Losing the War, but Gaining Ground: the German Chemical Industry During World War I

Margit Szöllösi-Janze

Center for German and European Studies, University of California at Berkeley

March 1997

Abstract

During World War I, the Chemical industry in Germany was elevated to a dominant position in Germany's industrial structure. This paper explores the reasons for this industry's rise to dominance. It argues that the explanation rests on a confluence of two forces. First, the state-regulated war economy facilitated technological innovations in the industry, not enjoyed by other industries. Secondly, the chemical industry was in close contact with top scientists who acted as mediators between the industry and the political authorities. As a result, Big Chemistry's competitors suffered technological lags and were less efficient, and the chemical industry dramatically increased its market share in the German economy against the efforts of other powerful industrial interests.
Margit Szöllösi-Janze Institut für Neuere Geschichte, Universität München

In 1915, the invention of chemical weapons provided military arsenals with the first means of mass extermination in history, and contemporaries reacted immediately to the novel experience of gas attacks by interpreting World War I as a chemists' war. ₁ Yet this frequently repeated perception of the increasingly central role of the sciences in general and of chemistry in particular has been questioned, above all by American historians. They have emphasized physics' early and decisive importance, ₂ or stressed that "doersÓ such as engineers and managers, rather than scientists themselves, were the ones who helped determine the course of the war. ₃ Alex Roland has even gone so far as to assert that science and technology decided none of the wars that the United States has waged. ₄ In fact the gas weapons, as chemistry's most spectacularly innovative contribution in World War I, were a failure. Not that those weapons did not work: the number of soldiers killed or wounded by poison gas proves, alas, the contrary. ₅ But after the first German surprise attacks, scientists from all sides began a frenetic search for effective means of defense and for new ways to penetrate the gas masks of the enemy troops. The chemists' race against one another only set in motion an endless spiral of lethal innovation and counterinnovation, without ever leading to any military decision.

Yet it would be a mistake to judge chemistry solely according to whether its technical contribution decided the war. Modern wars are waged, as World War I first showed, not only on the military battlefield, but also on the industrial one, which involves the mobilization not just of troops and weapons but of all economic and social resources. In the face of manifest shortages of raw materials, German chemistry - not just the chemical industry but chemical research as well - proved of decisive importance after 1914 in the development of synthetic substitute materials. In this context, the chemists' war contributed not least to the struggle for domestic market share.

It is proper to see World War I, in international perspective, as a watershed in the development of the modern chemical industry, a watershed typified less by the discovery of new methods or products than by the staggeringly rapid application of previously existing technological innovations to mass production. "War is a technological forcing house,Ó L.F. Haber entitles the chapter of his comprehensive portrait of the history of the chemical industry that deals with the World War. ₆

The exceptional circumstances during the war created a new situation in which innovations were to have completely new prospects for actual application on a domestic market whose normal mechanisms of competition had been massively disrupted for several reasons - because of the lack of imported raw materials; the regulation of the war economy; the involvement of the government as sole agent of demand of key goods for the conduct of the war; and, last but not least, the primary goal of winning the war no matter what the circumstances and no matter what the cost. The war economy fostered the climate of a kind of "industrial greenhouseÓ in which growth - the technical application and implementation of processes important to the war that would have proceeded much more slowly under normal conditions - accelerated preternaturally. With the help of governmental subsidies, giant plants could be built and lines of production could be set in motion that were supposed to prove competitive after the war because of the lowered cost of production secured during the war. But technological "speciesÓ were also favored, ones that would hardly have survived under normal conditions because they were unprofitable. In this industrial greenhouse, not just the appearance and structures of the German chemical industry, but also its economic weight in relation to the other industries, were transformed. Chemistry gained ground compared to other industries, including coal, electricity, cyanamide, and explosives.

To document these developments, I would like to select the synthetic production of nitrogenous compounds for examination - specifically, two BASF processes that were found at different stages of technical and industrial application. At the beginning of the war, the BASF process for the production of nitric acid through the oxidation of ammonia had not yet been applied on the scale of manufacture; it remained at the experimental stage. With the synthesis of ammonia from the elements according to the Haber-Bosch process, BASF succeeded only just before the war in mass application. Production in its Oppau plant, however, remained too small and too expensive, so that it could not have been competitive on the free market against its much cheaper foreign and domestic rivals. Despite all of the differences in detail, both examples make clear that top scientists, especially Fritz Haber and Emil Fischer, played an important role in the chemical industry's competition for prospective market share. The historiography of the sciences has for a considerable period avoided the temptation of relegating scientists to the study and the laboratory, a temptation that would minimize their sociohistorical role. It follows that it is misleading to interpret the significance of chemists for the war effort only according to whether their laboratory achievements were applied in the realm of weapons technology or not. The ground gained by the German chemical industry during World War I demonstrates rather the enormous significance of scientists not in the narrow scientific realm but precisely outside that domain through their function as external mediators in the communications between industry and military. ₇

To clarify these relationships, I would like to borrow a model from systems-theory. At a time when there existed hardly any institutionalized connections between the social subsystems of chemical industry, chemical research, and state/military, nor even a common "languageÓ that would make the needs and goals of any one subsystem intelligible to the others, scientists represented the means of mediation translating the "languageÓ of industry so that civil and military authorities could understand, and vice versa. It turned out to be scientists, and not least chemists, who generally first identified problems of military importance, then offered possible solutions, and provided means of communication between the military and industry.

The sense of understanding between chemical research and industry had a tradition behind it in Germany: the proverbial "academic-industrial symbiosisÓ ₈ had led long before the war to a common tongue and provided the foundations for an expanded systematic cooperation in the domains of war economy and war technology. Direct interactions of chemical industry and research with governmental authorities likewise took place before the war: one thinks, for example, of the role of their technical-scientific associations in the development of patent rights, tariff policy, and technical education. This fertile and successful spirit of cooperation is also clearly exemplified by the prehistory of the founding of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Society and its institutes in 1911, though it remained limited governmentally above all by the Prussian ministry of education and secondarily by the Prussian ministry of finance and the Reich Office of the Interior's cultural department, to say nothing of the personal involvement of the Kaiser himself. The military authorities that became decisive in war time, namely the numerous decision-makers of the Supreme Command and the war ministry, were not included in these processes of understanding and cooperation. Here scientists arguably played a role hard to overestimate, by instituting a dialogue between industry and military and leading the way in promoting their systematic cooperation. Thus, for example, Emil Fischer considered himself explicitly during the war to be a mediator between industry and state authorities. ₉ Fritz Haber memorably expressed this development in April 1918: "This relationship [between science, industry, and military] was an incomplete one before the war. The general lived, so to speak, on the second floor and greeted the academics who lived below, but a more profound connection did not exist. To communicate he used the industrialist who lived on the premises." ₁₀

Scientists self-consciously assumed they were competent to exercise considerable social power not just as academics, but above all as more general agents of communication. Emil Fischer reflected on his influence many times in his private correspondence, ₁₁ and Haber too remained well aware of his earlier power even in August 1933: "...I was one of the mightiest men in Germany. I was more than a great army commander, more than a captain of industry. I was the founder of industries; my work was essential for the economic and military expansion of Germany. All doors were open to me." ₁₂ It is not easy to assess the influence of scientists because they lacked the customary indicators of power, whether high political or military standing or a post on the executive board of a large-scale enterprise. Their roles were, especially during the first half of the war, informal; they were bound up with individuals and not with institutions and stood outside the formal bureaucratic structures. They were flexible enough to take on tasks that cut across fields, and they presided over astonishingly extensive domains. Haber, director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry, was a war volunteer; he designated his function at that time quite simply as "advisor of the war ministry," ₁₃ i.e., he was for a long period a scientific-technical advisor who offered his expertise as a physical chemist and his broad network of connections in an act of patriotic self-mobilization for the German war effort. Only very late was he gradually integrated in the military-governmental apparatus, and tellingly not because of his chemical and industrial duties but as part of his military activities in gas warfare campaigns. ₁₄

BASF's Saltpeter Coup

Nitric acid (HNO3) assumed a central role among chemicals with applications in munitions, because all modern gunpowders and explosives are nitric acid derivatives. It became clear even before the transition to positional warfare that the 600 tons of explosives and 475 of gunpowder per month called for in the mobilization plan were amounts far too little to conduct the war, but even then the kinds and amounts that would be necessary on a regular basis remained unclear. For a time each arm had to make a new monthly calculation. ₁₅ The dimensions of the problem become clear if one reckons the quantity of nitrogen to which the army and navy demand for nitric acid amounted. In a complete misjudgment of the reality of the military situation, in November 1914 it was still being estimated that only 28000 tons of nitrogen would be needed through November of the following year. These computations assumed 1700 tons through March 1915, 2500 tons monthly from April to June, and 3000 tons monthly from July through November. The army's monthly need as calculated in August 1915, by contrast, amounted to 10000 tons alone. One year later, the Hindenburg Program doubled this amount to 20000 tons of nitrogen per month. ₁₆ Neither the Central Powers' need for nitrogen compounds nor, above all, that of domestic agriculture and of the chemical and pharmaceutical industries were included in these totals.

