The United States of America vs. Carl Krauch, et al., also known as the IG Farben Trial, was the sixth of the twelve trials for war crime

War crime

War crimes are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility...

s the U.S. authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany (Nuremberg

Nuremberg Trials

The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....

) after the end of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

The twelve trials were all held before U.S. military courts, not before the International Military Tribunal, but took place in the same rooms at the Palace of Justice. The twelve U.S. trials are collectively known as the "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials

Subsequent Nuremberg Trials

The Subsequent Nuremberg Trials were a series of twelve U.S...

" or, more formally, as the "Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals" (NMT). The IG Farben Trial was the second of three trials of leading industrialists of Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 for their conduct during the Nazi regime. (The two other industrialist trials were the Flick Trial

Flick Trial

The United States of America vs. Friedrich Flick, et al. or Flick trial was the fifth of twelve Nazi war crimes trials held by United States authorities in their occupation zone Germany after World War II...

 and the Krupp Trial

Krupp Trial

The Krupp Trial was the tenth of twelve trials for war crimes that U.S. authorities held in their occupation zone at Nuremberg, Germany after the end of World War II....

.)

The defendants in this case had all been directors of IG Farben

IG Farben

I.G. Farbenindustrie AG was a German chemical industry conglomerate. Its name is taken from Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG . The company was formed in 1925 from a number of major companies that had been working together closely since World War I...

, a large German conglomerate of chemical firms. The company had been a major factor already in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, when their development of the Haber-Bosch process for nitrogen fixation compensated for Germany's being cut off from the Chilean nitrate trade and allowed IG Farben to produce synthetic nitrate. (Nitrate is an important component for the fabrication of explosives such as gunpowder

Smokeless powder

Smokeless powder is the name given to a number of propellants used in firearms and artillery which produce negligible smoke when fired, unlike the older gunpowder which they replaced...

, dynamite

Dynamite

Dynamite is an explosive material based on nitroglycerin, initially using diatomaceous earth , or another absorbent substance such as powdered shells, clay, sawdust, or wood pulp. Dynamites using organic materials such as sawdust are less stable and such use has been generally discontinued...

 or TNT.) In World War II, an IG Farben subsidiary, Degesch

Degesch

The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung mbH , in short Degesch, was a German chemical corporation during World War II. Degesch produced pesticides used against weeds and insects...

, manufactured Zyklon B

Zyklon B

Zyklon B was the trade name of a cyanide-based pesticide infamous for its use by Nazi Germany to kill human beings in gas chambers of extermination camps during the Holocaust. The "B" designation indicates one of two types of Zyklon...

, the poison gas used at the extermination camps (the other supplier of the gas was the firm Tesch & Stabenow

Tesch & Stabenow

The corporation Tesch & Stabenow was a market leader in pest control chemicals between 1924 and 1945 in Germany east of the Elbe....

). IG Farben also developed processes for synthesizing gasoline

Gasoline

Gasoline , or petrol , is a toxic, translucent, petroleum-derived liquid that is primarily used as a fuel in internal combustion engines. It consists mostly of organic compounds obtained by the fractional distillation of petroleum, enhanced with a variety of additives. Some gasolines also contain...

 and rubber

Rubber

Natural rubber, also called India rubber or caoutchouc, is an elastomer that was originally derived from latex, a milky colloid produced by some plants. The plants would be ‘tapped’, that is, an incision made into the bark of the tree and the sticky, milk colored latex sap collected and refined...

 from coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

, and thereby contributed much to Germany's ability to wage a war despite having been cut off from all major oil fields. The charges consequently centered on preparing to wage an aggressive war, but also on slave labor and plundering.

The judges in this case, heard before Military Tribunal VI, were Curtis Grover Shake (presiding judge), former Chief Judge of the Supreme Court of Indiana

Supreme Court of Indiana

The Supreme Court of Indiana is the state supreme court of Indiana. The court was established by Article Seven of the Indiana Constitution and is the highest judicial authority within Indiana...

; James Morris from North Dakota

North Dakota

North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....

; Paul M. Hebert

Paul M. Hebert

Paul Macarius Hebert was the longest serving Dean of the LSU Law School , serving in that role with brief interruptions from 1937 until his death in 1977...

, dean

Dean (education)

In academic administration, a dean is a person with significant authority over a specific academic unit, or over a specific area of concern, or both...

 of the Law School of the Louisiana State University

Louisiana State University

Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, most often referred to as Louisiana State University, or LSU, is a public coeducational university located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The University was founded in 1853 in what is now known as Pineville, Louisiana, under the name...

; and Clarence F. Merrell, a lawyer from Indiana

Indiana

Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...

