Editing IG Farben (section)

===Zyklon B===
Between 1942 and 1945, a [[hydrogen cyanide|cyanide]]-based pesticide, [[Zyklon B]], was used to kill over one million people, mostly Jews, in [[gas chamber]]s in Europe, including in the [[Auschwitz II]] and [[Majdanek]] extermination camps in German-occupied Poland.{{sfn|Neumann|2012|p=115}} The poison gas was supplied by an IG Farben subsidiary, [[Degesch]] (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung MbH, or German Company for Pest Control).{{sfn|Bartrop|2017|pp=742–743}} Degesch originally supplied the gas to Auschwitz to fumigate clothing that was infested with lice, which carried [[typhus]]. Fumigation took place within a closed room, but it was a slow process, so Degesch recommended building small gas chambers, which heated the gas to over 30&nbsp;°C and killed the lice within one hour. The idea was that the inmates would be shaved and showered while their clothes were being fumigated.{{sfn|van Pelt|Dwork|1996|pp=219–221}} The gas was first used on human beings in Auschwitz (650 Soviet POWs and 200 others) in September 1941.<ref>{{harvnb|Hilberg|1998|p=84}}; also see {{harvnb|Hayes|2001|p=362}}.</ref>

Peter Hayes compiled the following table showing the increase in Zyklon B ordered by Auschwitz (figures with an asterisk are incomplete). One ton of Zyklon B was enough to kill around 312,500 people.{{sfn|Hayes|2001|p=362}}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Production and sales of Zyklon B, 1938–1945
|-
!   !! 1938 !! 1939 !! 1940 !! 1941 !! 1942 !! 1943 !! 1944
|-
| Sales (thousands of [[Reichsmark|marks]]) || 257 || 337 || 448 || 366 || 506 || 544 || 
|-
| Percentage of total [[Degesch]] earnings || 30 || 38 || 57 || 48 || 39 || 52 || 
|-
| Production ([[short ton]]s) || 160 || 180 || 242 || 194 || 321 || 411 || 231
|-
| Volume ordered by [[Auschwitz]] (short tons) ||  ||  || ||  || 8.2 || 13.4 || 2.2*
|-
| Percentage of production ordered by Auschwitz ||  ||  ||  ||  || 2.5 || 3.3 || 1.0*
|-
| Volume ordered by [[Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp complex|Mauthausen]]<br/>(not an extermination camp) ||  ||  ||  ||  || 0.9 || 1.5 || 
|}

{{multiple image
| align             = right
| direction         = vertical
| width             = 220
| header            = 
| image1            = Zyklon B Container.jpg
| caption1          = [[Zyklon B]] container in the Auschwitz museum
| image2            = Heinrich Himmler, IG Farben Auschwitz plant, July 1942.jpeg
| caption2          = [[Heinrich Himmler]] ''(second left)'' visits the IG Farben Auschwitz plant, July 1942.
| image5            = Bundesarchiv Bild 146-2007-0056, IG-Farbenwerke Auschwitz.jpg
| caption5          = IG Farben Auschwitz factory
}}

Several IG Farben executives said after the war that they did not know about the gassings, despite the increase in sales of Zyklon B to Auschwitz. IG Farben owned 42.5 percent of Degesch shares, and three members of Degesch's 11-person executive board, [[Wilhelm Rudolf Mann]], [[Heinrich Hörlein]] and [[Carl Wurster]], were directors of IG Farben.{{sfn|United Nations War Crimes Commission|1949|p=24}} Mann, who had been an [[Sturmabteilung|SA]]-[[Sturmführer]],<ref name=MannWollheim/> was the chair of Degesch's board. Peter Hayes writes that the board did not meet after 1940, and that although Mann "continued to review the monthly sales figures for Degesch, he could not necessarily have inferred from them the uses to which the Auschwitz camp was putting the product".{{sfn|Hayes|2001|p=361}} IG Farben executives did visit Auschwitz where only a smaller gas chamber existed,<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.auschwitz.org/en/visiting/permanent-exhibition/gas-chamber-i | title=Gas chamber I / Permanent Exhibition / Visiting / Auschwitz-Birkenau }}</ref> but not [[Auschwitz II-Birkenau]], where the industrial gas chambers were located.{{sfn|Hayes|2001|p=363}}

