Customer Reviews

Industry and Ideology: I. G. Farben in the Nazi Era

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Rarely examined and more rarely understood is how respective business leaders became effective accomplices in the Nazi regime. Peter Hayes' book, Industry and Ideology, provides a cogent explanation based on both extensive citations to research and on reasoned analysis and common sense. It should be required reading not only in University history departments, but also in business schools.

Author Peter Hayes displays a shocking, no astonishing, lack of moral indignation, in what struck me as a superficial review of IG Farben's complicity in Hitler's plans. He tends to gloss over the involvement of Farben's board in locating their facilities in concentration camps--asserting the men were only acting as good businessmen. Of course they were businessmen--businessmen who prospered at the expense of Jewish misery and deaths. I wish I could rate this book less than one star. I am more than disappointed.

The Truth is that IG Farben was an integral part of the Nazi killing machine, and that clearly does not come out of this book. Instead I see efforts to create an image of "professionals" struggling with policy predicaments in the Third Reich. Hayes should called a spade a spade, and a genocidal corporation and its directors exactly what they were too.

This book paints the portrait of an improbable protagonist, a huge chemical cartel which is held up as the last bastion of liberalism and free trade in the early years in the Reich. As if that were not enough, Hayes implies that IG Farben could not risk their corporate profits to temper the Reich's worst abuses, and even if they had been bound by some corporate ethics, it wouldnt have done any good anyway since they were powerless. This ridiculous thesis seeks to portray IG Farben as the last victim of Nazi aggression. Dont be fooled by the extensive, but one dimensional sources used. Try instead Crime and Punishment of IG Farben by Borkin.

This year I read four excellent books on German industry during the Nazi era. I also read one very disturbing one, Industry and Ideology by Peter Hayes of Northwestern University. The book read like a cover-up or an apologia. Hayes is always trying to excuse the "middle ground" sought by Farben. That hit me like a cover up.

I kept waiting for the intellectual payoff, but like others, I only saw an elaborate series of staged extenuating circmstances and explanations for the conduct of these busnessmen and this corporation. I would have preferred reading more about the background of the directors, and what drove them to openly collaborate with the Third Reich. I can't agree with Peter Hayes' approach and understand why he concedes in his Intro that other historians have been less accepting of his work.

It seems Peter Hayes has failed to exploit the documentation available on I.G. Farben or present the appropriate context for the reader to grasp the enormity of Farben's commercial and genocidal crime. Unfortunately, this book is often superficial, somtimes skips essential information, and clearly has not exploited some of the key archival sources in the US and UK, in my view. For instance, I would have wanted to see greater depth on Farben's involvement in the USA. So much more could have been done with book, I can only recommend that the Hayes volume be by-passed. We will need to wait for the better work to come along. Hopefully, that will be soon.

Poorly Written and Researched Poorly written and even more poorly researched, Hayes does not improve upon earlier efforts to understand this powerful company. At times, while reading Hayes' book, I kept asking myself why he seems to dance around the facts. Indeed, Hayes seems to be constructing a lawyer's defense brief for Farben. Hayes' weak grasp of German's nearly bankrupt position and its precarious economic standing internationally shows throughout Part II, The National Revival.To argue that Farben was unable to influence the course of Germany's actions seems to disregard the respected works of Schweitzer in Big Business and the Third Reich and Poole's Who Financed Hitler. Nor does Hayes improve upon the excellent Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben by Borkin and indeed that book remains the preferable authority as I far as I'm concerned.

Dr. Hayes maintains that the directors of Farben were inconsequential to the Nazi plan of extermination--even though the company maintained an extensive operation of murderous slave labor at Auschwitz, and otherwise colluded with the Hitler regime. Since it has been made clear that the post-war Farben financially sponsored Hayes' research, I cannot see how this book and its conclusions can be taken seriously. I think the sponsorship seeps into the fabirc of the book itself. The conclusion about Farben directors which Hayes offers, referred to above, is just one example of this book's lack of credibility. Independent research would demand that any investigation of Farben's history be conducted free from financial contributions by the company itself. Hayes' book--and its slant--should be read with that in mind.

I have now read the broad criticism of the Peter Hayes book, and wondered if it is fair. Should one stars be assigned to this book. Certainly, the book has earned my respect for its thorough and well documented research. Certainly Hayes has gone to great lengths to understand the ins and outs of IG Farben and its directors and the crises they faced. He has a command of the language a cut above. But the pressing question is what did Hayes do with his information, and why are key passages unfootnoted. Did he use his talents to indict or to excuse. After much debate, I must agree with those who see the book as using the immense documentation not to expose a Nazi corporate partner, but to somehow place that partner in the best possible light. Farben was a commercial monster that willingly partnered with the Nazis in camps, supplied the Nazi death and war machine, and of course profitted from its alliances. This book keeps trying blur those facts by stressing the dignity, humanity and professionalism and commercial dedication of the executives who ran the company. They were not ignorant men. We are not ignorant readers. The company knew what was happening. The world now knows what did indeed happen. And Industry and Ideology should have done more to help history judge these perpetrators--not excuse them. I therefore rate the book several stars on documentation but in the end place a 1 star as its rank for its unacceptable contribution to historical investigation.