Big Pharma, Chapter 2: IG Farbenindustrie AG and the Nazi Regime

Welcome to the second write up in this particular series on the history of Big Pharma and allopathic medicine. If you missed the first section please take the time to read it at some point. There is information in all of the different sections that will be applied throughout the discussions and will help readers to understand the implications of the information. I started writing this second section in the beginning of October of 2024. It is now well over a month later, and I am still putting together information for the full post. I thought I was just going to lay foundation for the connections of several German pharmaceutical companies and their corruption with the Nazi Regime. It seemed very straightforward at the time, because I already had much of the information that I wanted to write about (or so I thought). Best laid plans often go awry, and this write up is no different. I have had some very interesting information come up through my investigation process, including coming into contact with a private independent, investigative, German journalist named Gaby Weber who is not involved with pharmaceutical investigation. In fact, she has been investigating Mercedes Benz of Argentina since 1999, definitely not a pharmaceutical investigator. I find it very interesting that my investigation of the history of the pharmaceutical industry brought me to her, but it did. In particular the data that I am gathering while writing about in this section of the history. I have unfortunately found that online sources are scarce for this particular section or they are not accurate, or there is no concrete proof of the claims. I have had to order multiple physical copies of publications which has also created delays that I did not expect. I also found that there are several documents that require certain formalities that I have never encountered before (FOIA requests from multiple countries). The focus of much of that data is the Rockefeller Drug Trust and Standard Oil, which you will see is highly connected to the many entities that are mentioned in this post. Because I want this information to be as accurate as possible, I have continued to make sure that the sources of my information are not illegitimate websites, or sources that I can not verify. I will continue to do my due diligence throughout the remaining posts that are associated with these historical events, and subsequent outcomes.

What has become the modern pharmaceutical industry would not be what it is without the influence of German industry. This time period (often referred to as "The Gilded Age") was a time of obvious prosperity and growth in many different aspects of life in the throughout the world. Fortune's were being made, and major advancements were occurring in multiple different industries. Wars were being fought and won, as well as large "improvements" in economic avenues. On the surface, things appear productive, and eventful. But looks can be deceiving, as we will see. The more I continue writing about the history of the pharmaceutical industry the more it is proving to not be as clear cut as it would first seem. There are twists and turns in places that one wouldn't normally expect. There are also a lot of questions raised by our current circumstances in "healthcare" among other current geopolitical implications, and sorting through the historical data sometimes raises more questions than it answers when applied to our present circumstances. There really is so much that has gone into what is happening in the world with pharmaceuticals, and exactly how we got here. Telling that story and working to keep everything in a continuous pattern is proving to be increasingly difficult, but I am definitely enjoying sharing the additional information that I am coming across. Unfortunately, it has been difficult to try to keep things from crossing over from one demographic to another. While pharmaceuticals were being developed, there were also political happenings that were creating quite a bit of discourse that pull attention from what was occurring on the business and economic state of things. Politics and pharmaceuticals have long been connected, even though they seem like they are the farthest from each other that they could be. What in the world can health and politics have in common? Nothing, at least on a surface level, but again looks can be deceiving. Politics ultimately has everything to do with power, and control. There is also a missing link in what was and has become "Big Oil". John D. Rockefeller, Sr. was an oil tycoon, who turned his attention to pharmaceuticals for a myriad of reasons. One being because he found that petroleum disguised as medicine had a huge profit margin well beyond what could be produced with the oil industry alone (Bealle, 1949). Another important fact that brings the "healthcare" industry into a political arena is that the best way to control a population of people is to have control of their health and well-being. So even though pharmaceuticals and medicine should have little to do with political agendas it actually has everything to do with political agendas, then and now. The beginning of the 20th century was quite a tumultuous time in the world stage, without a doubt. The chemical industry in Europe was being led by the German multinational companies Bayer, BASF, Hoechst, and several other smaller companies that then became what became known as I.G. Farben.

