by Howard Wat­son Ambruster
1947, Beech­hurst Press, 438 pages
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One can­not under­stand the his­tory of the 20th cen­tury with­out under­stand­ing the role played in world events by the I.G. Far­ben com­pany, the chem­i­cal car­tel that grew out of the Ger­man dyestuffs indus­try. Com­pris­ing some of the most impor­tant indi­vid­ual com­pa­nies in the his­tory of indus­trial cap­i­tal­ism, the firm has dom­i­nated the dyestuffs, chem­i­cal and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­tries before and dur­ing World War II. The com­pa­nies that grew out of I.G.’s offi­cial dis­so­lu­tion after the war—Bayer, Hoechst, BASF, and Agfa con­tin­ued to be deci­sive in world mar­kets. Among the many prod­ucts devel­oped by I.G. or its mem­ber com­pa­nies are: aspirin, heroin, novo­cain, methadone (orig­i­nally named Dolophine in honor of Adolph Hitler) and Zyk­lon B (the poi­son gas used in the exter­mi­na­tion cen­ters of World War II.)

In his text about I.G., Ambruster sets forth the inter­na­tional scope and eco­nomic impact of the com­pany, its role as the spine of the indus­trial war-making econ­omy of the Third Reich, and the firm’s ele­va­tion of Hitler to his posi­tion of power. As one observer noted, “Hitler was Far­ben and Far­ben was Hitler.” Much of the impact that the com­pany wielded derived from its inter­na­tional dom­i­nance of the chem­i­cal, rub­ber, petro­chem­i­cal and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­tries through its car­tel arrange­ments with part­ner firms in other coun­tries. Farben’s for­eign coun­ter­parts had much to do with let­ting the com­pany and its executives—many of them war crim­i­nals of the first order—off the hook after World War II.

Farben’s car­tel part­ners abroad con­sti­tuted an inven­tory of the wealth­i­est and most pow­er­ful cor­po­ra­tions in the world. In the United States, the major firms with which Far­ben did busi­ness included: Du Pont, the Stan­dard Oil com­pa­nies, Gen­eral Motors, Ford Motor Com­pany, Union Car­bide, Dow Chem­i­cal and Tex­aco. In turn, these cor­po­rate giants wielded con­trol­ling polit­i­cal influ­ence in the United States through the elected and appointed offi­cials in their sway. Attempts at reduc­ing Farben’s influ­ence in the United States before and dur­ing World War II, as well as efforts at hold­ing the com­pany and its top exec­u­tives to account for their crimes after the war were neu­tral­ized by the cartel’s cor­po­rate hirelings and polit­i­cal shills. Many names of the com­bat­ants on both sides are impor­tant and, for older and better-educated read­ers, familiar.

On the floor of Con­gress, Cal­i­for­nia Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jerry Voorhis waged a valiant, elo­quent and, ulti­mately, unsuc­cess­ful fight to bring Far­ben to heel. After fail­ing to sub­due the dragon of I.G. Far­ben, Voorhis was defeated for reelec­tion by an up-and-coming Cal­i­for­nia Republican—Richard Mil­hous Nixon. Help­ing to pre­serve a state of “busi­ness as usual” for Far­ben on both sides of the Atlantic was John J. McCloy, even­tu­ally the U.S. High Com­mis­sioner for Ger­many, head of Rockefeller’s Chase Man­hat­tan Bank and a key mem­ber of the War­ren Com­mis­sion that cov­ered up the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy.

Treason’s Peace is a vivid, remark­able illus­tra­tion of the work­ings of great cor­po­rate power both in the United States and abroad. It is must read­ing for any seri­ous stu­dent of polit­i­cal eco­nom­ics and the dynam­ics of con­tem­po­rary globalization.