Editing IG Farben (section)

===Foundation===
{{see also|IG Farben Building}}
{{wide image|IG Farben Gebaeude Uni Frankfurt.jpg|800px|Completed in 1930, the [[IG Farben Building]] in Frankfurt was seized by the Americans after the war. In 1996 it was transferred to the German government and in 2001 to the [[Goethe University Frankfurt|University of Frankfurt]].}}
[[File:IG Farben AG 1925.jpg|thumb|left|Share of the I. G. Farbenindustrie AG, issued in December 1925]] Following a contract signed by all concerned parties on November 21, 1925, IG Farben was founded on December 2, 1925 as a merger of six companies: [[BASF]] (27.4 percent of equity capital); [[Bayer]] (27.4 percent); [[Hoechst AG|Hoechst]], including [[Cassella Farbwerke Mainkur Aktiengesellschaft|Cassella]] and Chemische Fabrik Kalle (27.4 percent); [[Agfa-Gevaert|Agfa]] (9 percent); Chemische Fabrik Griesheim-Elektron (6.9 percent); and Chemische Fabrik vorm. Weiler Ter Meer (1.9 percent).<ref name="Tammen 1978 195">{{Harvnb|Tammen|1978|p=195}}</ref> The supervisory board members became widely known as, and were said to call themselves jokingly, the "Council of Gods" (''Rat der Götter'').<ref>Kaiser, Arvid (16 August 2015). [http://www.manager-magazin.de/unternehmen/artikel/die-weltmarktfuehrer-von-gestern-a-1037371-7.html "Die Weltmarktführer von gestern"], ''manager magazin''.</ref> The designation was used as the title of an [[East Germany|East German]] film, ''[[The Council of the Gods]]'' (1950).

[[File:IGFarbenGoetterrat.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Painting from [[Hermann Groeber]], The IG Farben [[supervisory board]], commonly known as the "Council of Gods", in 1926{{efn|Standing, left to right: [[Arthur von Weinberg]], Carl Müller, [[Edmund ter Meer]], [[Adolf Haeuser]], [[Franz Oppenheim]]. Seated: [[Theodor Plieninger]], [[Ernst von Simson]], [[Carl Bosch]], [[Walther vom Rath]], [[Wilhelm Kalle]], [[Carl von Weinberg]] and [[Carl Duisberg]].}}]]
In 1926, IG Farben had a [[market capitalization]] of {{Reichsmark|1.4 billion|link=yes}} (equivalent to {{Inflation|DE|1.4|1926}} billion {{Inflation-year|DE}} euros) and a workforce of 100,000, of which 2.6 percent were university educated, 18.2 percent were salaried professionals and 79.2 percent were workers.<ref name="Tammen 1978 195"/> BASF was the nominal survivor; all shares were exchanged for BASF shares. Similar mergers took place in other countries. In the United Kingdom [[Brunner Mond]], [[Nobel Enterprises|Nobel Industries]], [[United Alkali Company]] and [[British Dyestuffs Corporation|British Dyestuffs]] merged to form [[Imperial Chemical Industries]] in September 1926. In France [[Établissements Poulenc Frères]] and Société Chimique des Usines du Rhône merged to form [[Rhône-Poulenc]] in 1928.<ref>{{Harvnb|Aftalion|Benfey|1991|pp=140, 143}}</ref> The [[IG Farben Building]], headquarters for the conglomerate in [[Frankfurt|Frankfurt am Main]], Germany, was completed in 1931. In 1938, the company had 218,090 employees.{{sfn|Fiedler|1999|p=49}}

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IG Farben was controversial on both the far left and far right, partly for the same reasons, related to the size and international nature of the conglomerate and the Jewish background of several of its key leaders and major shareholders {{citation needed|date=May 2023}}. Far-right newspapers of the 1920s and early 1930s, accused it of being an "international capitalist Jewish company". The liberal and business-friendly [[German People's Party]] was its most pronounced supporter. Not a single member of the management of IG Farben before 1933 supported the Nazi Party; four members, or a third, of the IG Farben [[supervisory board]] were themselves Jewish.{{sfn|Bäumler|1988|p=277ff}}

Throughout the 1930s, the company underwent a process of [[Aryanization (Nazism)|Aryanization]], and the company ended up being the "largest single contribution" to the successful Nazi election campaign of 1933;{{sfn|Borkin|1978|p=71}} there is also evidence of "secret contributions" to the party in 1931 and 1932.{{sfn|Sasuly|1947|p=66}}
By 1938 the Jews on the board had resigned and the remaining Jewish employees had been dismissed after [[Hermann Göring]] issued a decree, as part of the Nazis' [[Four Year Plan]] (announced in 1936), that the German government would make foreign exchange available to German firms to fund construction or purchases overseas only if certain conditions were met, which included making sure the company employed no Jews.{{sfn|Hayes|2001|p=196}}