from Knickerbocker, H. R., The German Crisis (New York, 1932), p. 83. When the author visited the factory, its 600 buildings were spread over an area measuring just under 1 by 3 miles.Google Scholar

19 According to a memoir in my possession, pp. 165–66, written decades later by Krauch's chief assistant in the 1930s and furnished me by his family on the condition that I not cite the author by name during his lifetime.Google Scholar

20 This characterization by Glum, Friedrich appears in his memoir, Zwischen Wissenschaft, Wirrschaft und Politik (Bonn, 1964), p. 490.Google Scholar

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22 Hayes, Industry and Ideology, chaps. 4–5.Google Scholar

23 Ibid., pp. 36–42, which supersedes the nonetheless excellent and path-breaking work of Hughes, Thomas Parke, “Technological Momentum in History: Hydrogenation in Germany 1898–1933,” Past & Present, 44 (08 1969), pp. 106–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 Hayes, Industry and Ideology, pp. 66–67, gives a detailed discussion of this meeting and the available evidence concerning it.Google Scholar See also Turner, Henry A. Jr, German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler (New York, 1985), pp. 248–49.Google Scholar

25 For evidence that IG did not, in fact, recover its costs by 1945, see Birkenfeld, Wolfgang, Der synthetische Treibstoff, 1933–1945 (Göttingen, 1964), pp. 33–34,Google Scholar and U.S. National Archives, RG 238, M892, Bütefisch Defense Document 159, Affidavit by Hartmann, K., January 12, 1948. On the concern's strategic response, see RG 238, T301, Reel 38, NI-5 187, affidavit by Fritz terMeer, April 15, 1947,Google Scholar and terMeer, Fritz, Die I. G. Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft (Düsseldorf, 1953), p. 82.Google Scholar

26 Holdermann, Im Banne der Chemie, pp. 291–92.Google Scholar

27 U.S. National Archives, RG 238, M892, Krauch Defense Document 87, Affidavit by Krauch, Carl, December 29, 1947;Google ScholarPetzina, DieterAutarkiepolitik im Dritten Reich (Stuttgart, 1968), pp. 183, 185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar I have converted the Reichsmark figures to dollars on the basis of the nominal 4: 1 ratio, rather than the 2.5: 1 ratio current just before the war or the 1.5: 1 ratio, based on relative purchasing powers, that IG Farben's financial officers favored.

28 See Petzina Aurarkiepolirik, Table 2, p. 83.Google Scholar

29 U.S. National Archives, RG 238, M892, Krauch's testimony at his postwar trial, pp. 5115–17.Google Scholar

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31 I have estimated IG's share in investments under the Four Year Plan from the data provided in Petzina, Autarkiepolitik, p. 183; U.S. National Archives, RG 238, T301, Reel 82, NI-10001, Affidavit by Deichfischer, H., June 11, 1947; and these documents in the Firmenarchiv der Hoechst AG, Frankfurt-Hoechst, File TEA 393: Mittelaufwendungen: Rundfrage der Reichsstelle für Wirtschaftsausbau, January 21, 1939; Ausgaben auf Neuanlagen für die Z.A.-Sitzung, January 25, 1939; and Erlauterungen zum Ausgabenplan der IG-Werke, May 11, 1939.Google Scholar

32 See Hayes, Industry and Ideology, pp. 317–20;Google Scholar and Morris, Peter J. T., The Development of Acetylene Chemistry and Synthetic Rubber by I. G. Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft: 1926–1945 (dissertation, University of Oxford, 1982), pp. 321–42.Google Scholar

33 Berlin Document Center, Personalakten Krauch, contains the records of Krauch's membership in the NSDAP.Google Scholar

34 See U.S. National Archives, RG 238, M892, Reel 6, Krauch's testimony, pp. 508748; T301, Reel 53, NI-6768, Interrogation of Krauch, April 29, 1947; T301, Reel 7 NI-8840, Krauch to Koerner, July 22, 1938; Petzina, Autarkiepolitik, pp. 124–25.Google Scholar

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36 Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, R25/14, Krauch's speech to the General Council of the Four Year Plan, April 20–21, 1939, p. 14.Google Scholar

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