The British blockade cut Germany off from the import of Chile's natural saltpeter, which normally served not just as a large part of nitrogenous fertilizer, but also as the source of converted nitric acid. By the turn of the century Germany had become the world's largest importer of saltpeter from Chile and fulfilled half of its need for nitrogen that way. ₁₇ Walther Rathenau considered the solution of the saltpeter problem as among the first and most pressing tasks of his newly-created War Raw Materials Section (Kriegsrohstoffabteilung or KRA). He outlined his goal clearly: "I initiated the construction of large saltpeter factories, which will be built by private industry with governmental subsidies and will take advantage of recent technological developments to make the import of saltpeter entirely unnecessary in just few months." ₁₈

By 22 August 1914, Rathenau's section had initiated a special inquiry to ascertain from the chemical industry what technical processes there existed to produce synthetic nitric acid as quickly and in as large amounts as possible. The study did not specify how long the war might last and allowed for the expansion of already existing facilities along with the creation of new ones. The KRA assigned experts like Emil Fischer and Fritz Haber to evaluate the results of the study. Both scientists were already active in the nitric acid problem, on behalf of the production section (B 5) of the General War Department and the ordnance depot. ₁₉ These offices were traditionally responsible for the acquisition of explosive materials for the military. ₂₀ But they got the short end of the instutitional stick after Rathenau's vehement demand for sole responsibility in these areas and definitively lost their authority on 4 October 1914. ₂₁

The original documentation from the nitric acid study has been lost. But Emil Fischer's memorandum, which he submitted on 1 October 1914 together with supplementary information from his talks with industrialists from Rhineland-Westphalia, has been preserved. ₂₂

There were two basic ways to produce concentrated nitric acid synthetically, one direct and one indirect. ₂₃ The direct way called for the oxidation of gaseous nitrogen through electrical discharge in an arc, though this process produced only weak nitric acid that had to be concentrated afterwards. The three available and industrially feasible processes of this kind were similar and required expensive equipment and a large amount of electrical energy, precluded during peacetime because of their costliness. This constraint disappeared only when economic motives were subordinated to the unconditional desire to win the war.

Only the plant of Norsk Hydro in Norway, in which BASF had an interest through 1911, did not have to face the energy problem, since it relied on the water power there to reduce the costliness of the procedure. About 50000 tons of so-called "Norgesalpeter" were produced there annually, over two thirds of which was sold to German agriculture and to the German explosives industry. ₂₄ In his memorandum, Emil Fischer critically noted that the Norwegian equipment would take many years and cost approximately 50 million marks to establish in Germany; this option had to be rejected under conditions of war.

By comparison, Fischer considered the plan of the SalpetersŠure-Industrie-Gesellschaft Gelsenkirchen mbH, which relied on one of the Brothers Pauling's processes to produce nitric acid, to be "very advantageous." The Gesellschaft's plants were in Innsbruck and elsewhere outside of Germany. Pauling guaranteed that both materials for construction and electrical energy were on hand. He promised to bring a plant into existence within six months that would produce 2500 tons of concentrated nitric acid per month, without the assistance of a governmental subsidy. The third direct method of nitric acid production through gaseous combustion and the constellation of interests behind it are also worth mentioning; it had been undergoing tests since 1912 in an experimental installation in Switzerland. The high energy usage of all arc-based processes brought an alliance of electrical firms under the leadership of AEG onto the scene, an alliance which now likewise submitted a bid. ₂₅

According to Fischer's best judgment, the indirect method of synthesizing nitric acid seemed more promising for the German war effort. It called for the oxidation of ammonia with the help of a heated catalyst, whereby the nitrogen oxide would be gradually converted into nitric acid in stages. At the outset of the war there existed only one method that had been applied on a large scale, a method which represented a remarkable constellation of industrial interests. The physical chemist and Nobel prizewinner Wilhelm Ostwald had developed such a procedure as early as 1901, with express military application, that used an expensive platinum catalyst. He applied this procedure on a large scale with help from his assistant and later son-in-law Eberhard Brauer and in close cooperation with the Kšln-Rottweiler Sprengstoff-Gesellschaft. In cooperation with the Chemische Werke of Kohlenzeche Lothringen in Gerthe-/Westfalen, which since 1906 produced the basic materials for safety explosives in coal-mining, Brauer established the only plant that implemented the Ostwald procedure up to the beginning of the war. Its capacity was small: about 300 tons of sodium nitrate per month. ₂₆ In this case too the war economy softened the barriers that the profit motive would normally keep in place: Hilgenstock, Zeche Lothringen's manager, approached Fischer with the fantastic promise to establish up to twenty such plants in only four to five months for 15 million marks that would produce 6000 tons of sodium nitrate monthly.

No manager can stake so much on his own ability. Through Hilgenstock the coal barons were speaking; they were banking on lucrative new business opportunities, since the coking process would yield coke oven ammonia as a byproduct. This was sold by the Deutsche Ammoniak-Verkaufs-Vereinigung (DAAV) in Bochum, directed by Emil Sohn. The DAAV's membership reveals the interests behind the Ostwald procedure, namely, the mining companies of the Rhineland and Westphalia, the coke-works of Upper Silesia, and the Industrial Union of German Gasworks (Wirtschaftliche Vereinigung Deutscher Gaswerke). The iron and steel industries were involved indirectly, since in peacetime they used 90 percent of coke produced. In 1914 the total nitrogen produced with coke oven ammonia amounted to 111000 tons, a close second after the 117000 tons of nitrogen derived from the 750000 tons of imported Chilean saltpeter. ₂₇ In fact the directors of the Rhenish-Westphalian coal syndicate guaranteed Emil Fischer immediately "to do everything in their power to get the promised plants into operation in the shortest possible time." Not least, these plans would draw on the scientific expertise of the new KWI fŸr Kohlenforschung in MŸlheim/Ruhr in order to improve the Ostwald procedure technically and to reduce its cost. ₂₈ The KWI's director, Fritz Fischer, could thus point to diverse successes in his institute's first report. ₂₉

When considering BASF's saltpeter project, it is also important to keep in mind the possibility of securing new market opportunities for ammonia that the new nitric acid plants would create. Fritz Haber himself, who received 1.5 pfennigs per kilo of ammonia produced according to his process, drew the executive board's attention in December 1913 to the enormous agricultural uses that the large-scale conversion of ammonia to saltpeter would allow. ₃₀ The BASF's procedure also involved the oxidation of ammonia. Since the spring of 1913, BASF's industrial chemists had been systematically looking for a cheap, readily available catalyst that could take the place of the rarer and more expensive platinum called for by the Ostwald procedure. Six months later they had hit upon a suitable iron oxide compound. At the beginning of the war, however, they could only dream of implementing this new innovation on a mass scale: it had only succeeded up to that point on a laboratory scale. ₃₁

Thus when, on 21 August 1914 and still as part of the production section of the General War Department, Fritz Haber asked whether BASF could synthesize and deliver large amounts of nitric acid in the forseeable future, the management could only answer in the negative: they considered it "an impossibility." ₃₂ Haber, however, did not relent: after his first query there developed a intense correspondence, absent from the archives, between him, BASF, and the War Ministry, followed after the lost Battle of the Marne by diverse personal conversations in Berlin. While these interchanges allow of only partial reconstruction from fragmentary sources, it is clear that Emil Fischer worked intensively to induce the cautious Carl Bosch to change his mind.

The consistent pressure on Bosch from the leading figures of German chemical research succeeded. After BASF's expert in catalysts, Alwin Mittasch, had assured him that laboratory experiments allowed the possiblity of large-scale production, Bosch gave the High Command his epoch-making "saltpeter pledge," in Haber's presence, probably on 28 September in the context of the inaugural meeting of the Kriegschemikalien AG. ₃₃ He banked for his firm on the possible advantages of a procedure unproved on a large scale, for which none of the required components yet existed: the inexpensive catalyst, the expedient form of the oxidation furnace, the low costs. Bosch promised to establish a plant within only six months that would produce 5000 tons of sodium nitrate monthly - all for only five million marks. In his memorandum, Emil Fischer strongly recommended to the War Ministry that it deal equally with Zeche Lothingen, Pauling's company, and the Farbwerke in Hšchst ₃₄ in its plans for a saltpeter factory. Objectively, the greatest source of uncertainty was BASF, but Fischer concealed this fact behind the lapidary remark that he knew the firm's chemists to be "very trustworthy men." With all the authority of a Nobel prizewinner, he represented the point of view of the industrialist already planning for the postwar period. He knew that the new enormous facilities would create excess capacities in peacetime, so that any capital invested in them then would be lost. The prospective unprofitability of the plants, so he made plain, would mean that they would have to be financed by governmental subsidies instead of by credit that, while favorable, would have to be repaid. ₃₅

After a verbal commission, all of the above-named firms began in October 1914 with planning and construction, while the contract negotiations were still ongoing. Haber played a remarkable double role in these negotiations. Because he had close contacts with Wichard von Moellendorff, the director of the KRA's chemical section, Haber knew the details of the interested firms' bids. ₃₆ He informed the management of BASF about the proceedings of all relevant meetings in the war and agricultural ministries, about the competition's offers and the ministries' likely reactions. Jesting that "the Hšchst Farbwerke have submitted their offer ... you have always been able to do what they are able to," ₃₇ Haber provided BASF with a decisive informational advantage which it could use to its own benefit. He also provided the firm with non-financial assistance such as means to avoid bureaucratic red tape, the reassignment and recall of engineers from the front to their reservist positions, etc. ₃₈ - benefits hard to overestimate during a time of war. Finally, Haber acted as the KRA's agent in forging the agreements with all of the concerned firms, a function which demanded all of his diplomatic skill. ₃₉ In patriotic appeals, Haber spoke of a "joint feat of our chemical industry," since the firms, instead of keeping that common goal in mind, not unjustifiably viewed one another with suspicion. ₄₀

After a first draft of the contract, which Haber had negotiated on 24 October in Ludwigshafen, ₄₁ the text had been finalized in its essentials by the middle of November. Because the mounting military demand for saltpeter already called for expansion of the project as it had been planned, the signing of the document was postponed through the middle of January 1915. The contract met Emil Fischer's conditions and granted BASF a subsidy of four - or, for the expanded project, six - million marks. It would have to be only partially repaid if the firm was still producing saltpeter six months after the end of the war. For its part, BASF took it upon itself to get the appropriate plant in operation as quickly as possible, by 1 May 1915 at the latest, with a monthly production of 5000 tons of sodium nitrate before 1 August 1915 and 7500 thereafter. (However, they had to take no responsibility for the latter.) "Renouncing profit," as the phrase had it, they were to charge the treasury for the saltpeter only the amount it would cost them; though that price had not yet been determined, a figure over 320 marks per ton was given as an estimate - a price far beyond that of the natural saltpeter unavailable because of the blockade. This provision was by no means as magnanimous as BASF portrayed it. The price of the Haber-Bosch ammonia used in the production of saltpeter was fixed in the contract at 1.10 marks per kilo; the actual production costs were, however, kept secret.

