A Deal with the Devil
Funds Needed for Completion: $ 1,200,000.0
Estimated Completion Date: 07/01/2009
Synopsis
A Deal with the Devil chronicles the infamous German corporation, I.G. Farben, its remarkable scientific achievements, and its crimes against humanity.
The alliance between Adolf Hitler and I.G. Farbenindustrie, Germany’s mightiest chemical corporation, is certainly one of the darkest business histories of all time. According to a U.S. government report released shortly after World War II, “without I.G.’s immense productive facilities, its far-reaching research, varied technical experience, and overall concentration of economic power, Germany would not have been in a position to start its aggressive war in September 1939.”
I.G. Farben’s past and present are the basis for a comprehensive and compelling investigative documentary—never before told—on the lethal abuse of power in pursuit of massive wealth. A Deal with the Devil will tell the story of how opportunistic business interests facilitated German aggression. It will also depict a corporate culture that continues to jeopardize the lives of consumers around the world today.
Budget:
$1,200,000.0
Project's Financial Needs
Research, pre-production, location scouting, archival license fees, crew expenses, location taping, film transfers and editing.
Other financial Support
$10,000 Joseph and Eda Pell Foundation
$10,000 Stephen and Eve Milstein Philanthropic Fund
$5,000 Andrew and Carol Milstein Philanthropic Fund
Current stage of production
Production
Estimated Completion Date
07/01/2009
Treatment
“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”
-Albert Einstein
What should society expect of its corporations? Job security? Stock options? Environmental stewardship? What about monopolizing life-saving drugs? What about mass murder?
The alliance between Adolf Hitler and I.G. Farbenindustrie, Germany’s mightiest chemical corporation, is certainly one of the darkest business histories of all time. According to a U.S. government report released shortly after World War II, “without I.G.’s immense productive facilities, its far-reaching research, varied technical experience, and overall concentration of economic power, Germany would not have been in a position to start its aggressive war in September 1939.”
I.G. Farben’s past and present are the basis for a comprehensive and compelling investigative documentary—never before told—on the lethal abuse of power in pursuit of massive wealth. A Deal with the Devil will tell the story of how opportunistic business interests facilitated German aggression. It will also depict a corporate culture that continues to jeopardize the lives of consumers around the world today.
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Inspired by the monopolistic practices of the great Standard Oil trust in the United States, Germany’s “Big Six” chemical companies comprised the cartel called I.G. Farben. Bayer, Hoechst, BASF, Agfa, Kalle, and Casella were together known as “Interessen Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft,” and their union began with the monopolization of the world’s synthetic dye industry at the beginning of the twentieth century. By the start of World War II, I.G. Farben was the single largest corporation in Europe.
But I.G. Farben was more than a corporate empire. Its team of Nobel Prize-winning and other renowned scientists developed indispensable medications including aspirin, Novocain, methadone, and Salvarsan, the cure for syphilis. It was for the Nazis, however, that I.G. Farben exceeded even its own ambitious goals; with I.G. Farben and coal, Adolf Hitler almost conquered the world.
Realizing that his foreign policy and military might were hostage to the oil wells and rubber plantations of his enemies, Hitler was determined to make Germany self-sufficient. I.G. Farben’s leaders knew that Hitler’s vision was an incredible business opportunity, and they helped assure his rise to power. Their zeal to appease the Fuhrer resulted in the alchemy of Germany’s abundant coal supply into a torrent of synthetic oil, rubber, and ammunition. For five and a half years, Nazi tanks, trucks, and planes were propelled by I.G. Farben’s fuel, rolled on I.G. Farben’s rubber, and devastated enemies with I.G. Farben’s synthetic firepower.
But it was not until I.G. Farben joined the Nazi slave labor program that it plumbed the depth of Hitler’s evil. At the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, I.G. Farben constructed Buna, the largest privately owned synthetic oil and rubber factory in the world. The building of these massive installations consumed tens of thousands of Auschwitz inmates who were gassed, hanged, and worked to death. All the while, the company reaped record profits on the backs of its seemingly limitless slave labor supply.
The existence of the I.G. Auschwitz complex assured the company a unique place in business history. At the war’s end, I.G. Farben was declared a criminal organization and ordered by the Allies to disband. The majority of its properties and patents were split among Bayer/Agfa, Hoechst, and BASF. Many of I.G Farben’s top executives were convicted at the Nuremberg trials for the crimes of slavery, plunder, and mass murder. But even while on trial, I.G. Farben officials were being recruited by the U.S. government and major corporations to work on projects deemed to be in the “national interest.” The so-called justice that these war criminals ultimately received provides a story as unsettling as the events that preceded it.
The majority of research for A Deal with the Devil comes from author Joseph Borkin, who investigated and prosecuted I.G. Farben-dominated cartels for the Department of Justice, and devoted his life’s work to the uncovering of I.G. Farben up until his death, shortly after his seminal book about the company was published. Titled The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben, the book and its source material contain thousands of documents, photos, and other rare archival material from as far back as the mid-nineteenth century. Black Eye Productions has an option for the rights of the book and its volumes of source material. The documents disclose the trail of corruption left in the wake of I.G. Farben’s attempts to camouflage its assets in the United States and around the world.
Today, Bayer/Agfa, Hoechst, and BASF are many times larger than their infamous parent was at its prime, and they continue to expand, merging and transforming their identities. Under pressure, the German government stepped in to stem the tide of class-action lawsuits by slave laborers at I.G. Auschwitz and other corporate work camps. In 1999, the government negotiated a lump sum fund that provides some restitution for the slave workers of Nazi industry. At the same time, the I.G. successor companies have continued to engage in ethical and moral transgressions.
In 1999, BASF was fined more than $200 million dollars by a U.S. court for helping to fix the prices of raw vitamins for more than 10 years. Hoechst was sued for bribing and preventing generic manufacturers from producing lower-cost versions of its best-selling heart drug, Cardizem. And Bayer’s Factor-8 medication for hemophiliacs has killed thousands. The blood supply for the drug was tainted with HIV, because the company recruited high-risk prisoners as donors.
The anthrax scare after September 11th was also a boon for Bayer, which manufactures the antibiotic Cipro, the most sought-after treatment for anthrax. Although the company earned hundreds of millions of dollars in sales to the U.S. and other governments, Bayer threatened to use every weapon at its disposal to keep generic versions of its highly coveted drug off the market. These and other modern stories of the former I.G. Farben companies will enable viewers to appreciate the contemporary nature of this tale.
This investigative film will provoke heated debate on the role of corporations in society and their responsibilities to their employees, their customers, and the communities in which they do business. It will stir discussion about the potential of individuals, as well as organizations, and how to best unleash that potential while maintaining integrity. The film will be told in a unique visual style, treating viewers to a creative blend of historic and current material, in addition to the latest in graphics and animation. A Deal with the Devil will truly be a twenty-first century documentary.
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