Hayes, Industry and Ideology

[Dave Monroe]

>From Peter Hayes, "Foreword to the New Edition," Industry and Ideology:
IG Farben in the Nazi Era (2nd ed.  New York: Cambridge UP, 2001), pp.
ix-xvii ...

... the understanding of many dimensions of the Third Reich's history
has been greatly enriched in recent years by the replacement of brittle
dichotomous analytical schemes, such as the intentionalist-functionalist
debate or attempts to impose Lenin's dogmatic distinction between who
and whom, with more supple approaches that emphasize the "feedback
mechanisms" that gave the regime its potency.  (xi)

... we now know much more about IG Farben's indispensable role in
providing materials for the expansion of the Auschwitz camp.... the
related matter of Farben's financial contributions to the construction
of not only its own torturous pen for inmates at Monowitz, but perhaps
also at Birkenau.  These revelations cast the firm's readiness to make
common cause with the SS in an even harsher light.  (xii)

One important and controversial segment of my reconstruction of the
history of IG-Auschwitz would be reinforced rather than revised in a new
edition, however.  My thesis that the expansion of the Auschwitz camp
owed more to Farben's decision to build a huge factory in the vicinity
than vice versa has found a cautious reception.  While most scholars now
support the first part of my argument, many of them remain reluctant to
concede that the availability of camp labor for the construction work
played, at most, a secondary role in IG's choice of location. (xii-xiii)

... the documentary record reveals no trace--not even
retrospectively--of contact between Farben and the Auschwitz camp prior
to 1941.  (xiv)

... it seems unlikely that IG's decision to site a plant that soon
devoured more than 700 million Reichsmarks in investments would have
rested on what clearly was mere rumor or guesswork regarding sources of
labor, rather than on ... the geographical and transportation advantages
offered by the location, which alone could offset the relatively high
costs of construction in the German East.  (xv)

Moreover, IG's motives are not a a matter of conjecture.... silence on
this count does not reflect a desire for secrecy--in general, Farben
documents did not shy way from mentioning the use of camp prisoners at
the site--but rather the logic of the situation.  Labor is a relatively
mobile factor of production; favorable geographical conditions are not.
(xv)

In other words, IG Farben opted for Auschwitz on grounds other than the
existence of the concentration camp and before the system of "slave
labor" in private enterprises had taken clear form (in truth, the
inmates were leased, hence replaceable at no additional cost to the
employer, and thus often treated as worth less than slaves).  But that
is not to say that the firm had any discernible compunction about
embarking on a course of using human beings without their consent and
without paying them.  (xv)

Given the prevailing steadily worsening labor shortage, had IG Farben
chosen one of the other Upper Silesian states considered in December
1940, its leaders would quickly--and unhesitatingly--have grasped access
to the SS's captive labor force, much as Volkswagen's managers in even
far way Wolfsburg did in March and April of 1941 and the synthetic fuel
factories at less distant Heyderbreck and Blechhammer did shortly
thereafter, by building its own subcamp and ordering inmates.  If the
selection of a different location would have done little to delay the
concern's use of prisoners, however, it perhaps would have done much to
alter the future of the Auschwitz concentration camp.  Without a large
local demand for labor, Birkenau probably would not have been built,
hence would not have been converted by Himmler into a gathering place
and murder installation for Jews once its anticipated population of
Soviet prisoners was excluded from war production by Reich decree.  In
short, I remain convinced that IG Farben's decision making regarding the
labor force for its buna plant in Silesia was reprehensible enough
without insisting on the relatively inconsequential claim that the camp
attracted the factory.  The historically significant matter is the giant
firm's role in setting off a ghastly chain reaction.  (xv-xvi)

... which is, as I recall, a rather less damning account than that given
in Pynchon's likely source on all things IG Farben, Richard Sasuly's IG
Farben (New York: Boni & Gaer, 1947), but damning nonetheless.  There
isn't a bibliography to the book, all bibliographic information is
contained in relevant footnotes, and the indexer apparently didn't feel
it necessary to index references to such research materials (all
frustrating cost-cutting measures on the part of CUP, no doubt), and I
haven't yet come upon any reference to Sasuly, but I'm hoping Hayes
somewhere along the line addresses him.  Gave the first ed. (1987) of
this a cursory run-through a while back, but I just don't recall.  Will
report back ...