Pharmaceutical giant Bayer and the holocaust

Well my opinion is like this...anyone or any company that takes advantage of a political situation knowing crimes are being committed and people are getting killed, well in my opinion they are just as guilty. They had the oppertunity to leave nazi Germany like others did.. They chose to remain, therefore those companies were part of the problem.

it's no different than NIKE and Walt Disney using children in 3rd world countries to make their products. It's child labour and practically slavery. They are as guilty as the corrupt governments for taking advantage of the poor and using them to make their products for practacilly nothing then go selling it for big bucks.

It was a crime then.. and unfortunately it's still happens now .

You can't fully blame India for allowing child labour when your favorite designer brand T-shirt was made there.

There are no excuses for that.

 

Sorry Fraudian slip - the guy's name was Ter Meer and not Ter Hell

BASF's Website shows this History against 1939-45:

"The outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 forces a change to a war economy. With its synthetic products, in particular nitrogen, rubber and gasoline, IG Farben also becomes part of this autarkic, coercive system. During the war, many male employees are called up and replaced by women conscripts, prisoners of war and forced laborers from the occupied countries of Eastern Europe. Moreover, concentration camp inmates are put to work at IG Farben’s Buna factory in Auschwitz, commissioned on the orders of the German army high command in 1940."

A bit but not a lot better than Bayer.

These IG Farben companies include, Afga, Kalle, Ruhr Chemie Cassella, Wacker etc etc as well as Degussa (50% owner of the Zylon B Plant) and Sanofi- Aventis (joint company of Hoechst and a French pharmaceutical company), Ter Meer etc in fact just about the whole of the German Chemical Industry.

Unfortunately the Allies when they spilt up IG Farben failed to make these companies liable for any IG Farben debts.

Thus the rump of IG Farben still exists with (according to Wiki) £7 million assets - it has paid out £160K in damages to its victims but not one of the extremely successful successors (eg BASF is easily the largest chemical company in the World) have ever to my knowledge paid any compensation

- the largest compensation to any Concenteration camp victim has been US $7000.

 

I really don't know anything about the site the following link is posted on, nor the validity of the info contained, but at least it quotes its sources. I just thought it was kind of interesting to get a glimpse at Hitler's and the Nazi Party's early backers and how some of those some names ultimately reaped some huge profits from that association. I'll stand by my earlier statement: " Whether it gets you elected, keeps you in that office or puts fuel in your machines of war, "Money makes the world go 'round, the world go 'round, the world go 'round. That clinking, clanking sound . . ."'

 

I'm down in Arizona visiting my Uncle who flew in WWII. We had a talk about Bayer, to this day he will not buy anything associated with Bayer. When I mentioned Mitsibischi (sp) he said that Bayer was far worse. He also mentioned that our governments were equally corrupt in their race to the locations where they could collect scientists to use in their own space and rocket/jet programs. These scientist were brought back and given a good life for assisting us in the Cold War.

On a side note we did a digital recording of our family history and his life including his service in WWII. He flew 30 or 31 missions in the Lancs and was part of the Dam Busters mission dropping "windows", continuous amounts in comparison to normal "windows" drops. Anyhow he said that the greatest mission he ever flew was to drop food to the starving Dutch people. He said that the true heroes of those missions were not the Lanc crews but the German and Allied staff which set up the cease fire to allow it to happen.

KTK

 

Sunny,

Things are not always as clear as they appear when you you live here. I tend to reserve judgement on some matters such as child labour. I spent a considerable amount of time in India in the 70's and I remember telling an Indian friend that I wouldn't use the human drawn rickshaws that were in use at the time as I felt it was demeaning to use another human as an animal to ferry me around. He said to me that it was much more demeaning for him and his family to starve. Apparently those who pulled the rickshaws were on the bottom of the taxi heap and that's where they started hoping one day to own a motorcycle driven rickshaw and maybe even one day to move all the way up to owning a beater taxi cab. I used the human pulled rickshaws exclusively after that and took some turns pulling them. Believe it or not they pull quite easily with those big wheels. Still a dreadfully hard life when you think that they did it all day on very little food.

Now I have to wonder if the do-gooders in this world stop all child labour will the kids and there families starve? Without knowing the entire situation it is difficult to judge by our standards what is right.

KTK

 

Put it this way, if your grandmother buys you a kitchen knife and if you use it to kill someone, should your grandmother go to jail ? Among the first helpers of the young NSDAP party were some prominent businessmen and bankers. They thought Hitler would protect them for the Communists.... should they be blamed ? Technically they also helped the regime .

 

I disagree with your comment. Don't give these big companies reason to use children to make their products.. Hire adults at a decent and fair salery. Why is it okey in third world countries but here the very thought of a child put into forced labour and abuse causes huge uproar. Overthere are they not human? Are they not worth the fight because they are poor?

But of course companies need to get richer...
Go ahead buy your expensive $100 designer shoes. It's good to know these companies are doing the Third world a favor by employing children to work for 2 cents a day.

Come on people.. What's wrong with this picture.

 

Bt you are assuming the parents do not work. I bet you they do. The problem is far greater then the greed of Nike. The economic situation of India may have something to do withit. Lets not forget, the entire world is not as peachy as US, UK, etc. I'm not saying is fair.

 

Back to WW2 related topics only please.

 

Thats's exactly my point, we blame the econmic situation in these third world countries... these companies are taking advantage of corrupt laws and empoverished regions where it's easy to take advantage of people... nobody there will complain. They are so poor they have no other choice but to work for next to nothing.


That's the same behaviour used in Nazi Germany. Why would the jews complain... it's better than the gas chambers. so work for next to nothing to live an extra day... BUT IT STILL DOES NOT MAKE IT RIGHT!

it's called exploitation!! Bayer USED the political situation like today they USE poverished areas and literally work them for nearly nothing.

What they should have done in Nazi Germany was not get involved. Leave Europe, or employ local Germans not slaves. At least they wouldn't be critisized or repromanded in cooperating in Nazi crimes

Much like if companies today would put just a tiny bit more effort in giving fair wages and safe work conditions to third world employees. Why not at least give an empoverished family a chance. it's still pennies compared to what they would pay a worker here..

money and greed is the root of all evil.

 

No I am no assuming. I know the whole entire family works.. Other than possibly a mother who is to remain home raising her babies. In fact some poverty situations in this world are so bad that parents will sell thier own children into slavery or into marriages just to support the remaining household.

I am well aware of what happens in this world. i am not one of those people who think everything is "peachy". I have studied this topic among many others when is comes to human rights and the stigmas of certain cultures that hold back the rights of people.

But getting back on topic, i am using what's happening today as a comparison to the Nazi era. India is just an example, but there are many more cases of crimes currently being commited by companaies around the world. i'm not saying bayer and the others were Nazis, but they certainly took advantage of innocent people and they knew it. It's all about saving money at the expense of the slave laborers who probably never lived to see the end of the war.