The grave charges in this case have not been laid before the Tribunal casually or unreflectingly. The indictment accuses these men of major responsibility for visiting upon mankind the most soaring and catastrophic war in modern history. It accuses them of wholesale enslavement, plunder and murder. These are terrible charges… The crimes with which these man are charged were not committed in rage, or under the stress of sudden temptation; they were not the slips or lapses of otherwise well-ordered men. One does not build a stupendous war machine in a fit of passion, nor an Auschwitz factory during a passing spasm of brutality. What these men did was done with the utmost deliberation and would, I venture to surmise, be repeated if the opportunity should recur. There will be no mistaking the ruthless purposefulness with which the defendants embarked upon their course of conduct.
The heaviest sentences were carried out for Otto Ambros and Walter Durrfeld, both of whom were directly related to the construction and running of the Auschwitz factory. They each received eight years’ imprisonment. Fritz ter Meer would receive a seven-year sentence for his involvement in the chemical plant in Buna. Carl Krauch and Heinrich Butefisch both got six years and it went down from there. Ten of the men were actually acquitted of all charges and all of the men who were sentenced were given the luxury of time served as part of their sentencing.
The only apology from Bayer for their involvement with the Auschwitz death camps would come in 1995 to Nobel Prize winning author and holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel. Elie had lost his mother and sister in the camps, but he himself was able to go on. He wrote a powerful firs-thand account in his book titled simply Night, which has become required reading in many schools around the world. Elie had been scheduled in late 1995 to give a speech for the Three Rivers Lecture Series in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He soon discovered that Bayer was one of the corporate sponsors of the event, and having full and intimate first-hand knowledge of what IG Farben had done to his family and so many others, he promptly cancelled the appearance. When the then president and CEO of Bayer, Helge H. Wehmeier, heard about the cancellation he personally paid a visit to Wiesel at his home. Wiesel recalled the visit to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, ‘I was very moved by the man. I explained to him the situation. And I said to him: “Look, Bayer never apologized”. I said it straight out. ‘And he said, “What if I apologize?” Right then, I knew he would do it, and do it well’.
Apologise he did; Wehmeier included an apology as a foreword to Elie’s speech, which included remarks about his ‘shock and shame’ at what his company had done in conjunction with the Nazis. He went on to express that he felt ‘the obligation, but also the opportunity, to shape a different future, a better understanding and a better world’. Wiesel, for what it’s worth, found no blame with Wehmeier himself and said so during his speech, ‘It’s not your fault that IG Farben was guilty.’ Wehmeier himself wasn’t even born until 1943. The apology was certainly a step in the right direction, but unfortunately time would tell that the feelings of regret were more Wehmeier’s than those of Bayer AG.
It would be natural to assume that Bayer would want to continue to distance themselves from the IG Farben days as much as possible after the fallout from the Second World War, even after Helge Wehmeier retired in 2004. Unfortunately, just two years later, Bayer would be back to endorsing the dark side of their history. In 1956, Second World War criminal Fritz ter Meer had been appointed the chairman of the supervisory board of Bayer. Fritz had been the head officer directing the operations of IG Farben Auschwitz and was sentenced to seven years for his part in the horrors; a sentence of which he would serve only four years. Fritz held the position at Bayer for seven years – three years longer than he spent in prison for his war crimes. Bayer AG seemed to reinforce this piece of their dark history in 2006 when, despite Wehmeier’s earlier apology, they sponsored a large memorial wreath on the grave of ter Meer.
Bayer has a history steeped in controversy and horror, and the company seems unable to stay away from the negative spotlight even today. The CBG Network or Coordination gegen Bayer-Gefahren (translation: Coalition against Bayer-Dangers) was established as a watchdog group that minds the activities of Bayer. The company has continued to be rife with controversy around the world.
In 2006, the CBG Network found that Bayer’s claims of significant greenhouse-gas emission reductions were unfounded, blatantly false, and spun with disinformation. They also noted in 2011 that Bayer CropScience was finally ceasing production of their most deadly pesticides. Philipp Mimkes from the Coalition against BAYER Dangers comments:
This is an important success for environmental organisations from all over the world who have fought against these deadly pesticides for decades. But we must not forget that Bayer broke their original promise to withdraw all class I products by the year 2000. Many lives could have been saved. It is embarrassing that the company only stopped sales because the profit margins of these chemical time bombs have fallen so much.
The release by the CBG Network also noted:
Bayer has a world market share in pesticides of 20%. The WHO estimates the number of people who are poisoned by pesticides at three to 25 million per year. At least 40,000 people are killed accidentally by pesticides and the estimated number of unreported cases is much higher. Bayer products contribute enormously to the millions of poisonings each year.
Bayer has also experienced issues with their various medications being found as a danger, such as the once popular birth control medicine Yaz/Yasmin. The pill was found to contain drospirenone, which significantly elevates the risk of embolism or thrombosis in those who take it. The Bayer Pharma AG product Xarelto has also come under fire. The CBG Network discussed the dangers of the drug in 2012: Concerns regarding the safety of the anticoagulant Xarelto have not been dispelled. Trials carried out with the drug have resulted in a number of fatalities. Dubious practices are also being used to market the product. There are justified fears that a high-risk, over-expensive product with no additional therapeutic benefit is being forced onto the market. The BAYER Board of Management bears responsibility for this.
Christiane Schnura from the Coalition against BAYER Dangers:
The numerous reports of vascular occlusion, bleeding, cardiovascular problems and liver damage make it inadvisable to use Xarelto on a wide scale for the prevention of stroke. Products that do not offer any advantage compared with older products should on principle not be given regulatory approval.
Xarelto was recalled temporarily in 2014 due to an issue with contamination and many lawsuits are still in the court system over the dangers of the drug.
The continued denial of any dark past by Bayer was also highlighted by the CBG Network in 2013:
On August 1, 1863 businessman Friedrich Bayer and dyer Johann Friedrich Weskott founded the company ‘Friedr. Bayer et comp’. They initially produced synthetic dyestuffs but the range of products grew significantly over the years. In 1881, BAYER was made a joint stock corporation and developed into an international chemical company. In 1925 the firm became part of the IG FARBEN conglomerate.
For its 150th anniversary BAYER organised numerous celebrations. More than 1,000 guests attended an event in Cologne, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and North Rhine-Westphalian State Premier Hannelore Kraft. A specially built airship is promoted the company on all five continents. However, the unpleasant periods of the company’s history were totally omitted from the celebrations. Topics such as environmental contamination, pesticide poisoning, worker protests and collaboration with the Third Reich were simply ignored.