January 2004
Coalition against BAYER Dangers (CBG) is condemning Bayer´s participation in the building of the monument for the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin
OPEN LETTER to the German Government; the foundation „Denkmal für die Ermordeten Juden Europas (Monument for the Murdered Jews of Europe)“ as well as the BAYER AG
The CBG spokesman Hubert Ostendorf said: „Profiteers of the holocaust must be excluded from commemoration“
As recently revealed, the BAYER-group is involved as a contractor in the construction of the holocaust-monument in Berlin. The company was heavily involved in the murder of the European jews by the Nazi-regime. Hubert Ostendorf of the Coalition against BAYER Dangers (CBG) says:„ The profiteers of the holocaust must be excluded from this commemoration“. CBG has been throwing light on the history and recent developments of BAYER for 25 years now (www.CBGnetwork.org).
It was BAYER´s boss, Carl Duisberg, who worked out the idea of setting up the disastrous chemical-cartel IG FARBEN. Already in World War I he invented the „System of Forced Labour“ and he supported the financing of the Nazi Party early in its history. IG FARBEN profited in every imaginable way from the Nazis including the use of forced labour, deadly experiments on inmates and the delivery of the „Extermination-Gas“ ZYKLON B by their subsidiary company DEGESCH..
During the years 1933-1945 IG-FARBEN multiplied their property considerably, not at least by the exploitation of hundred of thousands of forced labour convicts. At the Nuremberg IG FARBEN trial the later chairman of BAYER´s supervisory board, Fritz ter Meer, was sentenced as war criminal. Ter Meer gave evidence at the trials that forced labour convicts were not harmed exceptionally, „for they would have been killed anyhow.“ For instance by experiments in the concentration camps, with the participation of BAYER´s physicians.
CBG believes that all companies which helped to install the Nazi-regime and which profited from the criminal dictatorship, should be excluded from the building of the Monument for the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. Even now, the bereaved and their descendants are not properly compensated. This fact is not altered by the foundation for the compensation of forced labour convicts, backed up by the Federal Government and the industry, whose purpose in reality is to offer very little to those affected and to reject legal claims.
CBG welcomes the intention of the government to document the history of the companies which participated in the crimes of the Nazi-regime and insists that this must be a permanent part of the monument. CBG is offering to make available materials for this exhibition.