German Society for Pest Control

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The German Society for Pest Control mbH ( Degesch for short ), based in Frankfurt am Main, was a chemical company that dealt with the sale of pest control agents (mainly disinfestants ) and also used these temporarily as a service in silos and warehouses. She was the holder of the patent for the production of Zyklon B , which was also used for mass killings in several extermination camps during National Socialism .

Holdings

Labels for Zyklon B from Tesch & Stabenow / Degesch

Degesch was involved in two companies, each of which divided the distribution of Zyklon B geographically:

  • Tesch & Stabenow GmbH (Testa) from 1927 to 1942 with 55%, thereafter solely owned by Bruno Tesch - for the area east of the Elbe.
  • Heerdt-Lingler GmbH (HeLi) - for the area west of the Elbe. From 1941 on, this company was headed by the managing director of Degesch, Gerhard Peters .

In 1979, Testa, which was newly founded after the war, merged with Heerdt-Lingler GmbH (HeLi) with the financial participation of Degesch .

founding

The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry (KWI) under the direction of Fritz Haber dealt with the problem of the mass occurrence of harmful insects and rodents in mills and lice infestation in mass accommodation around 1915. The institute also developed war gases for use in war. In 1917 the technical committee for pest control TASCH was founded, in which the KWI and the Degussa company were represented. In April 1917, the first gassing with hydrocyanic acid took place under the direction of this committee, which was dissolved after the end of the First World War.

Before the dissolution of TASCH on March 31, 1919, on March 13, 1919 Fritz Haber's initiative was founded in Berlin as a non-profit commercial enterprise with the participation of the German Reich. The registered capital of 1,010,000 marks was provided by ten companies: one quarter carried the Degussa and the Holzverkohlungsindustrie AG, Constance , one eighth took over the BASF , the inking Hoechst and the inking Bayer , additional contributions came from the Agfa that Cassella , the chemical factory Griesheim , the chemical factory Taucha and Weyler-ter-Meer , Uerdingen.

Company history 1919–1945

In 1920 the headquarters were relocated to Frankfurt am Main and later to Friedberg . In 1920 Fritz Haber resigned and Walter Heerdt became managing director .

From 1922 the company was run under private law. The Degussa was the sole shareholder; Walter Heerdt continued to manage the company, who in 1922 found a process to absorb the low-boiling hydrogen cyanide in kieselguhr (DRP 438,818 issued on December 27, 1926, patented from June 20, 1922). The corresponding product was named " Zyklon B ". In 1922 Degesch started negotiations with Dessauer Zuckerraffinerie GmbH about the production of Zyklon B. In 1924 the authorities approved the production. On behalf of and for the account of Degussa, Dessauer Zuckerraffinerie GmbH now produced Zyklon B, which was then delivered to Degesch free of commission. This had a specially set up branch in Dessau. The sale of their products took place through the companies " Tesch & Stabenow " and " Heerdt-Lingler ".

In 1930 IG Farben took a 30% stake in Degesch. In 1936 the shareholder relationship changed again. Degesch now belonged to 42.5% of IG Farben , 42.5% of Degussa and 15% of Th. Goldschmidt . By 1930 the demand for Zyklon B rose to 100,000 kg per month.

Company history after 1945

Even after the end of the Second World War, Degesch continued its traditional business. After the IG Farben split, Bayer AG and Degussa AG each held 37.5% and Th. Goldschmidt AG held 25%.

1986 Degesch to a competitor that was Detia Freyberg GmbH sold in Laudenbach that the business of the company Detia-Degesch GmbH continues.

The subsidiary DEGESCH America, Inc sells fumigants in the USA . The company Degesch de Chile Ltda exists in Chile .

Criminal consequences

In the IG Farben trial , the managing director of Degesch, Gerhard Friedrich Peters , as a witness had indirectly incriminated himself. He was of Kurt Gerstein about the killing of people with Zyklon B been informed and asked for delivery of the gas without the usual admixture of warning and irritant.

In 1949, Peters stood before the jury in Frankfurt and was sentenced to five years in prison for aiding and abetting murder. The sentence was finally set at six years in the appeal proceedings in 1953; Peters started the sentence. But in 1955 Peters was acquitted in the retrial because “unsuccessful aiding and abetting” was no longer punishable by the Criminal Law Amendment Act of August 1953 according to the interpretation of the highest court. It is not certain that people were killed with the 3970 kg of poison delivered without irritants, because Gerstein had described Zyklon B in part as spoiled and withdrew it from the intended killing purpose.

Also Hermann Schlosser , from 1939 until his suspension in 1945 CEO of the parent company Degussa , had made as a prosecution witness in the trial of the board of IG Farben by his statement of aid suspect. He was arrested in February 1948, but acquitted in April; later he was able to serve as chairman of the board again.

The owner of the delivery company Tesch & Stabenow , Bruno Tesch , and his managing director Karl Weinbacher were sentenced to death in the Testa trial in 1946 and executed in Hameln prison.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ zyklon-b.info: Testa ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zyklon-b.info
  2. ↑ a b c Bode: Production in Dessau (2003) ( Memento of October 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on May 31, 2009).
  3. ↑ GERHARD KAISER: How culture broke in - poison gas and the scientific ethos in World War I (accessed on March 11, 2007; PDF; 208 kB).
  4. ^ Dietrich Stoltzenberg: Fritz Haber: Chemist, Nobel Prize Winner, German, Jew. Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, 1994, ISBN 3-527-29206-3 , p. 460.
  5. ↑ Jürgen Kalthoff, Martin Werner: Die Händler des Zyklon B. Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-87975-713-5 , p. 27.
  6. ^ HaGalil: Degussa (1998) (accessed March 6, 2007).
  7. ↑ Shoa: Zyklon B ( Memento from March 13, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed March 6, 2007).
  8. ↑ DEGESCH America, Inc. Newsletter Issue VI ( Memento of the original from September 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 301 kB), (2002) (accessed December 9, 2012).  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.degeschamerica.com
  9. ↑ gifte.de: Fumigants

literature

  • Jörg Friedrich : The cold amnesty. Nazi perpetrators in the Federal Republic. Fischer TB 4308, Frankfurt / M. 1984, ISBN 3-596-24308-4 (pages 204 to 213 critical report on Zyklon B trial against Peters).
  • Justice and Nazi crimes. Collection of German criminal judgments for Nazi homicidal crimes 1945 - 2012. Amsterdam undated, Volume XIII, Case No. 415 : The judgments against the suppliers of the Zyklon-B.