Other IG Farben staff appear to have known. Ernst Struss, secretary of the IG Farben's managing board, testified after the war that the company's chief engineer at Auschwitz had told him about the gassings.{{sfn|Maguire|2010|p=146}} The general manager of Degesch is said to have learned about the gassings from [[Kurt Gerstein]] of the SS.{{sfn|Hayes|2001|p=363}} According to the post-war testimony of [[Rudolf Höss]], the Auschwitz commandant, he was asked by {{ill|Walter Dürrfeld|de}}, technical manager of the IG Farben Auschwitz plant, whether it was true that Jews were being cremated at Auschwitz. Höss replied that he could not discuss it and thereafter assumed that Dürrfeld knew.{{sfn|Hayes|2001|p=364}} Dürrfeld, a friend of Höss, denied knowing about it.<ref name=DürrfeldWollheim>{{cite web |title=Walther Dürrfeld (1899–1967) |url=http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/en/walther_duerrfeld_18991967 |publisher=Wollheim Memorial, Fritz Bauer Institute |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160325013129/http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/en/walther_duerrfeld_18991967 |archive-date=25 March 2016}}</ref><!--[[Bruno Tesch]], a chemist who had been involved in the development of [[Zyklon B]], reportedly told a secretary around June 1942 that Wehrmacht officers had talked about gassings; Tesch was hanged by the British in 1946.-->

Hayes writes that the inmates of Auschwitz III, which supplied the slave labour for IG Farben, were well aware of the gas chambers, in part because of the stench from the Auschwitz II crematoria, and in part because IG Farben supervisors in the camp spoke about the gassings, including using the threat of them to make the inmates work harder.<ref>{{harvnb|Hayes|2001|p=364}}; also see Benedikt Kautsky, hearing of witness, 29 January 1953. Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Wiesbaden (HHStAW), Sec. 460, No. 1424 (Wollheim v. I.G. Farben), Vol. II, pp. 257–264.</ref> [[Charles Coward]], a British POW who had been held at Auschwitz III, told the [[IG Farben trial]]:

{{blockquote|The population at Auschwitz was fully aware that people were being gassed and burned. On one occasion they complained about the stench of the burning bodies. Of course all of the Farben people knew what was going on. Nobody could live in Auschwitz and work in the plant, or even come down to the plant, without knowing what was common knowledge to everybody.<ref>{{harvnb|IG Farben trial|p=606}}; {{harvnb|Borkin|1978|p=144}}; {{harvnb|Maguire|2010|p=146}}.</ref>}}

Mann, Hörlein and Wurster (directors of both IG Farben and Degesch) were acquitted at the [[IG Farben trial]] in 1948 of having supplied Zyklon B for the purpose of mass extermination. The judges ruled that the prosecution had not shown that the defendants or executive board "had any persuasive influence on the management policies of Degesch or any significant knowledge as to the uses to which its production was being put".{{sfn|United Nations War Crimes Commission|1949|p=24}} In 1949, Mann became head of pharmaceutical sales at [[Bayer]].<ref name=MannWollheim>{{cite web |title=Wilhelm Rudolf Mann (1894–1992) |url=http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/en/wilhelm_rudolf_mann_18941992 |publisher=Wollheim Memorial, Fritz Bauer Institute |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120126234732/http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/en/wilhelm_rudolf_mann_18941992 |archive-date=26 January 2012|url-status=live}}</ref> Hörlein became chair of Bayer's supervisory board.<ref>{{cite web |title=Philipp Heinrich Hörlein (1882–1954) |url=http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/en/philipp_heinrich_hoerlein_18821954 |publisher=Wollheim Memorial, Fritz Bauer Institute |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180904052329/http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/en/philipp_heinrich_hoerlein_18821954 |archive-date=4 September 2018}}</ref> Wurster became chair of the IG Farben board, helped to reestablish [[BASF]] as a separate company, and became an honorary professor at the [[University of Heidelberg]].<ref name=WursterWollheim>{{cite web |title=Carl Wurster (1900–1974) |url=http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/en/carl_wurster_19001974 |publisher=Wollheim Memorial, Fritz Bauer Institute|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180831035443/http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/en/carl_wurster_19001974 |archive-date=31 August 2018}}</ref> Dürrfeld was sentenced to eight years, but had his sentence commuted to time served in 1951 by [[John J. McCloy|John McCloy]], the US High Commissioner for Germany, under massive political pressure, after which he joined the management or supervisory boards of several chemical companies.<ref name=DürrfeldWollheim/>