Word: farben
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Charged with fostering an "economic spy system" for Adolf Hitler, 22 directors of the billion dollar I. C. Farben chemical trust went on trial for war crimes yesterday at Nuernberg, Germany. The Farbon officials heard the U.S. prosecution assert that they had fostered Hitler's war aims, cagerly exploited slave labor, and waged aggressive war from their laboratories...
Most important, to U.S. companies was the old charge that Farben had weakened the U.S. by cartel agreements with Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey to restrict synthetic rubber development, with Aluminum Co. of America and Dow Chemical to restrict magnesium production, with a Du Pont subsidiary to prevent export of tetrazene (an explosive) to Britain...
...would have no trouble proving that the Nazis could not have made war without Farben. But it would not be so easy to prove which of Farben's prewar activities had been respectable, if ruthless, business practice and which had been criminal warmaking. Nor would U.S. industrialists agree that Farben's deals with U.S. companies had hampered the U.S. war potential. They have maintained that they got from Farben more industrial secrets than they gave. After years of argument, the point was still arguable...
...moral problem which the indictment raised was plain. If Farben was proved guilty, did those who had dealt with Farben share the guilt? If wars could not be fought without the help of industrialists, then were not businessmen, in the final analysis, the real warmakers? That was what the U.S. War Crimes Commission seemed to hold in its newest Nürnberg indictment...
Standard Oil Co. (NJ.) had "no cartel agreements with Farben." So said Robert T. Haslam, vice president, this week. He said that Standard had had "an agreement to purchase a large number of Farben's American patents for $35,000,000, plus turning over to them some of our patents. Those patents we purchased gave the U.S. synthetic toluol for TNT . . . 100 octane gasoline . . . buna rubber." The Dow Chemical Co.'s Willard H. Dow denied the cartel charge saying: "Those things have been very much distorted...