German chemical industry is primarily responsible for the current state of the pharmaceutical industry. In fact, many of today's pharmaceutical companies were German initially, even ones with little to no connection to IG Farben. Merck, Aventis (which was actually Hoechst); these are all German started companies and they are all in operation today. The timeline is easier to follow if we just chase one company in particular, so we will keep our focus on Bayer as they have the most influence at the turn of the century and beyond. They also prove to be one of the most corrupt. You are likely familiar with this company and its' products (or at least one of them). Bayer AG is one of the largest pharmaceutical, and biotechnology companies today, which makes this information all the more important. Bayer's first major product was acetylsalicylic acid in 1853 which was a modification of salicylic acid or salicin, a folk remedy found in the bark of the willow tree, which became known as "Aspirin". But, it might surprise you (or it might not) that Bayer was not known only for aspirin in the late 1800's and early 1900's. It was known for a chemical called diacetylmorphine, better known as heroine (Posner, 2017). In 1895, a man named Heinrich Dreser was working for the Bayer Corperation in Eberfeld, Germany when he discovered that diluting morphine with acetyls produced a drug that had less of the negative side effects of morphine. Bayer was not the first to focus on morphine as a product though. In 1827 E. Merck and Company of Darmstadt, Germany had begun manufacturing morphine, and would also be a dominant manufacturer of several other products like cocaine and codeine. Just as a side note, Merck Group (which is what it is known by now) is known as the oldest known pharmaceutical company in the world and was originally founded in 1668 (according to their historical documentation). There is a branch of Merck in the US, that isn't connected today with Merck Group KGaA however they were connected historically (Merck, 2024). It will may also surprise you that Bayer was not always a pharmaceutical company, but was originally a dye company. The initial start of the company was a partnership between dye salesman Friedrich Bayer, and dyer Friedrich Weskott. It was dyes that were first associated with chemists and chemical production in Germany and much of Europe during this time (as there was no "pharmaceuticals" yet). Although dyes don't exactly scream "medicine" it makes sense because the dyes that were being developed showed antimicrobial activity, which made them a focus in medicine (Posner, 2017). The dye industry was booming, and the chair of the company Carl Duisberg was strongly pushing that the German dye industry should merge with the pharmaceutical industry (Bayer, 2024). During a previous trip to the United States in 1903, he visited several of the large American companies including Standard Oil, U.S. Steel, International Paper and Alcoa. In 1904, after returning to Germany, he proposed a nationwide merger of the producers of dye and pharmaceuticals in a memorandum to Gustav von Brüning, the senior manager at Hoechst (another German chemical company). Hoechst and several of the smaller pharmaceutical firms refused to participate at this time but did agree to join later in the process. In October 1904 an Interessen-Gemeinschaft (abbr. IG, lit. "community of interest") between Bayer, BASF and Agfa was formed, also known as the Dreibund or little IG. Profits of the three firms were pooled, with BASF and Bayer getting 43 percent each and Agfa 14 percent of all profits. I. G. Farbenindustrie AG was formed officially in 1925, as a merger of six companies total: BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, including Cassella and Chemische Fabrik Kalle, Agfa, Chemische Fabrik Griesheim-Elektron, and Chemische Fabrik vorm. Weiler Ter Meer. These companies did not hold equal shares in IG Farben though, and the majority of the shares were controlled by BASF, Hoechst, and Bayer.

Now, I know that this isn't a political science write up, and I honestly have very little experience writing about political happenings and interests. I also didn't expect a story about the history of pharmaceuticals to bring me to Big Oil and Big Auto, but here we are. Also, because of the overlap in both politics and what has become the current "healthcare system" I have no way to keep these things apart, at least at this stage and time period. IG Farben had become a conglomerate, and had also become the topic of European controversy in itself after the first world war. In the 1920's and 1930's the company became a target for what was "right leaning" political views of the time. Because the company had a high Jewish rate of employment, it became targeted and underwent an "aryanization". By 1938 all Jewish employees had been dismissed from employment, and all Jewish board members had been forced to resign. By the start of the second world war IG Farben was the largest company in Europe, and the 4th largest company in the world. It had also become a huge supporter of the Nazi Regime, and was key in putting Adolf Hitler into power by funding his efforts (Posner, 2017). It is important to make sure that this aspect of the story is not overlooked. IG Farben became the backbone for the Nazi Regime (Posner, 2017). Parts of Auschwitz were built by IG Farben with the purpose of using the prisoners as "test subjects" for their products, and was 100% their subsidiary (IG Farben / Auschwitz III-Monowitz / History / Auschwitz-Birkenau, n.d.). The chemical conglomerate even produced the product Zyklon B that was used in all of the Nazi concentration camps gas chambers to exterminate over 1 million Jewish Prisoners (Posner, 2017). In 1978, Joseph Borkin, who investigated the company as a United States Justice Department lawyer, quoted an American report: "Without I.G.'s immense productive facilities, its far-reaching research, varied technical expertise and overall concentration of economic power, Germany would not have been in a position to start its aggressive war in September 1939." (Borkin, 1978). It is also important to note here that it is widely known that IG Farben/Bayer paid the SS to use the prisoners in the concentration camps for their use in testing of their new products (Posner, 2017). The fee's for conducting these "studies" were transferred directly from the accounts of Bayer, Hoechst, and BASF to the accounts of the SS (Posner, 2017). This is all public knowledge, and is what lead to the Nuremburg Trials after WWII.

