A Secret History of Brands

by A Secret History of Brands- The Dark

  It should be generally known, and especially in German scientific circles, that the SS did not have notable scientists at its disposal. It is clear that the experiments in the concentration camps with IG preparations only took place in the interests of the IG, which strived by all means to determine the effectiveness of these preparations. They let the SS deal with the – shall I say – dirty work in the concentration camps. It was not the IG’s intention to bring any of this out in the open, but rather to put up a smoke screen around the experiments so that (…) they could keep any profits to themselves. Not the SS but the IG took the initiative for the concentration camp experiments.

  Bayer After the Second World War

  The Allies broke up the IG Farben conglomerate in 1945. Unlike so many of the companies that were involved with the Nazi regime during the Second World War, IG Farben didn’t come away unaffected. Their direct involvement with the atrocities of war earned twenty-four members of the company a spot in the famed Nuremberg trials.

  Although there were twenty-four intended defendants, one was excused from the trials due to a serious illness. The twenty-three members of IG Farben who actually stood trial for their war crimes inluded Carl Krauch (Chairman of the Supervisory Board), Hermann Schmitz (Chairman of the Managing Board), Georg von Schnitzler (Military Economy Leader), Fritz Gajewski (Director of AGFA), Heinrich Horein (Head of chemical research), August von Knieriem (Chief Counsel and Head of the legal department), Fritz ter Meer (Head of Department II), Christian Schneider (Head of Department I), Otto Ambros (Buna plant production chief), Paul Hafliger (Head of the metals dept.), Ernst Burgin (Plant leader), Carl Lautenschlager (Plant leader), Max Ilgner (Head of intelligence and propaganda), Heinrich Butefisch (Production chief at Auschwitz), Friedrich Jahne (Chief engineer), Hans Kugler (Head of sales for dyestuffs), Heinrich Gattinau (Intelligence and plant police), Carl Wurster (Plant leader), Hans Kuhne (Plant leader), Wilhelm Rudolf Mann (Pharmaceuticals), Heinrich Oster (Manager of the Nitrogen Syndicate), Walter Durrfeld (Head of construction at Auschwitz and Monowitz) and Erich von der Heyde (Deputy of intelligence and plant police). A good number of the men on trial were also members of the Nazi SS and SA at various levels.

  The trial began on 27 August 1947 and ran for nearly a year, until 11 June 1948. The IG Farben Trial was the third longest trial held at Nuremberg, behind the IMT trial and the Ministries Case. The judges who served as part of the Military Tribunal VI and oversaw the trial included Clarence F. Merril, Paul M. Herbert, James Morris and Curtis Grover Shake.

  On the first day of the trial the prosecuting attorney’s opening statement addressed the kind of charges that were being levied against the twenty-four men. The following is quoted directly from the transcript of that opening statement:

  The grave charges in this case have not been laid before the Tribunal casually or unreflectingly. The indictment accuses these men of major responsibility for visiting upon mankind the most soaring and catastrophic war in modern history. It accuses them of wholesale enslavement, plunder and murder. These are terrible charges... The crimes with which these man are charged were not committed in rage, or under the stress of sudden temptation; they were not the slips or lapses of otherwise well-ordered men. One does not build a stupendous war machine in a fit of passion, nor an Auschwitz factory during a passing spasm of brutality. What these men did was done with the utmost deliberation and would, I venture to surmise, be repeated if the opportunity should recur. There will be no mistaking the ruthless purposefulness with which the defendants embarked upon their course of conduct.

  The heaviest sentences were carried out for Otto Ambros and Walter Durrfeld, both of whom were directly related to the construction and running of the Auschwitz factory. They each received eight years’ imprisonment. Fritz ter Meer would receive a seven-year sentence for his involvement in the chemical plant in Buna. Carl Krauch and Heinrich Butefisch both got six years and it went down from there. Ten of the men were actually acquitted of all charges and all of the men who were sentenced were given the luxury of time served as part of their sentencing.

  The only apology from Bayer for their involvement with the Auschwitz death camps would come in 1995 to Nobel Prize winning author and holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel. Elie had lost his mother and sister in the camps, but he himself was able to go on. He wrote a powerful firs-thand account in his book titled simply Night, which has become required reading in many schools around the world. Elie had been scheduled in late 1995 to give a speech for the Three Rivers Lecture Series in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He soon discovered that Bayer was one of the corporate sponsors of the event, and having full and intimate first-hand knowledge of what IG Farben had done to his family and so many others, he promptly cancelled the appearance. When the then president and CEO of Bayer, Helge H. Wehmeier, heard about the cancellation he personally paid a visit to Wiesel at his home. Wiesel recalled the visit to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, ‘I was very moved by the man. I explained to him the situation. And I said to him: “Look, Bayer never apologized”. I said it straight out. ‘And he said, “What if I apologize?” Right then, I knew he would do it, and do it well’.

