Abstract
At the turn of the century, BASF of Ludwigshafen could look back on 35 years of almost uninterrupted growth. According to the catalogue of the 1900 Paris International Exhibition, the company’s 7,000-strong workforce made it “indisputably the world’s largest chemical works.”1 Its business was the discovery, production and marketing of synthetic dyes. Its customer was the textile industry, a mainstay of the industrial scene in virtually every country on earth. The global market in colorants was systematically developed by BASF and the other German dye producers. By the outbreak of World War I, the German chemical industry had achieved a worldwide monopoly in the dye sector; in the year 1913 it was responsible for some 90 per cent of world production of dyes.2 That year, more than 80 per cent of BASF’s sales revenue came from dyes. With a view to breaking away from this near-total dependence on dyes, BASF had since the turn of the century carried out intensive research in a new area of chemistry, the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen. BASF’s target was the nitrogen fertiliser market, at that time potentially one of the biggest sectors for the chemical industry with a volume almost ten times that of the dye market. The breakthrough came with the Haber-Bosch process, the catalytic reaction of nitrogen and hydrogen to produce ammonia. Fritz Haber, sponsored by BASF, had perfected the continuous high pressure process in 1909, and Carl Bosch and his team at Ludwigshafen undertook pilot plant studies during the following years. In 1913, BASF opened the world’s first synthetic ammonia plant at a new works near Oppau, close to Ludwigshafen. Despite the high capital cost of the new facilities, BASF achieved sales of about 120 million marks in 1913, with a clear profit of some 15 million marks. The outcome was a pretty good profit to sales ratio after taxes of 12.5 per cent. The success of the Haber-Bosch process was to prove even more dazzling after 1914.
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References
Paris Exhibition of 1900 (Berlin, 1900), collective exhibition by the German chemical industry, p. 68.
On the development of the dye industry, see (with more extensive references) L.F. Haber, The Chemical Industry during the Nineteenth Century: A Study of the Economic Aspects of Applied Chemistry in Europe and North America (Oxford, 1958); idem, The Chemical Industry 1900–1930: International Growth and Technological Change (Oxford, 1971); Gottfried Plumpe, Die IG. Farbenindustrie AG, Wirtschaft, Technik. Politik 1904–1945, (Berlin, 1990); Anthony S. Travis, The Rainbow Makers: The Origins of the Synthetic Dyestuffs Industry in Western Europe (Bethlehem, Pa., 1993).
On the development of BASF, see the unpublished manuscripts (in German) of Walter Voigtländer-Tetzner, especially “History of BASF 1865–1914,” “Chronicle of BASF 1865–1940,” and “Commercial Development of BASF,” all in the BASF company archive.
J See in detail Dieter Schiffmann, Von der Revolution zum Neunstundentag: Arbeit und Konflikt hei BASE 1918–1924 (Frankfurt a. M., 1983).
BASF Archives, C 11, Minutes of the 51st Meeting of the Central Committee of the Supervisory Board of May 21, 1919.
Reports in BASF Archives, A 862/IV, French occupation.
Memos and telegram in BASF Archives, A 862/Peace Treaty I.
BASF Archives, C 11, Meeting of the Central Committee of the Supervisory Board of May 21, 1919;
see ibid., Supervisory Board meeting of March 1, 1919. As to the success or failure of this whole espionage business, one can only speculate. It can however be assumed that the factory inspections in conjunction with BASF’s foreign patent applications that were impounded during the war were, at the least, no hindrance to
All gates to the works occupied by 4.30 am; even the smallest exits are manned by French sentries, including Moroccans. Chain of sentries to Oppau, where incidentally only the main gates of the works are occupied. LU[dwigshafen] works entered, occupation in particular of Building I and the big dye store. Night shift prevented from leaving the works. Clerical and other staff generally not permitted to enter, though certain shift leaders, in particular, given permission to visit their plants on the basis of red passes. Deputy Directors Krauss, Mehner and Scharff, either arrested within the works or fetched from their homes, are being held as hostages at the works. Roads around the factory sealed off in some cases, no trams allowed in the northern sector of the town until 8.00 am. Spahis, scouts are keeping the main roads clear and are said to have used their sabres on those who were too slow to take evasive action; but not seen out of doors after a few more hours.
The strength of the force involved was apparently about a regiment of Moroccans, two squadrons of spahis and a number of machine guns and tanksChwr(133) Fire Chief alerts the French colonel soon after his arrival to the fire risk at the plant and the need for the ban on smoking. The Frenchman regards smoking in the streets as non-hazardous. The report concludes with the words:The commission of French officers demands a meal in the canteen, and gets it. BASF Archives, A 862/III, French Occupation.