1939 was a big year in this story of Big Pharma, but only because of what was publicly happening with the war in Europe. Much of what had occurred in the decade or two prior had gone unnoticed, but is very important in it's implications with Big Pharma and Big Oil. In order to truly understand how things came to be what they are, we need to look into Pre-World War II era, even as far back as 1914 (which would be Pre-World War I). At the time, the three top petroleum producing countries were; The United States, Russia, and Austria-Hungry. Prior to WWI the Russian oil fields were owned by two British families; the Nobles, and the Rothschilds. The Russian Revolution had re-established the world order, as much of the oil fields in Baku had been taken as enemy property. These properties were lost in the war, with what was the "Turkish Petroleum Company" and given to France (Weber, n.d.). According to a historian named Dietrich Eichholtz, in 1918 Mr. Nobel had made contact with the then German emperor Wilhelm to help him return his assets that were lost (Weber, n.d.). This wasn't possible at the time, considering that the German Republic was unarmed after the conclusion of the Great War. According to the source that I had contact with, "there is strong evidence that in approximately 1927 Deutsche Bank and Standard Oil made a secret pact to bring Hilter into power in order to conquer the oil of Baku." Which, if true would implicate the American Oil and Pharmaceutical tycoon who had just hijacked the medical educational system in the US a major player the motivation behind both world wars. But, he wasn't alone in this venture and that is a layer that I am currently exploring. There appears to be more to the "robber baron" title than meets the eye.

Because I am still waiting on several publications to arrive for my review, I think stopping here is wise. Beside the fact that the reading time is already over what I think the average person will take to read up on this type of historical data. There is much more to this story, and I want to make sure that I can make sense of it all. I am after-all a health and wellness coach, not a historian or journalist. I do want to share the true history of pharmaceuticals, and help people understand why having a healthy skepticism towards what the system has become is a vital part of modern life. These are the companies that continue to profit from people's illnesses, not from their health. These companies and systems have been developed through deceit and lack of moral compass. If they did it then, they are likely still doing it now in some form. Except now there is a whole lot more money. And we all know about what money does, and what people will do for it.

References

Bayer. (2024, March 31). Www.britannica.com. https://www.britannica.com/money/Bayer

Bayer History. (2024, November 14). Britannica.com. https://www.britannica.com/money/Bayer#ref106843

Borkin, J. (1978). The Crime and Punishment of I. G. Farben. The Free Press.

IG Farben / Auschwitz III-Monowitz / History / Auschwitz-Birkenau. (n.d.). Www.auschwitz.org. https://www.auschwitz.org/en/history/auschwitz-iii/ig-farben/

Morris Allison Bealle. (1962). Super Drug Story. Columbia Publishing Company. (Original work published 1949)

Neubauer, Jr, W. C. (1969). Activities of I.G. Farbenindustrie in the United States, 1929 until March 11, 1942 March 11, 1942 [Honors Thesis]. https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1297&context=honors-theses

Posner, P. (2017). The Pharmacist of Auschwitz. Crux Publishing Ltd.

Weber, G. (n.d.). “Getting on with their Own Business”: The Secret Pact of Standard Oil with the Nazi’s and Why Adolf Eichmann was Silenced. Gabyweber.com. Retrieved October 25, 2024, from https://www.gabyweber.com/dwnld/artikel/eichmann/ingles/secret_pact_standard_oil.pdf