  Apologise he did; Wehmeier included an apology as a foreword to Elie’s speech, which included remarks about his ‘shock and shame’ at what his company had done in conjunction with the Nazis. He went on to express that he felt ‘the obligation, but also the opportunity, to shape a different future, a better understanding and a better world’. Wiesel, for what it’s worth, found no blame with Wehmeier himself and said so during his speech, ‘It’s not your fault that IG Farben was guilty.’ Wehmeier himself wasn’t even born until 1943. The apology was certainly a step in the right direction, but unfortunately time would tell that the feelings of regret were more Wehmeier’s than those of Bayer AG.

  It would be natural to assume that Bayer would want to continue to distance themselves from the IG Farben days as much as possible after the fallout from the Second World War, even after Helge Wehmeier retired in 2004. Unfortunately, just two years later, Bayer would be back to endorsing the dark side of their history. In 1956, Second World War criminal Fritz ter Meer had been appointed the chairman of the supervisory board of Bayer. Fritz had been the head officer directing the operations of IG Farben Auschwitz and was sentenced to seven years for his part in the horrors; a sentence of which he would serve only four years. Fritz held the position at Bayer for seven years – three years longer than he spent in prison for his war crimes. Bayer AG seemed to reinforce this piece of their dark history in 2006 when, despite Wehmeier’s earlier apology, they sponsored a large memorial wreath on the grave of ter Meer.

  Bayer Today and Modern Controversy

  Bayer has a history steeped in controversy and horror, and the company seems unable to stay away from the negative spotlight even today. The CBG Network or Coordination gegen Bayer-Gefahren (translation: Coalition against Bayer-Dangers) was established as a watchdog group that minds the activities of Bayer. The company has continued to be rife with controversy around the world.

  In 2006, the CBG Network found that Bayer’s claims of significant greenhouse-gas emission reductions were unfounded, blatantly false, and spun with disinformation. They also noted in 2011 that Bayer CropScience was finally ceasing production of their most deadly pesticides. Philipp Mimkes from the Coalition against BAYER Dangers comments:

  This is an important success for environmental organisations from all over the world who have fought against these deadly pesticides for decades. But we must not forget that Bayer broke their original promise to withdraw all class I products by the year 2000. Many lives could have been saved. It is embarrassing that the company only stopped sales because the profit margins of these chemical time bombs have fallen so much.

  The release by the CBG Network also noted:

  Bayer has a world market share in pesticides of 20%. The WHO estimates the number of people who are poisoned by pesticides at three to 25 million per year. At least 40,000 people
are killed accidentally by pesticides and the estimated number of unreported cases is much higher. Bayer products contribute enormously to the millions of poisonings each year.

  Bayer has also experienced issues with their various medications being found as a danger, such as the once popular birth control medicine Yaz/Yasmin. The pill was found to contain drospirenone, which significantly elevates the risk of embolism or thrombosis in those who take it. The Bayer Pharma AG product Xarelto has also come under fire. The CBG Network discussed the dangers of the drug in 2012: Concerns regarding the safety of the anticoagulant Xarelto have not been dispelled. Trials carried out with the drug have resulted in a number of fatalities. Dubious practices are also being used to market the product. There are justified fears that a high-risk, over-expensive product with no additional therapeutic benefit is being forced onto the market. The BAYER Board of Management bears responsibility for this.

  Christiane Schnura from the Coalition against BAYER Dangers:

  The numerous reports of vascular occlusion, bleeding, cardiovascular problems and liver damage make it inadvisable to use Xarelto on a wide scale for the prevention of stroke. Products that do not offer any advantage compared with older products should on principle not be given regulatory approval.

  Xarelto was recalled temporarily in 2014 due to an issue with contamination and many lawsuits are still in the court system over the dangers of the drug.

  The continued denial of any dark past by Bayer was also highlighted by the CBG Network in 2013:

  On August 1, 1863 businessman Friedrich Bayer and dyer Johann Friedrich Weskott founded the company ‘Friedr. Bayer et comp’. They initially produced synthetic dyestuffs but the range of products grew significantly over the years. In 1881, BAYER was made a joint stock corporation and developed into an international chemical company. In 1925 the firm became part of the IG FARBEN conglomerate.

  For its 150th anniversary BAYER organised numerous celebrations. More than 1,000 guests attended an event in Cologne, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and North Rhine-Westphalian State Premier Hannelore Kraft. A specially built airship is promoted the company on all five continents. However, the unpleasant periods of the company’s history were totally omitted from the celebrations. Topics such as environmental contamination, pesticide poisoning, worker protests and collaboration with the Third Reich were simply ignored.

  Philipp Mimkes from the Coalition against BAYER Dangers said:

  Being a part of the infamous IG Farben, BAYER was involved in the cruellest crimes in human history. A subsidiary supplied Zyklon B for the gas chambers. The company built a giant new factory directly at Auschwitz. To accommodate the slave workers, the corporation operated its own concentration camp. More than 30,000 labourers were worked to death. The company’s commitment to supply fuel, munitions and rubber was vital for Hitler to wage international war.