This way of phrasing the agreement was inspired. ₄₂ As the interests behind the Ostwald procedure had a hidden stake in the coke oven ammonia, so BASF counted not only on the synthetic saltpeter but also on the Haber-Bosch ammonia. The Oppau ammonia works had been set in operation in September 1913 after only two years of preparations and had achieved production of 25 tons per day by the beginning of the war. ₄₃ It lagged behind the available amount of coke oven ammonia and could not compete with it in price. The firm's representatives were insistent on using their own especially pure ammonia exclusively in the planned saltpeter plants; otherwise, they asserted, they could not guarantee that the catalyst would function effectively. ₄₄ The award of a contract for BASF's saltpeter process necessarily implied the extension of their ammonia works: synthetic saltpeter served BASF as a Trojan horse, in whose belly Haber-Bosch ammonia lay hidden. It was forseeable that not just the growing military need for nitric acid, but also the hitherto unmentioned agricultural need for nitrogenous fertilizer, would together create an enormous demand for ammonia. The mass production of Haber-Bosch ammonia in plants either expanded or newly constructed with governmental assistance encouraged the expectation that production costs would decrease; as a consequence, the Oppau works would enjoy a clear spike in share on the market for nitrogen compounds in peacetime after having been negligible for so long. Even international competitiveness might not have seemed out of the question.

Plans for BASF's saltpeter factory were initiated on 1 October 1914. On the 24th of the same month, ground was broken - in Oppau, just in the vicinity of the ammonia works. Bosch's "saltpeter pledge" was met as the first manufacturing system was initiated at the beginning of February. In May, the mass production began, with a yield of 150 tons of nitric acid per day in the form of sodium nitrate, called "white salt." (Wei§salz). In 1916, another saltpeter plant was established in Oppau, which went online in June 1917. ₄₅ Yet even this did not suffice. The other two partners in the Dreibund (the cartel-like alliance of BASF, Bayer und Agfa) also wanted to participate in saltpeter production. Haber, however, saw difficulities: "because Duisberg does not have a process." He turned to Emil Fischer at the end of October. With reference to Zeche Lothringen's bid and the coke industry it represented, Fischer emphasized to BASF's management how much one could take satisfaction in the cooperative business attitude within the "the band of domestic chemists." ₄₆

Shortly thereafter it was decided to produce saltpeter in Leverkusen according to BASF's procedure, so that Haber by the middle of November could transfer to Duisberg the same contract as to BASF. BASF duly sent its plans and notes and advised on the acquisition of the proper equipment. The goal was to establish a plant by 1 May 1915 that would manufacture 7500 tons of saltpeter per month. ₄₇ Finally, Haber overcame dissent in BASF management in January 1915 in plans to assist Agfa, the third partner, in building a saltpeter factory in Greppin to produce over 3000 tons monthly. ₄₈ Here too, construction began two months before the formal contract negotiations had concluded on 5 July 1915, so that Agfa's first saltpeter factory could enter production by 21 October of the same year. In the same month, the contract for a second plant was signed, this one also for a planned capacity of 3000 tons monthly. For the two plants, Agfa received subsidies of 3 and 3.3 million marks, respectively. ₄₉ As in Leverkusen, the Greppin factory was dependent on the pure BASF ammonia. ₅₀

By the beginning of 1916, ten large saltpeter plants were working according to BASF's procedure and produced a total of 30400 tons monthly. Eighty-five percent of this amount came from the factories of the chemical dyestuff industry, which thereby succeeded in breaking into the lucrative explosives sector. ₅₁

As for the power relationship beween the chemical and explosives industries, Kriegschemikalien AG's internal structure reflected their relative strength in the beginning. Like the other war companies, it was founded through governmental initiative as a joint stock company in the public interest. It was intended to carry out the KRA's commercial activities, above all the purchase and distribution of raw materials and the setting of their price. Against the background of the boom created by the war in certain sectors of the economy, the concerns and cartels were party to a finely-tuned ownership system. ₅₂ Twenty-six firms in all held the shares of Kriegschemikalien AG. The Dreibund of Bayer, BASF, and Agfa held 16.67% of the shares; the Dreiverband of Casella, Kalle, and Hoechst Farbwerke, formerly Meister Lucius und BrŸning, held 15%. Two firms outside of both alliances, Weiler-terMeer and Griesheim-Elektron, held 5% in sum. The lion's share of 43.3%, however, went to the explosives industry's general cartel (Generalkartell). Not incidentally, their representative AufschlŠger, managing director of Dynamit Nobel AG, functioned as the chairperson of Kriegschemikalien AG's board. ₅₃ This group was anything but homogenous, held together only by the future prospects of profit. From the beginning however, Moellendorff discovered on the supervisory board "powerful special interests (explosives, dyes, synthetic fertilizer) [and] very little will to institute joint self-governance." ₅₄

Intermediate Conclusions

Through the midpoint of the war, the balance of power would shift significantly to chemistry's benefit. There were two causes: first, the surprisingly smooth large-scale application and mass production of synthetic saltpeter thanks to BASF and their partners; second, the suspension of most competing methods of production and the exclusion from the field of other firms from other branches of industry.

The failure of those industries that attempted to break in to the explosives sector through the large-scale application of arc-based methods was quickly apparent. The Pauling brothers built a small installation in Muldenstein near Bitterfeld, where the railroad management had established a power plant for rail before the war. Because the electrification of the railroad system could not be undertaken during the war, the power was free to be used otherwise. But the nitric acid plant disappointed expectations and production had to be stopped at the beginning of 1917 because of brown coal shortages. The project of the group of firms from the electrical industry led by AEG also ended in a fiasco. In the summer of 1915, the AEG together with the Chemische Fabrik Griesheim-Elektron built two works, one in Rhina/Baden which drew on the electricity from the Laufenburg power plant in Switzerland and the other in Zschornewitz in the Bitterfeld coal-mining area, whose electricity came from the Golpa power plant, closely linked to AEG. Both undertakings failed because of technical and economic problems. Moreover, the Zschornewitz factory was completely destroyed by an explosion in June 1917. ₅₅ Of the entire nitric acid program, these two rival methods yielded only about 7 percent of the total production in 1917. ₅₆

The nitric acid factories working according to the Ostwald procedure were surpassed because of their need for the expensive and difficult to find platinum catalyst and because of the disadvantages of using the coke oven ammonia on which it was based: first, it had to be purified before it could be used; second, its source as a byproduct of the coal coking process turned a former virtue to a disadvantage since the process indirectly depended on production in the iron and steel industries. The amount of available coke oven ammonia turned out to be very difficult to raise, after the drastic spike in production at the beginning of the war had been left behind. ₅₇

By contrast, Duisberg, still sober at the outset of the war, could rejoice by July 1915 about "how things seem in Leverkusen, how the whole factory is turned upside down and reorganized, how we are now doing nothing but war-related work." Only "thanks to Haber's stimulus" had Bayer's synthetic saltpeter production become possible. The firm at this point fulfilled a quarter of the military's need for explosives. ₅₈ In the spring of 1917 Bayer's share had risen to 39%; the Chemische Fabrik Griesheim-Elektron produced the next-largest amount of explosives at 24% of the total. The IG Farben factories together were providing 77% of all explosives. The production of gunpowder, by constrast, remained the preserve of the conventional explosives industry; in that domain, the chemical industry was involved only in the production of substitute materials. ₅₉

Synthetic Ammonia or Cyanamide: Haber, BASF, and Governmental Nitrogen Policy

How long Germany could continue the war would depend in part on the question of ammonia's mass production. First, as I have shown, only the indirect methods of producing nitric acid through the oxidation of ammonia proved practicable on a large scale. Second, it was indeed not only the military need, but from the outset the agricultural need for nitrogenous fertilizers as well that had to be taken into account. Already in October 1914, the deeply concerned Prussian agricultural ministry calculated that for the next year only a quarter of the required nitrogenous fertilizer would be available, a deficit which would translate into a drop in crop yield of at least a third. The ghost of a hunger crisis haunted the "homefront" as well as the army, despite any preferential treatment that could be given it, and threatened the stability of both. It quickly became clear that the troops at the front required more food than an equal number of soldiers in the barracks; prisoners of war also contributed to an unforeseen growth in consumption. Without immediate expansion of domestic nitrogen production, the war would be lost. ₆₀ In this hour of utmost need, it seemed obvious that appropriate measures to address the problem needed to be taken as quickly as possible, with help from governmental subsidies and without regard to profit.