At the end of 1920, France concluded an agreement with the I.G. Farben forerunner companies which, like the “Office National Industriel de l’Azote” (ONIA) Agreement, provided for technology transfer in exchange for profit sharing and market agreements. However, this contract was unilaterally terminated by France in 1924, to the detriment of I.G. Farben. See Plumpe, op cit. (2), pp. 122 et seq.
BASF Archives, A 862/IV, French Occupation. The Fire Chief of the Ludwigshafen complex described the occupation as follows: Tuesday, May 15, 1923. Reported at about 3 am that fairly large contingents of French troops had left Oggersheim to occupy the Aniline works. Prompt departure of the Board members living in Ludwigshafen.
Incidentally, the confiscated product resurfaced later under dubious circumstances and BASF was invited to buy it back.
BASF Archives, C 10, Report to the Supervisory Board dated June 20, 1923; A 862/11, French Occupation.
BASF Archives, C 10, Reports to the Supervisory Board dated August 30, 1923 and October 25, 1923.
BASF Archives, C 10, Report to the Supervisory Board dated October 16, 1923.
BASF Archives, C 10, Report to the Supervisory Board dated October 25, 1923.
Ibid., Annex. There are no further references to the theme of separatism in the BASF files.
The “Micum Agreements” were direct supply agreements between the “Mission Interalliée de Contrôle des Usines et des Mines” and industry in the occupied territories, especially the mining industry in the Ruhr, concerning reparations; see Gerald D. Feldman and Heidrun Homburg, Industrie und Inflation: Studien und Dokumente zur Politik der deutschen Unternehmen 1916–1923 (Hamburg, 1977), pp. 146 et seq. In two conventions (the Koblenz Convention of November 10, 1923 and the Paris Convention of December 14, 1923) the chemical industry undertook to supply dyes, pharmaceuticals and nitrogen products; BASF Archives, B 4/1175, Reparations.
Reichstag, IIIrd Legislative Period 1924/27, Report by the 23rd Commission (Commission of Enquiry into compensation in the Ruhr), publication number 3615, Berlin 1927, pp. 4 et seq.
Ibid., p. 4.
Ibid., pp. 108 et seq.
BASF Archives, B 4/1175, Reparations.
There was no dispute about the destruction of installations built purely for the purposes of the war, which were dismantled under the supervision of an Allied military commission. The most important of these were the explosives plants built during the war at the Farbenfabriken Bayer. See Plumpe, op. cit. (2), p. 96.
The other chemical companies along the Rhine were, of course, also affected by the French occupation policy. However, BASF was the only one of the “big three” (BASF, Bayer and Hoechst) on the left bank of the river, so that the French had continuous direct access to the works until they withdrew in 1930. Admittedly, Bayer and Hoechst were occupied in 1918–19 and 1923, after the two occasions on which the French established bridgeheads on the right bank. They too were subjected to requisitions and attempted espionage, but only for brief periods, whereas BASF had to deal with the French in the longer term. See, regarding Hoechst, Ernst Bäumler, Die Rotfabriker. Familien-geschichte eines Weltunternehmens (Munich, 1988), pp. 257 et seq.
Naturally, the other Allies were also not backward in attempting to procure the sought-after Haber-Bosch technology by illegal means. Like the French chemists and technologists, the British and Americans took the opportunity for a thorough investigation of the ammonia plants at Oppau — evidently with no tangible success. It was only after two former BASF employees sold stolen blueprints to the English company Brunner, Mond & Co. (later ICI) that it became possible to use the Haber-Bosch technology in Britain, and later in the United States as well. See W.J. Reader, Imperial Chemical Industries: A History, 2 vols., Vol. 1: The Forerunners, 1870–1926 (London, 1970), pp. 364 et seq. [Vol. 2: The First Quarter Century (1975)]. As in the case of the ammonia technology, France adopted a different route with dyestuffs.
Text of contract in BASF Archives, B 4/479. For the negotiations, see Karl Holdermann, Im Banne der Chemie. Carl Bosch, Leben und Werk (Düsseldorf, 1953), pp. 168 et seq.; Plumpe, op. cit. (2), p. 221.
Cf. BASF Archives, C 10, Report to the Members of the Supervisory Board dated February 19, 1923; ibid., collection of press cuttings.
BASF Archives, B 4, ONIA records.
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Meinzer, L. (1998). “Productive Collateral” or “Economic Sense?”: Basf Under French Occupation, 1919–1923. In: Travis, A.S., Schröter, H.G., Homburg, E., Morris, P.J.T. (eds) Determinants in the Evolution of the European Chemical Industry, 1900–1939. Chemists and Chemistry, vol 16. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1233-0_3
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