The IG Farben Trial was the second of three trials of leading industrialists of Nazi Germany for their conduct during the Nazi regime. (The two other industrialist trials were the Flick Case and the Krupp Case.)
The defendants in this case had all been directors of IG Farben, a large German conglomerate of chemical firms. The company had been a major actor in World War I, when their development of the Haber-Bosch process for nitrogen fixation helped German cope with their loss of access to the Chilean nitrate trade and allowed IG Farben to produce synthetic nitrate. (Nitrate is an important component for the fabrication of explosives such as gunpowder, dynamite or TNT.) In World War II, an IG Farben subsidiary, Degesch, manufactured Zyklon B, the poison gas used at the extermination camps (the other supplier of the gas was the firm Tesch/Stabenow). IG Farben also developed processes for synthesizing gasoline and rubber from coal, and thereby greatly contributed to Germany's ability to wage a war despite having been cut off from all major oil fields. The charges consequently centered on preparing to wage an aggressive war, but also on slave labor and plundering.
Counts: 1) Crimes Against Peace; 2) Spoliation; 3) Slave Labor; 4) Membership in the SS; and Conspiracy Original Indictment