A source of nitrogen compounds that would be limitless in principle would have to be found; consequently, coke oven ammonia was practically eliminated as a factor in the ongoing war planning given its close connection with coal coking. For this reason, production of ammonia would basically have to rely on the Haber-Bosch process, but also on the cyanamide industry, which has not yet been mentioned. It used a process that had been discovered and applied years before. Developed around the turn of the century by Adolf Frank and Nikodem Caro, this procedure called for starting a reaction at high temperature between nitrogen and the calcium carbide (CaC2) produced in the arc of an electrical oven at 2300¡ Celsius from lime and coke. The cyanamide thus produced could serve immediately as a fertilizer, but if heated with steam it could be broken down into ammonia. The process used a large amount of electricity (or water power) in all of its steps. ₆₁

BASF had always seen cyanamide as active competition, and one of the BASF directors, August Bernthsen, could not keep himself at the 7th International Congress for Applied Chemistry in London in 1909 from mocking that "black, unpleasant smelling contaminant soiled with lime and coal." ₆₂ Worldwide, nine firms were producing with the Frank-Caro process by 1912. The AG fŸr StickstoffdŸnger - founded in 1904 and working according to the Polzenius process - did not represent a danger to BASF's business interests. After a number of setbacks, their cyanamide plant in Knapsack near Kšln began production at the end of 1910 and three years later produced about 20000 tons of cyanamide annually while working for technical reasons under capacity. ₆₃ The Knapsack company was connected to the Dreiverband (Casella, Kalle, and Farbwerke Hoechst) and thus stood in the sphere of influence of the dyestuff industry. ₆₄

The most significant cyanamide concern at this time was the Bayerische Stickstoffwerke AG, founded in 1908 and directed personally by Nikodem Caro. In 1913 the plant had an annual capacity of some 30000 tons of cyanamide. It would prove decisive in industrial competition during World War I that the Deutsche Bank had a controlling interest in the company. ₆₅ Caro's connection to the Deutsche Bank had existed a good fifteen years. The bank had joined with Siemens & Halske and the Deutsche Gold- und Silberscheideanstalt in 1899 as members of the Cyanidgesellschaft mbH, which had been established on the technical application and utilization of the Frank-Caro patents. ₆₆ In 1907, the Cyanidgesellschaft and the Deutsche Bank established the Bayerische Stickstoffwerke together; it in turn built the first large cyanamide factory in Germany in Trostberg, where they could rely on the Alz River for power. ₆₇ Caro had gained a powerful ally that might prove the match of the dyestuff industry.

Given that the BASF ammonia works' capacity remained small and that little experience had been gained with the Haber-Bosch process, Emil Fischer considered it unavoidable in October 1914 that cyanamide production also be developed on a massive scale in addition to the BASF-ammonia in Oppau. Caro agreed in principle, but because the Trostberg works could not be expanded without further ado because of their dependence on the existing water power there, ₆₈ he insisted on the condition that new electrical plants be built in order to supply the necessary power for cyanamide production elsewhere. Fischer established immediate contact between him and Hugo Stinnes, who had an ulterior motive to join with the constellation of interests around Caro, since the enterprise could prove lucrative if it drew on the incompletely exploited power from his Rheinisch-WestfŠlische ElektrizitŠtswerk AG. ₆₉

Caro was following a business strategy, like BASF was, that kept one eye trained on the possible industrial circumstances in the revived international market after the war's end. Accordingly, he was struggling to insure himself against the unprofitability of his expanded plant. However, in a manner different from BASF, which, convinced of the technical superiority of its ammonia procedure, assumed a free postwar market, Caro, in agreement with the Deutsche Bank, ₇₀ chose the possibility of governmental regulation that would eliminate domestic and international competition: to guard against cheap foreign imports, he demanded a protective tariff of 60 marks per ton on cyanamide and ammonium sulfate. ₇₁ Shortly after, he pressed for governmental sales and price guarantees for 150000 tons of cyanamide, first for a ten, then for a fifteen year period. In both cases, Haber immediately alerted BASF: "... we cannot allow such a contract to be signed," he stressed repeatedly to BASF Director HŸttenmŸller, who wanted to take immediate action "so that such a deal is not made with Caro unrevised." ₇₂ In fact, the danger was great, for only a short time later Caro promised in a new offer to produce 250000 tons cyanamide annually and to construct the means in only a few months. A governmental sales guarantee of this amount threatened BASF with the danger of monopolization. In response, it wanted it to be governmentally "recognized" that "we are to be involved first if there is any question of new production of nitrogen compounds." ₇₃

In November and December 1914, BASF engaged in a ferocious attempt to combat Caro and to eliminate the danger of a governmentally regulated cyanamide market. The "most harmless" response involved petitioning the relevant ministries. The "true interests of agriculture," so BASF argued, would not be served if the state subsidized a defective and expensive product like cyanamide over the long term, because the Haber-Bosch ammonia provided a better alternative. ₇₄ Less "harmless" was Haber's role in BASF's machinations: he provided BASF with valuable insider information from the ministries, shared the protocols of internal commission meetings, and communicated the conditions of Caro's contract. ₇₅ He thus placed the firm in a good position to be able to react early and in advance of final decisions. Third, BASF looked for industrial partners in order to be able to compete with the developing interest constellation formed by the Deutsche Bank and the cyanamide and electrical industries. BASF achieved a relatively easy success. According to plan, the Oppau ammonia works were to be expanded to 1000 tons monthly in May 1915, and then to 3000 tons after August of the same year. ₇₆ Agfa and the Farbenfabriken in Leverkusen were financially involved already in the first stage of expansion, and BASF thereby made the problem the Dreibund's concern. ₇₇ Fourth, BASF tried systematically to play the military leadership off against the agricultural ministry, which looked favorably on Caro's bid out of anxiety that their needs would otherwise continue to be prioritized after those of the military. BASF, which with Haber's help had just negotiated the contracts for the saltpeter plants with the war ministry, implied unambiguously that they could not guarantee the ammonia supply necessary for their own operations. The military's hopes for doubling production to 6000 tons after the end of 1916 was said to be feasible technically, but not financially unless the government offered an interest-bearing loan of about 40 million marks, to be repaid shortly after the conclusion of the peace. ₇₈

BASF coupled their request for a loan with a contractual provision whereby the government would recognize the necessity of free competition on the nitrogen market and would not offer sales guarantees to any domestic producers. ₇₉ Emil Fischer and Fritz Haber were convinced representatives of the company's point of view. Both scientists belonged to the seven-member "Commission for the Preparation of Contracts to Raise Nitrogen Production" (Kommission zur Vorbereitung der VertrŠge zwecks Steigerung der Stickstoffproduktion) which, formed on 28 November, had been charged with negotiating contracts with the individual nitrogen concerns. At the beginning, everything went in favor of BASF, whose bid was explained to the commission by Haber personally. ₈₀ He was supported by the representatives of the Prussian finance ministry and the Reich Treasury Office (Reichsschatzamt), who considered themselves empowered to allow war expenses, but not to untertake long-term sales guarantees. The Prussian Finanzrat Hans Meydenbauer saw such an obligation as "out of the question" and induced the chair of the commission, Eberhard Ramm of the agricultural ministry, himself quite reserved towards BASF's desires, to negotiate with the Deutsche Bank to renounce their demands for financial protection. ₈₁

The job of working out the particular contracts with the individual firms was divided among the commission members. Ramm led the talks with Caro; Emil Fischer did the same with BASF. On 18 December 1914, BASF signed a very favorable contract with the agricultural ministry to expand the Oppau works to a production level of 37500 tons of ammonia (corresponding to 150000 tons of ammonium sulfate) per year. Agfa and Bayer helped guarantee repayment of the government's loan of 35 million marks, which had been floated according to the conditions explained above; thus the entire project remained the concern of the Dreibund. A maximum price for kilo of nitrogen of 1.25 marks was fixed for wartime, unless the military authorities and the DAAV chose to set the price higher. ₈₂ The concluding paragraph of BASF's first draft of the contract, which explicitly forbade the government to offer a sales guarantee to any other nitrogen producers, was the only one Fischer could not shepherd through the negotiations. Instead, the government made an oral agreement to this effect without including it in the contract. ₈₃

Haber was involved in several ways: He negotiated first of all with the Knapsack cyanamide works with the goal of escalating production to a level of 75000 tons per year. Essentially, the contract included - anything but coincidentally - the same provision as the contract Fischer had forged with BASF. ₈₄ BASF had an implicit understanding with Haber the entire time and officially consulted him, for example, when it came to formulating the conditions of the loan. ₈₅ Finally, Haber conducted the negotiations with Knapsack and BASF regarding the military authorities' ammonia orders, which had been made separate from agreements suiting agricultural need. He succeeded in securing subsidies for the firms of two and one million marks, respectively, though BASF ended up a little later preferring a bonus system that Haber developed. ₈₆

