Carl Krauch (7 April 1887 – 3 February 1968) was a German chemist, industrialist and

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

war criminal A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostage ...

. He was an executive at

BASF BASF SE (), an initialism of its original name , is a European Multinational corporation, multinational company and the List of largest chemical producers, largest chemical producer in the world. Its headquarters are located in Ludwigshafen, Ge ...

(later

IG Farben I. G. Farbenindustrie AG, commonly known as IG Farben, was a German Chemical industry, chemical and Pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutical conglomerate (company), conglomerate. It was formed on December 2, 1925 from a merger of six chemical co ...

); 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. He was Plenipotentiary of Special Issues in Chemical Production, a senator of the

Kaiser Wilhelm Society The Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science () was a German scientific institution established in the German Empire in 1911. Its functions were taken over by the Max Planck Society. The Kaiser Wilhelm Society was an umbrella organi ...

, and an honorary professor at the

University of Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humbol ...

. He was convicted in the IG Farben trial after World War II and sentenced to six years in prison.

Education

From 1906 to 1912, Krauch studied at the ''

University of Giessen University of Giessen, official name Justus Liebig University Giessen (), is a large public research university in Giessen, Hesse, Germany. It is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in the German-speaking world. It is named afte ...

'' and the '' Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg''. From 1911 to 1912, he was an unpaid teaching assistant to R. Stallé at Heidelberg. He received his doctorate in 1912 under Theodor Curtius at Heidelberg.Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, Appendix F; see the entry for Krauch.

Career

From 1912, Krauch was employed at

, later '' I.G. Farbenindustrie AG''. He was a longstanding member of the board and general committee, and chairman of the supervisory board, 1940 to 1945, succeeding Carl Bosch as chairman. From 1936, Krauch was head of the Research and Development Department of the ''Amt für Deutsche Roh- und Werkstoffe''. From 1939, he was head of the renamed ''Reichsamtes für Wirtschaftsausbau'' (Reich Office for Economic Expansion), established in 1936 as part of the Four-Year Plan to achieve national economic self-sufficiency and promote industrial production especially for rearmament. The ''Amt für Deutsche Roh- und Werkstoffe'' was nicknamed the ''Amt für IG-Farben Ausbau'' ("Office for the Expansion of IG Farben"), due to his dual head positions. From 1938 to 1945, Krauch was

Plenipotentiary A ''plenipotentiary'' (from the Latin ''plenus'' "full" and ''potens'' "powerful") is a diplomat who has full powers—authorization to sign a treaty or convention on behalf of a sovereign. When used as a noun more generally, the word can als ...

of Special Issues in Chemical Production and a member of the board of the ''

Reichsforschungsrat The Reichsforschungsrat ("Imperial Research Council") was created in Germany in 1936 under the Education Ministry for the purpose of centralized planning of all basic and applied research, with the exception of aeronautical research. It was reorgani ...

'' (RFR, Reich Research Council). Additionally, he was an honorary professor at the ''Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität'' (later, the '' Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin''). Krauch was also a member of the Senate of the '' Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft'' (KWG, Kaiser Wilhelm Society). Krauch was a member of the '' Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (National Socialist Workers Party) from 1937.

I G Farben trial

He was a defendant in the post war IG Farben Trial, found guilty of the indictment of "

War crime A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostage ...

s and

crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are certain serious crimes committed as part of a large-scale attack against civilians. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during both peace and war and against a state's own nationals as well as ...

through participation in the enslavement and deportation to slave labor on a gigantic scale of

concentration camp A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitati ...

inmates and civilians in occupied countries, and of prisoners of war, and the mistreatment, terrorization, torture, and murder of enslaved persons." and given a six-year prison sentence. He was released in 1950. After that, he became a member of the supervisory board of the Bunawerke Hüls GmbH. In the

Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials The Frankfurt Auschwitz trials, known in German language, German as , was a series of three trials running from 20 December 1963 to 14 June 1968, charging 25 defendants under German criminal law for their roles in the Holocaust as mid- to lower- ...

, as a witness on 19 February 1965, he denied all knowledge of the events in Monowitz, part of the Auschwitz complex and designed to produce

synthetic fuel Synthetic fuel or synfuel is a liquid fuel, or sometimes Fuel gas, gaseous fuel, obtained from syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, in which the syngas was derived from gasification of solid feedstocks such as coal or biomass or by ...

and butadiene rubber. Carl Krauch died on 3 February 1968.Wollheim Memorial
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Bibliography

* Hayes, Peter '' Carl Bosch and Carl Krauch: Chemistry and the Political Economy of Germany, 1925–1945'', ''Journal of Economic History'' Volume XLVII, Number 2, 353-363 (June 1987) * Hentschel, Klaus (Editor) and Ann M. Hentschel (Editorial Assistant and Translator) ''Physics and National Socialism: An Anthology of Primary Sources'' (Birkhäuser, 1996) * Krauch, Carl ''Jugend an die Front. Die Nachwuchsfrage in Wissenschaft und Technik'', ''Der Vierjahresplan'', Volume 1, 8th Series, August 1937, pp. 456 – 459. This document was translated and republished in Klaus Hentschel (Editor) and Ann M. Hentschel (Editorial Assistant and Translator) ''Physics and National Socialism: An Anthology of Primary Sources'' (Birkhäuser, 1996) 161 - 168: ''Document 58, Carl Krauch: Youth to the Front Line. New Blood in Science and Technology ugust 1937'. * Macrakis, Kristie ''Surviving the Swastika: Scientific Research in Nazi Germany'' (Oxford, 1993)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Krauch, Carl 1887 births 1968 deaths Businesspeople from Heidelberg 20th-century German businesspeople German industrialists German chemical industry businesspeople German people convicted of crimes against humanity Nazi Party members Nazis convicted of war crimes IG Farben people People convicted by the United States Nuremberg Military Tribunals Recipients of the Knights Cross of the War Merit Cross