Chapter Four - The IG Farben Pact

CHAPTER FOUR

The IG Farben Pact

BY THE 1920S, the German chemical industry was the envy of the world.

Companies like Bayer, BASF, and Hoechst weren’t just making dyes and drugs anymore. They were building a new economy. Chemicals for medicine. Chemicals for farming. Chemicals for industry. Entire sectors began to rely on what came out of the lab.

But competition was fierce. And after World War I, with Germany’s economy in shambles and foreign markets closing, the biggest players came together.

In 1925, Bayer merged with five other companies to form IG Farben. Short for Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG, or “The Community of Interests of Dye-Making Companies.”

It was more than a merger. It was a cartel.

IG Farben quickly became one of the largest and most powerful corporations in the world. It controlled vast swaths of the chemical market. From pharmaceuticals to pesticides, explosives to plastics. The scale was massive. The profits were unprecedented.

Bayer was now a part of something bigger. Its name faded into the background. Its operations were absorbed into IG Farben’s corporate structure. But its scientists, factories, and products remained active. Now under the banner of a chemical empire.

And then came the politics.

When the Nazis rose to power in the 1930s, IG Farben didn’t resist. It adapted. It aligned. The company funded Nazi campaigns, produced synthetic oil and rubber for the war effort, and supplied the regime with the materials it needed to rearm.

For IG Farben, and Bayer within it, it wasn’t about ideology.

It was about business.

The deals were signed. The factories kept running. The war was coming.

And the company was ready.