The role of scientists in the advancement of the chemical industry is seldom clearer than it is in the case of the negotiations for the supply of nitrogen. Fischer and Haber achieved contracts avowedly preferential to BASF's business interests. But the significance of their strategy was also evident in the negative sense, i.e., where they were not in a position to influence events: Caro persevered in his hopes that the government would buy all of his cyanamide production, a plan which the Prussian agricultural ministry supported as "completely unobjectionable," given its fear that it would go away empty-handed in the face of the the explosively increasing military demand. ₈₇

At the beginning of 1915, the Deutsche Bank seemed to have the longer arm, for two reasons. First, its chair Arthur Gwinner had entered into the negotiations and relied on his friendship with the head of the naval cabinet, Admiral von MŸller. While Gwinner could not achieve his preferred solution of completely taking over the Bayerische Stickstoffwerke through the Reich, he still held out for the sales guarantee for the entire expanded production. ₈₈ With success: on 20 January 1915, Ramm telegraphed BASF that he would soon finalize a contract with "a consortium" for 300000 tons of cyanamide per year, to be bought by the Bezugsvereinigung deutscher Landwirte for a governmentally guaranteed price of 80 pfennigs through 31 March 1931 and 70 pfennigs for the following ten years. ₈₉ Second, a shift in the balance of power to the dyestuff industry's disadvantage occurred at the same moment. In a futile meeting with the director of the Reich Treasury Office, State Secretary Hermann KŸhn, a delegation from BASF made the unpleasant observation that the office had had very extensive dealings with the "concern" composed of the Deutsche Bank, the power industry, and Caro's cyanamide works. ₉₀ No wonder: It had been as early as December 1914 that Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg had charged the finance and currency expert specialist Karl Helfferich, who had sat on the board of the Deutsche Bank since 1908, as state secretary of the Reich Treasury Office. ₉₁ Helfferich assured himself even before he officially took office on 1 February 1915 that all the other state secretaries and the chancellor agreed with his plans. These developments endowed nitrogen politics with a new dimension; even at the time it was wondered, however, to what extent Helfferich's thinking had been determined by the Deutsche Bank's interests.

Helfferich understood the war as "a war of finances and national economies." In the nitrogen business he saw a welcome opportunity "to provide the Reich with a strong position in this new branch of industry that is financially promising as well as inestimably important to the national economy." At that moment, as the confrontation between BASF and Caro was escalating, Helfferich intervened and involved the Reich in the game as a new player. In the planned expansion of cyanamide production, he envisioned the Caro group as a "mixed-economy enterprise" in the form of a Reich-owned cyanamide concern; financed by 42 million marks from the Reich, it not only would work according to the Frank-Caro procedure, but would be managed by the Bayerische Stickstoffwerke. According to the contract, the Reich would receive a portion of the net profits and, at a fixed rate, a portion of the gross proceeds. In February 1915 the contracts calling for the establishment of the Reichsstickstoffwerke in Piesteritz near Wittenberg and in Chorzow near Kattowitz in Upper Silesia were signed; the terms were for an annual production of 150000 and 75000 tons of cyanamide, respectively. By the beginning of 1916 they began production.

It was Helfferich's aim to preserve entrepreneurial freedom but to assure the Reich control of production and the benefits of price hikes, which "are only attainable as a consequence of the quasi-monopolistic position of the enterprise or on the basis of price conventions." The second part of his two-pronged strategy, which followed from the first, involved the establishment of a nitrogen trade monopoly in which producers and consumers would participate ₉₂ - a move which from BASF's perspective could only serve to artificially "protect the existence of the inferior cyanamide." ₉₃ In fact, scientists' calculations had been made already by 1915 demonstrating that the cyanamide industry could furnish its product for about 70 pfennigs per kilo of nitrogen, compared to only 50 pfennigs for the nitrogen from BASF's Haber-Bosch ammonia. ₉₄

Haber was right in his prediction that the issue would "undoubtedly" become "a great political matter." ₉₅ Bethmann Hollweg sent the enabling act to the Reichstag, dated 8 March 1915 and already passed by the Bundesrat, that would introduce the nitrogen trade monopoly, a measure designed to ensure that the new plants financed by Reich and Prussian state monies would be profitable after the war as well. The monopoly, set to expire at the end of March 1922 but open to extension, was very broadly formulated. ₉₆ The bill's ambiguous language invited many attacks, and it remained unclear whether the planned monopoly, governmental or not, would extend so far as to control imports, production, distribution, and price. ₉₇ The "organizational amendments" appended in August 1915 surpassed BASF's worst fears: the Bundesrat's authority over the monopoly would include the exclusive right to import nitrogen compounds from outside Germany, to purchase the domestic yield, and to set the buying and selling price. The rationing of domestic production was reserved for a separate Reich law. ₉₈

The opponents in the confrontation that ensued over the nitrogen trade monopoly knew that more than just one of the many dimensions of the war economy was at stake: profit, market share and a preliminary choice that would heavily shape the postwar economy were too. The struggle for parliament members' votes was waged furiously on both sides and by all means available. In favor of the bill were all those firms with high production costs who wanted to safeguard against possible competition from cheaper products after the war - in other words, the cyanamide industry, but also the DAVV, which feared the challenge to their market for coke oven ammonia from foreign imports and increased BASF production. ₉₉ In response, BASF unleased a propaganda campaign unrivaled during the war that encompassed eye-opening tours of the Oppau plants given to parliament members and interest group functionaries, along with conferences and press releases. ₁₀₀ Haber withdrew from the effort, but Emil Fischer contributed along with Carl Engler, closely tied to BASF for decades, all the more. Fischer tipped the scales with his authority as a Nobel prizewinner when he testified before the Reichstag not only that he considered the ammonia synthesis "the technically most valuable method for producing synthetic nitrogen compounds," but also that he wished to offer the serious doubts of a "chemical engineer (technischer Chemiker)" [!] against the trade monopoly. ₁₀₁ He and Engler took the BASF's side without reservation when the formerly BASF-inclined Reichstagkommission threatened to sway to the other side after a visit to the Trostberg cyanamide plant. With all of their cultural and social prestige as scientists, they approached influential deputies just before the decisive parliament meeting, in order to explain the lamentable consequences of the monopoly plan "from the standpoint of the general public" [!]. ₁₀₂

Big chemistry's "capitalistic-industrial lords," as Moellendorff critically labeled them later, quite literally overran Helfferich's proposal with the help of renowned scientists. ₁₀₃ Under a barrage from lobbyists, the responsible Reichstag commission could manage neither to advocate nor to reject the monopoly; it kept meeting anew and therefore took the sting out of the entire conception of the mixed-economy Reichsstickstoffwerke. ₁₀₄ After June 1915, the scales in the power struggle shifted for this and other reasons continuously and ever more rapidly to BASF's side. In light of the first French air attack on Oppau on 27 May 1915 and the glaring deficiencies in military supply, the army authorities openly turned on the Reich Treasury Office. Safeguarding nitric acid production had become of decisive importance to the military, and by then the BASF procedure had been successfully applied. Because it still had not been clarified whether ammonia derived from cyanamide was pure enough, they found themselves forced to decide that expanding the production of Haber-Bosch ammonia was the best option. So they suggested to BASF via Oppenheim, chair of Agfa, that a new ammonia plant with prodigious capacities be built in central Germany. "Every sign of goodwill" would be "willingly bestowed," not only a higher price for the ammonia, but also a sales guarantee in the case of a trade monopoly. ₁₀₅

BASF's Merseburg Ammonia Plant

The confrontations regarding the BASF's Merseburg ammonia plant, later the Leuna-Werke, came just during that period that the power struggle of the industries was deciding itself in favor of Big Chemistry. The cyanamide industry obviously wanted to get a piece of the permanently increased amount desired by the military. ₁₀₆ However, it could not refute the suspicion that its ammonia was unsuitable for the production of nitric acid. Indeed, the inferiority of their process, only suspected up until April 1916, received confirmation in other areas as well: first the operating conditions in the Reichsstickstoffwerke were "defectively established," as it was put, so that the available electrical power was not fully consumed. Second, and decisive for wartime, the process required twelve times as many workers as the Haber-Bosch procedure to produce the same amount of nitrogen. ₁₀₇ With the news of this factor at the latest, the cyanamide industry, BASF's last serious competitor, fell out of the race. BASF and the other Dreibund partners now dominated the production of nitrogen compounds.

The only relevant party on the demand side in a controlled war economy was the state, but here there were several protagonists with partially conflicting interests. Meanwhile, the Prussian agricultural ministry had been left behind, but it had never really belonged to the inner-circle of dominant interests in nitrogen questions in any case. Things were otherwise with the KRA, which wanted above all to assure and expand the production of explosive materials, and it subordinated all other goals - financial, political, industrial - to this one. During 1915, the KRA principally accepted BASF and its partners as the only relevant producers of nitrogen compounds. It tended to accept BASF's conditions without delaying negotiations. Helfferich and the Reich Treasury Office represented the KRA's opponents in these matters. They opposed the policies of the "very energetic war raw materials section," which "makes its way without troubling itself much with the civil sphere," and which laid claim to dispense the war credits approved by the Reichstag, without feeling the need to seek the approval of the Reich's civil financial authorities. ₁₀₈ Helfferich sought to link the autonomous KRA to his civil office, which would mean bringing other considerations, industrial and political ones, to bear in negotiations with BASF. But his position was considerably weakened by the continual postponement of the decision on the trade monopoly and by the clear failure of the Reichsstickstoffwerke. The Reich, as 1916 confirmed, had played the wrong card and invested great sums of public money in plants that worked according to technically inferior processes. For this reason Helfferich tried in his politics to institute protective measures that would insure the Reich's investment after the war.