, as an alternate judge. The Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution was Telford Taylor

Telford Taylor

Telford Taylor was an American lawyer best known for his role in the Counsel for the Prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II, his opposition to Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, and his outspoken criticism of U.S...

. The indictment

Indictment

An indictment , in the common-law legal system, is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that maintain the concept of felonies, the serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that lack the concept of felonies often use that of an indictable offence—an...

 was filed on May 3, 1947; the trial lasted from August 27, 1947 until July 30, 1948. Of the 24 defendants arraigned

Arraignment

Arraignment is a formal reading of a criminal complaint in the presence of the defendant to inform the defendant of the charges against him or her. In response to arraignment, the accused is expected to enter a plea...

, 13 were found guilty on one or the other counts of the indictment and sentenced to prison terms ranging from one and one half to eight years, including time already served; ten defendants were acquitted of all charges. Max Brüggemann was removed from the trial and his case discontinued on September 9, 1947 due to medical reasons.

Indictment

1. Planning, preparation, initiation, and waging of wars of aggression and invasions of other countries.
2. War crimes and crimes against humanity through the plundering and spoliation of occupied territories, and the seizure of plants in Austria, Czechoslovakia
   Czechoslovakia
   Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
   
   , Poland, Norway, France, and Russia.
3. War crimes and crimes against humanity through participation in the enslavement and deportation to slave labor on a gigantic scale of concentration camp inmates and civilians in occupied countries, and of prisoners of war, and the mistreatment, terrorization, torture, and murder of enslaved persons.
4. Membership in a criminal organization, the SS.
5. Acting as leaders in a conspiracy to commit the crimes mentioned under counts 1, 2, and 3.

All defendants were indicted on counts 1, 2, 3, and 5. Only Schneider, Bütefisch, and von der Heyde were charged on count 4, "Membership in the SS". The SS had been declared a criminal organization previously by the IMT.

Despite the extensive evidence presented by the prosecution that showed that the company had been deeply involved in Germany's rearmament after World War I from the onset, the tribunal rejected the charges for preparing an aggressive war and for conspiration to that end. On count three ("slave labor"), the judgement "allowed the defendants the benefit of the defense of 'necessity'" (Telford Taylor, "The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials"; International Conciliation, No. 450, April 1949). Only in the case of Auschwitz

Auschwitz concentration camp

Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...

, where IG Farben had constructed a plant next to the concentration camp with the clear intent to use inmates as slave workers, did the tribunal consider the evidence sufficient to prove that IG Farben acted on its own initiative. The tribunal concluded that the defendants could be held responsible only for this one case.

Judge Hebert filed a dissenting opinion, in which he argued that the defense of "necessity" did not apply and that all defendants should have been found guilty on count 3 of the indictment. He stated that:

"...the record shows that Farben willingly cooperated and gladly utilized each new source of manpower as it developed. Disregard of basic human rights did not deter these defendants." —http://www.mazal.org/archive/nmt/08/NMT08-T1309.htm

"Willing cooperation with the slave labor utilization of the Third Reich was a matter of corporate policy that permeated the whole Farben organization... For this reason, criminal responsibility goes beyond the actual immediate participants at Auschwitz. It includes other Farben Vorstand plant-managers and embraces all who knowingly participated in the shaping of the corporate policy." —http://www.mazal.org/archive/nmt/08/NMT08-T1312.htm,http://www.mazal.org/archive/nmt/08/NMT08-T1313.htm

Judge Hebert filed his statement on December 28, 1948, nearly 5 months after the judgment.