  Chapter Seven

  Kellogg’s: Corn Flakes and the War On Sex

  Nineteenth century ideas about living ‘the good life’ once involved an inordinate amount of consumption and excess, and with that inevitably came poor health. This trend meant that health concerns were a huge part of the developing world near the end of the nineteenth century. It is difficult to imagine the terror that must have come with most illness in the era before vaccines and modern medicine. There was a widespread distrust of doctors in that time, and who could blame them? The practice of medicine was often as, or even more, barbaric and painful than the diseases that could ail you. We often hear people talking about ‘quack-medicine’ nowadays in a novelty sense, but looking back, pretty much all medical practice in the past has the appearance of quack medicine.

  It was from this era of decadence that a need was born for a healthier way of living. There were several visionaries in the forefront of this movement, but few as famous, or rather infamous, as Dr John Harvey Kellogg. John Harvey and his younger brother, Will Keith, put their collective minds together to create a healthy food substitute, a cereal flake that would someday become known as Corn Flakes. The role of this rather plain dietary flake was to help one live a pure and healthy existence, but the history that surrounds it is anything but bland. The man behind the most famous breakfast cereal in America was also ardently in support of abstinence from masturbation, sexual arousal and sexual intercourse of any kind. He was also a ecumenist and a racial purist. The breakfast cereal revolution was about to begin and the two Kellogg brothers would be divided forever by the opposing forces of fanaticism and greed over a distinctly American breakfast icon.

  The Early Life of John Harvey Kellogg

  A young John Harvey Kellogg was the fifth son of humble Michigan frontier parents, John Preston and Anne Kellogg. Times were hard, but the Kellogg family kept their faith in God while they struggled to find their way. John was born on 26 February 1852 in Tyrone Township, a small Michigan rural community. John was a rather sickly child, being stricken by tuberculosis, which was often a death sentence in those days. The prolific disease wouldn’t have a vaccine until 1921 and wouldn’t be utilised on a wide scale until the 1950s. The stifling disease would keep John Harvey out of school until he was 9 years of age.

  There is a story that is often re-told about John witnessing a boyhood friend being bled on a table right in front of him. John Harvey was so disturbed by the sight of the boy’s blood, he exclaimed to his mother that he when he grew up, he wanted to be anything but a doctor. The statement is almost ironic; John Harvey Kellogg was not a doctor in the same way as the ‘professionals’ who had fumbled through medicine before him. No, John Harvey would be a whole new type of doctor, practising what was, for that time, a revolutionary new way of thinking; one he would personally help pioneer and make famous.

  The Kelloggs eventually moved to Battle Creek, Michigan, where his father, without much enthusiasm, began the task of manufacturing brooms, a venture that proved to be a more successful avenue for the family. The Kellogg boys would soon join their father at work in the broom factory. Not everyone in those days, just as it is now, was cut out for the physical labour and long hours of factory work. It was during this time as a teenager that John Harvey realised he was not cut out for a life of manual labour. John, who had spent much of his youth in a frail state, was far more of a reader and preferred delving into a good book to working with his hands. His aspirations inspired him to become a school teacher, a perfectly noble and viable profession of the era, but one he would never pursue.

  Instead, John found himself on the path to addressing and treating matters of health and wellbeing. It was religion that brought this new path into Kellogg’s life. The Kellogg family, as it turns out, had become devout followers of the Seventh Day Adventist church, a new religion that had branched off from the Millerism movement. The followers of Millerism were still struggling to reform and find their way after the very specific ‘second coming of Jesus’ event, which their leader had pivoted their beliefs on, never took place. The event, referred as the ‘Great Disappointment’ was supposed to have taken place on 22 October 1844.

  The Kelloggs were so involved in the Adventist Church that they donated a portion of the proceeds from the sale of their home when they moved from Tyrone Township to Battle Creek to fund the Adventist Church when they moved their publishing activities from Rochester, New York, to Battle Creek. The Kellogg family may have been in financial support of the Church, but John Harvey took his involvement to a far deeper level.

  The Adventist Church had only a handful of leaders who helped with its formation; two of the more prominent were James and Ellen G. White. The Whites were a major influencing force within the Adventist movement and the prophetic visions that Ellen White claimed to experience were frequent and taken as gospel, not only into how they should be living their lives and forming the religion, but sometimes even foretelling the future. Ellen’s visions moved those who followed the religion towards keeping their body pure by rejecting many drinks, such as alcohol, coffee, and even tea. The entir
e Adventist movement also became vegetarian, feeling that eating the flesh of animals was an unclean act that would further serve to harm their bodies. The main theme of the religion was to truly purify the body. The original hope was that if the followers made their bodies and minds as pure as possible, then it might invite the second coming of Jesus Christ. The Adventists explained away the Great Disappointment by deciding that they were too unclean to be in the presence of the Lord, so their great quest of purity was everything to them.