The Ludwigshafen enterprise had the postwar period in mind, too, when it turned deaf ear to Oppenheim's KRA-commissioned soundings. The interest in gaining a larger market share for synthetic ammonia through building new plants had long contended with the fear that expansion might lead to enormous excess production that could wreck all the earlier successes. Again it was Fritz Haber who functioned as mediator and first opened lines of communication between the military and BASF. In September 1915, he submitted the KRA's financial prospectus on a plant with a daily capacity of 100 tons of ammonia. He secured a 30 million mark loan, a government purchase guarantee for ten years, and an attractive system of depreciation and distribution. ₁₀₉

BASF saw "little enticement" in the project and considered the prospective, extremely brief construction period of seven months to be an impossibility. ₁₁₀ Only at the beginning of February 1916 Bosch yielded to pressure from the KRA and named BASF's conditions, which were quite openly designed to wreck the project: an interest-free loan for construction; the assumption of additional war-related costs by the state; governmentally guaranteed purchase and prices. After the repayment of the loan, the plant, allowed to undertake production only once the Oppau works had reached full capacity, would become BASF's property. Bosch decisively rejected a government profit-sharing plan proposed by the KRA. ₁₁₁

Though the KRA might have been ready to accept these demands in the interests of conducting the war, Helfferich thwarted such ventures. He made it clear to the deputy war minister in a personal conversation that he would fund neither a simple loan nor a subsidy, but rather, as Haber relayed immediately back to Ludwigshafen, wanted to give "the financial cooperation of the Reich the character of an investment" as with the Reichsstickstoffwerke. More, he would want to discuss "the relationship of synthetic ammonia production to cyanamide from technical and economic points of view" - a circumspect way of saying he wanted to impose quotas on the production and sale of both products. ₁₁₂

Helfferich was trying to influence BASF to run a Reich ammonia works as a "tenant" in central Germany according to the model of the Reichsstickstoffwerke in Piesteritz. ₁₁₃ Specifically, this implied the transfer to the Reich of all of the gross proceeds exceeding a certain limit and governmental profit-sharing at a level of 75 percent. BASF rejected this proposal and all further negotiations. It was once again Fritz Haber who intervened at this point on his own initiative and with his own suggestions for compromise; after innumerable stratagems which would take too long to recount here, he managed to show both sides a route out of the impasse. He finally convinced BASF to take at least a partial economic risk, by accepting a normal interest-bearing loan which, as in the case of the Oppau plan, the Dreibund partners Agfa and Bayer would countersign. In response, Helfferich gave up his concept of a mixed-economy enterprise. He also accepted a subsidy for additional war-related costs, i.e. for the elevated wages and material prices. He only continued to insist for what he said were constitutional reasons on an understanding between BASF and the other nitrogen producers. ₁₁₄

The contract signed between 19-28 April 1916 - the enormous reliance on explosives at the Battle of Verdun gave it a telling background - provided for a factory with a capacity of 36000 tons of pure ammonia annually, for which BASF received a subsidy of 12 million marks and a 64 million mark loan at 5 percent interest to be repaid in fourteen annual installments beginning on 31 December 1922. In return for these avowedly favorable terms the firm accepted the mandatory conditions that it make arrangements with other nitrogen producers and pay the Reich a portion of the proceeds beyond a certain high level. In May, construction began at Leuna south of Bitterfeld; on 28 April 1917, BASF's Merseburg ammonia works went on line. ₁₁₅

Conclusions

With the construction of the Leuna works and the subsequent contracts for the expansion of the by no means completed installation (Merseburg II, signed at the beginning of December 1916, and Merseburg III, signed July 1918), BASF gained a dominant position on the nitrogen market. The industrial power they accumulated was immense: according to the Stickstoff-Gesamtprogramm more than half of nitrogen with Merseburg II, then more than two thirds with Merseburg III, had fallen to the Ludwigshafen firm to produce. ₁₁₆ The Third Supreme Command (Dritte Oberste Heeresleitung), which according to the Hindenburg program relied completely on BASF, reacted with the establishment of the War Office (Kriegsamt) in November 1916, which matched on the government side the concentration of authority that BASF had achieved in industry. It assigned to the office a Reich Commissar for the Nitrogen Industry (Reichskommissar fŸr die Stickstoffwirtschaft), Julius Bueb. ₁₁₇ Bueb and his office were part of the Waffen- and Munitionsbeschaffungsamt where he was responsible as general advisor for all of the related ministries and authorities. Instead of many, rival governmental partners, BASF now had a single authority with whom to negotiate. Bueb's task was to certify projects, to finalize contracts, and to "orient" industry and agriculture as part of a stricter state control of nitrogen production and distribution. ₁₁₈ In July 1918, BASF was forced to grant the state a hitherto unthinkable amount of control over sales and prices. ₁₁₉ The end of the war hindered continued attempts on Ludendorff's part to create such a unified system of state control on the nitrogen market. In the last year of the war, he had come up with economic and political reasons to create "direct sources of income for the state," and he looked on nitrogen as "a very advantageous object." ₁₂₀

Even if the planned expansion of the Merseburg works did not achieve anything more, Germany still found itself in a completely different situation with regard to its nitrogen supply than before the war. In the four years of the war, a completely restructured nitrogen industry had developed: the methods, the identities of manufacturers, volume of production, locations, and organization had all been transformed. In this new picture, the chemical industry had gained dominance. ₁₂₁

1. Germany, an importer of foreign nitrogen products before the war, had become a potent center of production itself. The capacity of the entire German nitrogen industry had increased rapidly from its 1914 level of 129000 tons to 134000 tons in 1915/16, 221000 tons in 1916/17, and 271000 tons in 1917/18. Through the execution of all contracts signed during the war, Germany would have achieved a production capacity of about 520000 tons of nitrogen - more even than Chile, operating during wartime at the highest possible level of production, had produced (1917: 470000 tons; 1918: 440000 tons).

2. The German nitrogen industry went through a far-reaching restructuring. Before the war it had relied unambiguously on coke oven ammonia, produced in numerous coking plants and gas works; after the war it had shifted to Big Chemistry, with its powerful organization and its large-scale production. A comparison of German nitrogen production (in thousands of tons) in the years of 1915/16, 1916/17, and 1917/18 makes the trend obvious: the nitrogen yield from coke oven ammonia stagnated, though it remained at high levels (90, 100, 100). The cyanamide industry made gains after an insignificant initial showing (20), but even at its best remained at middling levels of production (58, 66). Its production did not approach the levels achieved by the BASF's Haber-Bosch ammonia, which, despite s similarly lackluster beginning (24) had surpassed the cyanamide industry in 1916/17 with a production of 64000 tons and already in the next year of 1917/18 equalled the competing coke oven ammonia with 105000 tons produced.

3. However, the future would belong, given coke oven ammonia's dependence on coal coking, unambiguously to the gaseous nitrogen industry with its in principle unlimited volume of production. This became completely clear even in the short- and middle-terms from the history of their respective market shares (in percentages) of the entire German nitrogen production. Coke oven ammonia fell from 91% in 1913 to 82% in the next year. In 1918 their share amounted to no more than 31% The decline of its significance continued in the Weimar period and finally bottomed out around the end of the 1920s at about 15%. The cyanamide industry's share rose from 8% in 1913 to 20% in 1918 and 28% in 1919, before sinking back to 12% by 1930. By comparison, the share achieved by Haber-Bosch synthetic ammonia went from 1% in the year before the war first to 49% in 1918 and 36 in 1919, but leapt thereafter to about 70-75% by the end of the 1920s. ₁₂₂

4. With the shift in the balance of power from the coal to the chemical industry, the geographical center of the nitrogen industry moved from the coal mining district of Rhineland-Westphalia first to the Rhine valley, then to the brown coal district in central Germany for reasons of military security.

5. During the war, BASF, as the last great firm of the dyestuff industry, mastered a difficult period of diversification. With this phase, the overriding signficance for the German chemical industry of organic chemistry came to an end, giving way to a broader range of products. The roles that pharmaceuticals had played for Bayer and Hoechst or that photographic chemistry had played for Agfa, the nitrogen business played for BASF. Between 1 January 1915 and 11 November 1918 it sold 414 million marks worth of nitrogen compounds, of which only the smallest portion, 24.5 million, came from nitrogenous fertilizers. ₁₂₃ The firm raised its share capital during the war from 36 to 90 million marks. The suspension of foreign competition brought by the war, the governmental subsidization of the expansion and new construction of plants, as well as the depreciation of its debts through the inflation made a mass production of Haber-Bosch ammonia for a sharply reduced cost possible for BASF.

6. Also new by comparison with the prewar state of affairs was the role of the state in industrial power struggle: before, some municipal gas works and only a few state-owned coking plants were involved in the manufacturing of coke oven ammonia. During the war the Reich emerged as an industrial and political actor in the production of nitrogen compounds. It not only forged a transformed role with respect to the Reichsstickstoffwerke, but also reclaimed for the political a powerful say in the the organization of the nitrogen market.