Defendants

Name	Function	Charges					Sentence
		1	2	3	4	5
Carl Krauch Carl Krauch Carl Krauch was a German chemist and industrialist. He was an executive at BASF ; during World War II, he was chairman of the supervisory board. He was a key implementer of the Reich’s Four-Year Plan to achieve national economic self-sufficiency and promote industrial production...	Chairman of the Supervisory Board; member of Göring Hermann Göring Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was a German politician, military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. He was a veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, and a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as "The Blue Max"... 's Office of the Four-Year Plan	I	I	G		I	6 years, including time already served; died 1968
Hermann Schmitz Hermann Schmitz (industrialist) Hermann Schmitz was a German industrialist, and CEO of IG Farben from 1935 to 1945. He was sentenced to four years in the IG Farben Trial....	Chairman of the Managing Board (CEO); member of the Reichstag Reichstag (Weimar Republic) The Reichstag was the parliament of Weimar Republic .German constitution commentators consider only the Reichstag and now the Bundestag the German parliament. Another organ deals with legislation too: in 1867-1918 the Bundesrat, in 1919–1933 the Reichsrat and from 1949 on the Bundesrat...	I	G	I		I	4 years, including time already served; died 1960
Georg von Schnitzler Georg von Schnitzler Georg August Eduard Schnitzler, since 1913, von Schnitzler was a member of the board at IG Farben and a convicted war criminal.-Early years:...	Wehrwirtschaftsführer (Military Economy Leader); Captain in the SA Sturmabteilung The Sturmabteilung functioned as a paramilitary organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party . It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s...	I	G	I		I	2½ years, including time already served; died 1962
Fritz Gajewski Fritz Gajewski Freidrich Gajewski was a German businessman with IG Farben and Wehrwirtschaftsführer during the Second World War.-Early years:...	Director of AGFA	I	I	I		I	acquitted; died 1962
Heinrich Hörlein	Head of chemical research	I	I	I		I	acquitted; died 1954
August von Knierim	Chief Counsel; Head of the legal department	I	I	I		I	acquitted; died 1978
Fritz ter Meer Fritz ter Meer Fritz ter Meer was a German chemist and Nazi war criminal.The son of Edmund ter Meer , ter Meer founded the chemical company Teerfarbenfabrik Dr. E. ter Meer & Cie in Uerdingen that later became part of Bayer. His family tree can be traced back to the 15th Century.Fritz ter Meer also worked for...	Head of dept. II, which was in charge of the chemical plant in Buna near Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...	I	G	G		I	7 years, including time already served; died 1967
Christian Schneider	Head of dept. I, in charge of nitrogen and gasoline production; head of personnel dept., "supporting member" of the SS	I	I	I	I	I	acquitted; died 1972
Otto Ambros	Head of the chemical warfare committee at the war ministry; production chief for Buna and Auschwitz	I	I	G		I	8 years including time already served; died 1990
Max Brüggemann	Plant leader	I	I	I		I	Removed from trial due to medical reasons
Ernst Bürgin	Plant leader	I	G	I		I	2 years including time already served
Heinrich Bütefisch Heinrich Bütefisch Heinrich Bütefisch was a German chemist and manager of the IG Farben.As a leading figure in IG Farben, he joined the Freunde des Reichsführer-SS, an exclusive group close to Heinrich Himmler that allowed the prominent individuals in German society to effectively become SS officers without having...	Production chief at Auschwitz, Obersturmbannführer Obersturmbannführer Obersturmbannführer was a paramilitary Nazi Party rank used by both the SA and the SS. It was created in May 1933 to fill the need for an additional field grade officer rank above Sturmbannführer as the SA expanded. It became an SS rank at the same time... in the SS	I	I	G	I	I	6 years including time already served; died 1969
Paul Häfliger	Head of the metals department	I	G	I		I	2 years including time already served
Max Ilgner Max Ilgner Max Ilgner was a German industrialist. He was a member of the board of IG Farben and a Wehrwirtschaftsführer or war economy leader under the Nazi regime.-Early life:...	Head of intelligence and propaganda	I	G	I		I	3 years including time already served;died 1966
Friedrich Jähne	Chief engineer	I	G	I		I	1½ years including time already served;died 1965
Hans Kühne Hans Kühne Hans Kühne was a German chemist on the board of IG Farben and a defendant during the Nuremberg Trials.-Early years:...	Plant leader	I	I	I		I	acquitted
Carl Lautenschläger	Plant leader	I	I	I		I	acquitted; died 1962
Wilhelm Rudolf Mann Wilhelm Rudolf Mann Wilhelm Rudolf Mann was a German factory manager for IG Farben and later with Bayer.-Early life:...	Pharmaceuticals; member of the SA	I	I	I		I	acquitted; died 1992
Heinrich Oster Heinrich Oster Heinrich Oster was a German chemist, executive at BASF and IG Farben and convicted war criminal.-Early years:...	Manager of the Nitrogen Syndicate	I	G	I		I	2 years including time already served
Karl Wurster	Plant leader	I	I	I		I	acquitted; died 1974
Walter Dürrfeld	Head of construction at Auschwitz plant; head of construction at Monowitz (Auschwitz III)	I	I	G		I	8 years including time already served; died 1967
Heinrich Gattineau	Intelligence and plant police	I	I	I		I	acquitted
Erich von der Heyde	Deputy of intelligence and plant police; Hauptsturmführer Hauptsturmführer Hauptsturmführer was a Nazi rank of the SS which was used between the years of 1934 and 1945. The rank of Hauptsturmführer was a mid-grade company level officer and was the equivalent of a Captain in the German Army and also the equivalent of captain in foreign armies... in the SS, member of the OKW	I	I	I	I	I	acquitted
Hans Kugler	Head of sales for dyestuffs for south-eastern Europe	I	G	I		I	1½ years including time already served.

I — Indicted   G — Indicted and found guilty

The defendants Ilgner and Kugler were released immediately after the judgement since they had already been in custody longer than their sentence.