Worst Nazi War Criminals Became Modern Day Pharma Giants


Nuremberg conjures up images of top officials of Hitler being tried and hung for war crimes including their part in running the infamous death camps. And there is much truth to that, although it is far from the entire story. There were many less well-known Nazis who were embedded in German industry.

Some of these had already started providing support to Hitler before the war broke out and continued that support throughout the war. Though they may have been tried at Nuremberg, those who were convicted received short sentences and were out of prison by the early 1950s. And they had connections to major US industries.

Did you know that some of the worst war criminals in Nazi Germany were set free? They held high management positions in the chemical monopoly IG Farben, and they went right back to high positions at Bayer, BASF, German banks, and other positions of power, unfazed by the Nuremberg Trials.

All of these companies had connections to US industry both before and after WW II.  Here are a couple of examples:

Rockefeller’s Standard Oil and [Germany’s] I.G. Farben [chemical giant] were frequent collaborators, going so far as to merge in an American I.G. subsidiary called “American I.G.”

American I.G. was directed by Walter C. Teagal, President of Standard Oil of New Jersey.

They shared coal to oil industrial processes and information, patents and processes that would be essential in making the Nazi war machine formidable.

They provided critical info to Germany on how to produce tetraethyl lead and synthetic rubber, cited by US prosecutors in the ultimately ineffective antitrust cases against Standard Oil.

After partnering with IG Farben and providing critical support to Nazi Germany, we know Rockefeller’s Standard Oil today as “Exxon.”

By the end of World War II, IG Farben leaders were charged with crimes such as “enslavement” at the Nuremberg Trials.

However, by 1952 all 24 of the IG Farben convicts were released, and they went back to high positions at Bayer, BASF, Hoechst, German banks, and other positions of power.

Notice the names of those companies that are so familiar to Americans — Bayer, Standard Oil, Exxon. These were some of the companies to which the released Nazi war criminals returned. Also, note their participation in American chemical and pharmaceutical companies.

Here’s another example:

Fritz Ter Meer was the chief industrialist responsible for Auschwitz. In 1948, he was convicted of plundering and enslavement, sentenced to just 7 years in prison but released in 1952.

From 1955- 1964, Fritz Ter Meer was again chairman of the board of Bayer, and he was on the board of powerful German banks.

Despite playing one of the most powerful leadership roles in Auschwitz, Fritz Ter Meer was involved with Bayer and German banks all the way until the mid-1960s.

Countless other IG war criminals served little to no time after the Nuremberg trials, and their influence never really left Bayer, BASF, Hoechst, and German society as a whole. In fact, their influence grew tremendously.

All that needs to be added to that last paragraph is that the influence of these Nazi war criminals continued in American industry, including big pharma, and American society as well.

Source: Activist Post



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