7. BASF, and later IG Farben, controlled the German nitrogen market in the following years - a market much more austerely "organized" than the world market. ₁₂₄ After the end of nitrogen regulation in July 1919, governmental distribution of production stopped. Governmental policy aimed thereafter at setting the maximum price for nitrogenous fertilizers, in order to protect agriculture and to keep prices for agricultural products low, and in order to ensure the profitability of all nitrogen concerns no matter what processes they used, especially since excess capacity had now become a problem. After the Ausschu§ fŸr Volkswirtschaft, formed by the National Assembly, had agreed, the so-called Nitrogen Syndicate (Stickstoffsyndikat) composed of the three most important groups of producers (BASF; the Bayerische Stickstoffwerke including the Reichswerke; ₁₂₅ DAVV) was founded as a GmbH. The members transferred the sale of their products to the syndicate, which consolidated 95% of nitrogenous fertilizer production in one place. At first the government had a controlling influence; its three members on the syndicate's board exercised their veto-power in the setting of prices through 1924.

BASF, as the largest member, also had the largest share of the sales, as calculated according to the capacity of their plants. The figures from April 1930, when the syndicate was updated and expanded, reflected the dominance of Big Chemistry: IG Farben produced 840000 tons compared to the DAVV's 250000 tons and the Bayerische Stickstoffwerke's 90000 tons out of an entire market of 1.22 million tons of nitrogen.

Notes

Note 1: Vgl. z.B. Withrow, James R., The American Chemist and the War's Problems, in: Science 43 (1916), S. 834; Fleming, J.A., The Organisation of Scientific Research, in: Nature 96 (1915/16), S. 692-696, hier S. 692. Back.

Note 2: Kevles, Daniel, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America, New York 1979, Kap. 8 und 9. Back.

Note 3: Koistinen, Paul A.C., The Military-Industrial Complex: A Historical Perspective, New York 1980, Kap. 2. Back.

Note 4: Roland, Alex, Science and War, in: Kohlstedt, Sally G./Rossiter, Margaret W. (Hg.), Historical Writing on American Science. Perspectives and Prospects, Baltimore u.a. 1986, S. 247-272, bes. S. 270. Back.

Note 5: Zahlen für alle Kriegsparteien z.B. bei Haber, L.F., The Poisonous Clound. Chemical Warfare in the First World War. Oxford 1986, S. 239-258, bes. S. 242f., 248f. Back.

Note 6: Haber, L.F., The Chemical Industry 1900-1930. International Growth and Technological Change, Oxford 1971, S. 184, 208; vgl. auch Plumpe, Gottfried, Die I. G. Farbenindustrie AG. Wirtschaft, Technik und Politik 1904-1945 ( = Schriften zur Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte 37), Berlin 1990, S. 64. Back.

Note 7: Zur Vermittlerfunktion Emil Fischers im Weltkrieg vgl. im Überblick Moy, Timothy D., Emil Fischer as "Chemical Mediator": Science, Industry, and Government in World War One, in: Ambix 36 (1989), S. 109-120. Back.

Note 8: Vgl. den Beitrag von Jeffrey A. Johnson in diesem Band. Back.

Note 9: Zitatbeispiele bei Moy, Fischer, z.B. S. 116, 118. Back.

Note 10: Haber, Fritz, Das Verhältnis zwischen Heereswesen und exakten Naturwissenschaften. Vortrag auf der 24. Hauptversammlung der Deutschen Bunsen-Gesellschaft in Berlin, 8.-10.4.1918, in: Chemiker-Zeitung 42 (1918), S. 197. Back.

Note 11: Vgl. Moy, Fischer, S. 118. Back.

Note 12: Weizmann, Chaim, Memoiren. Das Werden des Staates Israel, Zürich 1953, S. 517 (amerik.: Trial and Error. The Autobiography of Chaim Weizmann, New York 1949, Reprint Westport 1972). Back.

Note 13: Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (im folgenden: ArMPG), V, 13 Haber (= Haber-Sammlung; im folgenden: HS) 2297: Haber an Leopoldina, 6.7.1927, Anlage: Lebenslauf anläβlich der Akademiemitgliedschaft, S. 3. Back.

Note 14: Zunächst genügte noch Habers häufig kolportierte Blitzbeförderung zum Hanptmann nach dem ersten Chlorgasangriff bei Ypern im April 1915. Erst später institutionalisierte sich seine Tätigkeit innerhalb des Allgemeinen Kriegsdepartements des Generalmajors Ernst von Wrisberg: Im November 1915 übernahm er die Leitung der neu geschaffenen "Zentralstelle für Fragen der Chemie", die genau ein Jahr später zur selbständigen Chemischen Abteilung (A 10) ausgebaut wurde. Die Datierung bei Frucht, Adolf-Henning/Zepelin, Joachim, "Die Tragik der verschmähten Liebe". Die Geschichte des deutsch-jüdischen Physikochemikers und preuβischen Patrioten Fritz Haber, in: Mannheimer Forum 94/95. Ein Panorama der Naturwissenschaften, hg. von Ernst Peter Fischer, Mannheim-Zürich 1994, S. 63-111, hier S. 85. Doch auch auf dem Höhepunkt ihrer Tätigkeit bildete die A 10 mit nur zehn Offizieren bzw. Zivilisten im höheren Dienst eine sehr kleine Arbeitseinheit, vgl. Haber, L.F., Poisonous Cloud, S. 139f.; HS 535: L.F. Haber an Jaenicke, 31.8.1972, Anlage. Back.

Note 15: Bundesarchiv Koblenz (im folgenden: BArch), Nachlaβ 158, Moellendorff, Nr. 103 (auch Nr. 105): Tätigkeitsbericht über Kriegschemikalien. Ergänzungen zu dem am 26.1.1916 in der KRA vorgetragenen Referat, o.D. (nach März 1917), S. 4ff.; Moellendorffs Kriegstagebuch, Eintragung 7.-14.10.1914, in: Burchardt, Lothar, Eine neue Quelle zu den Anfängen der Kriegswirtschaft in Deutschland 1914. Das Tagebuch Wichard von Moellendorffs vom 13. August bis zum 14. Oktober 1914, in: Tradition 16 (1971), S. 72-92, hier S. 92; auch Plumpe, I.G. Farbenindustrie, S. 65. Back.

Note 16: Vgl. Eucken, Walter, Die Stickstoffversorgung der Welt. Eine volkswirtschaftliche Untersuchung, Stuttgart-Berlin 1921, S. 87f., 105. Back.

Note 17: Hughes, Thomas Parke, Technological Momentum in History: Hydrogenation in Germany 1898-1933, in: Past & Present 44 (1969), S. 106-132, hier S. 107. Back.

Note 18: Rathenau an den Gesandten v. Mutius, 10.10.1914, zit. nach Wilderotter, Hans, "Das Weltgericht tagt." Rohstoffversorgung und Kriegszieldiskussion, in: ders. (Hg.), Walther Rathenau 1867-1922. Die Extreme berühren sich. Eine Ausstellung des Deutschen Historischen Museums in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Leo Baeck Institute, New York, Berlin 1993, S. 362-389, hier S. 372. Back.

Note 19: BArch, NL 158, Moellendorff, Nr. 103 (105): Tätigkeitsbericht, S. 5f.; Moellendorff, Kriegstagebuch, in: Burchardt, Quelle, S. 82; Plumpe, I.G. Farbenindustrie, S. 65. Back.

Note 20: Handbuch über den Königlich Preuβischen Hof und Staat für das Jahr 1914, Berlin 1913, S. 171, 1011. Back.

Note 21: Burchardt, Quelle, S. 85, 91: Eintrag Moellendorffs vom 2.-4.10.1914; Archiv der BASF (im folgenden: ArBASF), T 14/1 (auch HS 2196): Haber an BASF-Direktion, 2.10.1914. Back.

Note 22: Im folgenden, wenn nicht eigens vermerkt, aus: ArMPG, X/12: Nachlaβ Emil Fischer, Film 2 (Original in: Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley): Fischer an Kriegsministerium: Künstliche Erzeugung von Salpetersäure und salpetersauren Salzen, 1.10.1914, 10 Seiten, sowie Nachtrag vom 10.10.1914, 4 Seiten (im folgenden: Fischer-Denkschrift). Dazu auch Eucken, Stickstoffversorgung, S. 94ff.; Haber, 1900-1930, S. 198-204. Back.

Note 23: Einen zeitgenössischen wissenschaftlich-technischen Überblick vgl. bei Lunge, Georg, Handbuch der Schwefelsäurefabrikation und ihrer Nebenzweige, 2 Bände (= Neues Handbuch der chemischen Technologie XI und XII, hg. von Carl Engler, zugleich als 3. Folge von Bolley's Handbuch der chemischen Technologie), Braunschweig 1916, Bd. 1, S. 158-295. Einen technischen und wirtschaftlichen Überblick vgl. bei Waeser, Bruno, Stickstoffindustrie (= Technische Fortschrittsberichte 5), Dresden - Leipzig 1924. Back.

Note 24: ArBASF, B 4/457: BASF, Zum Stickstoff-Handelsmonopol, April 1915, S. 3; auch Nagel, Alfred von, Stickstoff. Die technische Chemie stellt die Ernährung sicher (= Schriftenreihe des Firmenarchis der BASF 3) Ludwigshafen 1969, S. 11ff.; Stoltzenberg, Dietrich, Fritz Haber. Chemiker, Nobelpreisträger, Deutscher, Jude, Weinheim u.a. 1994, S. 135f., 233. Back.

Note 25: Vgl. dazu Eucken, Stickstoffversorgung, S. 95f. Back.

Note 26: Vgl. zur Entwicklung des Verfahrens ausführlich Ostwald, Wilhelm, Lebenslinien. Eine Selbstbiographie, Teil 2: Leipzig 1887-1905, Berlin 1927, S. 282, 287ff.; Nagel, Stickstoff, S. 56f.; Haber, 1900-1930, S. 97; Stoltzenberg, Haber, S. 233f. Back.

Note 27: Angaben nach: ArBASF, B 4/457: BASF, Zum Stickstoff-Handelsmonopol, April 1915, S. 3; BArch, Findbuch zu R 10/IX: Stickstoffsyndikat, Vermerk vom 10.12.1968; Stoltzenberg, Haber, S. 137f. Back.

Note 28: ArMPG, X/12, NL Fischer, Film 2: Fischer-Denkschrift, 1.10.1914, S. 5f. Back.

Note 29: Ebenda, Film 6: Franz Fischer, Kurzer vorläufiger Bericht über die Tätigkeit des KWI für Kohlenforschung vom 1.8.1914 bis 1.8.1915, 23.8.1915. Back.

Note 30: ArBASF, W 1 Haber, Engler betr. Vertrag 1913: Haber an Müller/BASF, 13.12.1913. Back.

Note 31: Nagel, Stickstoff, S. 55ff.; Plumpe, I.G. Farbenindustrie, S. 68f. Back.

Note 32: HS 2115 (ArBASF, W 1 Haber, V): BASF an Haber, 28.8.1914. Back.

Note 33: Die Datierung erschliesst sich aus HS 2196: Haber an BASF, 20.10.1914, und der dort wiedergegebenen Depesche der BASF an Haber vom selben Tag, sowie aus Moellendorffs Kriegstagebuch bei Burchardt, Quelle, S. 88, 91. Vgl. auch die Rekonstruktion der Vorgänge im ArBASF: Hugo Frohnheiser, Reichsstickstoffmonopol. Eine Grosskampfperiode der BASF, Manuskript o. J. [1940], Vorbemerkung. Back.

Note 34: Nach diesem Verfahren wurde Koksofengas zur Explosion gebracht, danach das sich bildende Stickoxid in Salpetersäure umgesetzt. Eine seit 1913 arbeitende Versuchsanlage bei Hamm sollte jedoch enttäuschen. Vgl. dazu Eucken, Stickstoffversorgung, S. 95. Back.

Note 35: ArMPG, X/12, NL Fischer, Film 2: Fischer-Denkschrift, 1.10.1914, S. 4f., 9f.; HS 2196 (ArBASF, T 14/1): Fischer an Bosch, 15.10.1914. Back.

Note 36: Vgl. Moellendorffs Kriegstagebuch, Eintragungen 2.-14.10.1914, in: Burchardt, Quelle, S. 91f. Back.

Note 37: HS 2196 (auch HS 2115): Haber an BASF, 18.10.1914; weitere Beispiele ebenda. Back.

Note 38: Beispiele sind etwa HS 2196: BASF an Haber, 26.10.1914 sowie Notiz Hüttenmüller/BASF über Besprechung mit Fischer in Berlin, 29.10.1914; HS 2198: Haber an BASF, 1.11.1914 sowie BASF an Haber, 3.11.1914. Back.

Note 39: Vgl. HS 2196: BASF an Haber, 21.10.1914, mit der wörtlichen Wiedergabe zweier Depeschen (KRA an BASF, BASF an Haber) vom selben Tag. Back.

Note 40: HS 855 (auch HS 515), Bl. 6: Haber an Justizrat Haeuser, Höchst, 23.11.1914. Back.

Note 41: HS 2196: BASF an Haber, 26.10.1914. Back.

Note 42: Ebenda. HS 2198: Haber an Hüttenmüller/BASF, mit beiliegendem Vertrag, 13.11.1914 (beide auch ArBASF, T 14/1); HS 2204: BASFan Bayerisches Staatsministerium, 9.12.1914. Die erste Rate des verlorenen Zuschusses in Höhe von drei Millionen Mark wurde Anfang Januar 1915 ausgezahlt, vgl. HS 2206: BASF an KRA, 8.1.1915. Mit der Ausfertigung der beiden, von der BASF am 14.1.1915 unterzeichneten Salpeterverträge liess sich die KRA viel Zeit, bis sich die BASF an Emil Fischer wandte, vgl. ArBASF, T 14/1: BASF an Fischer, 24.2.1915. Back.

Note 43: Eucken, Stickstoffversorgung, S. 102; Stoltzenberg, Haber, S. 187. Back.

Note 44: ArMPG, X/12, NL Fischer, Film 2: Fischer-Denkschrift, 1.10.1914, S. 5f. Back.

Note 45: Nagel, Stickstoff, S. 59f.; Mach, Erich, Entwerfen und Bauen. Von der Zusammenarbeit der Architekten und Ingenieure mit Chemikern und Physikern in einem chemischen Grossbetrieb (= Schriftenreihe der BASF 13), Ludwigshafen 1975, S. 59f.; ArBASF, Voigtländer-Tetzner, Chronik der BASF 1865-1939/40, Ms. o.J. [1940], S. 651f. Back.

Note 46: HS 2198 (ArBASF, T 14/1): Haber an BASF, 1.11.1914; Fischer an BASF, 1.11.1914. Back.

Note 47: HS 960: Haber an Duisberg, 14.11.1914; Duisberg an Haber, 16.11.1914; HS 2208: BASF an Reichsleitung, 27.1.1915. Back.

Note 48: HS 2206: BASF an Haber, 14.1.1915; BASF an Agfa, 14.1.1914. Back.

Note 49: Archiv der Agfa-Filmfabrik Wolfen: Agfa-Jahresbericht 1915, S. 72f. Back.

Note 50: ArMPG, X/12, NL Fischer, Film 2: Sitzungsprotokoll der Salpeterkommission, 20.9.1915, S. 5f. Back.

Note 51: Plumpe, I.G. Farbenindustrie, S. 69. Back.

Note 52: Vgl. dazu Kruse, Wolfgang, Kriegswirtschaft und Gesellschaftsvision. Walther Rathenau und die Organisierung des Kapitalismus, in: Wilderotter, Rathenau, S. 151-168, hier S. 154f., 163ff.; Feldman, Gerald D., The Great Disorder. Politics, Economics and Society in the German Inflation, 1914-1924, New York-Oxford 1993, S. 56, 79; Pogge von Strandmann, Hartmut, Hochmeister des Kapitalismus. Walther Rathenau als Industrieorganisator, Politiker und Schriftsteller, in: Wilderotter, Rathenau, S. 33-44, bes. S. 40, 43f. Back.

Note 53: Vgl. insbesondere die Liste der Aktionäre bei Müller, Alfred, Die Kriegsrohstoffbewirtschaftung 1914-1918 im Dienst des deutschen Monopolkapitals, Berlin (Ost) 1955, S. 75-85, 135. Back.

Note 54: Vgl. Moellendorffs Kriegstagebuch bei Burchardt, Quelle., S. 84, 88, 91. Back.

Note 55: Eucken, Stickstoffversorgung, S. 95f.; Waeser, Stickstoffindustrie, S. 10. Back.

Note 56: BArch, NL 158, Moellendorff, Nr. 103 (auch Nr. 105): Tätigkeitsbericht, S. 7. Back.

Note 57: Eucken, Stickstoffversorgung, S. 90, 100ff. Back.

Note 58: BArch, NL 22: Bauer, Nr. 11, Fiche 1: Duisberg an Bauer, 24.7.1915, S. 2; vgl. weitere aufschluβreiche Äuβerungen Duisbergs zu Kriegsbeginn bei Moy, Fischer, S. 112f. Back.

Note 59: Plumpe, I.G. Farbenindustrie, S. 83f.; Teltschik, Walter, Geschichte der deutschen Groβchemie. Entwicklung und Einfluβ in Staat und Gesellschaft, Weinheim u.a. 1992, S. 47. Back.

Note 60: ArMPG, X/12, NL Fischer, Film 2: Protokoll der Sitzung der Kommission zur Vorbereitung der Verträge zwecks Steigerung der Stickstoffproduktion am 30.11.1914, S. 1f. (im folgenden abgekürzt: Stickstoffkommission); ausführlich ebenda, Sitzungsprotokoll der Salpeterkommission, 20.9.1915, Anlage 4. Back.

Note 61: Haber, 1900-1930, S. 88f.; ausführlich zur Erfindung und Entwicklung des Kalkstickstoffverfahrens Janke, F., Technik und Wirtschaft des Kalkstickstoffs, in: Franck, H. Heinrich u.a., Der Kalkstickstoff in Wissenschaft, Technik und Wirtschaft (= Sammlung chemischer und chemisch-technischer Vorträge, Neue Folge 6), Stuttgart 1931, S. 1-134. Back.

Note 62: Bernthsen, August, Über Luftsalpetersäure, in: Zeitschrift für angewandte Chemie 22 (1909), S. 1167-1178, hier S. 1171, 1177f. Back.

Note 63: Haber, 1900-1930, S. 89, 201; Janke, Geschichte, S. 51f., 70f., 73ff. Back.

Note 64: Eucken, Stickstoffversorgung, S. 90, 97. Back.

Note 65: Eucken, S. 89, 201. Back.

Note 66: Janke, Geschichte, S. 5. Die Patente Franks und Caros lieferten rationelle. Verfahren zur industriellen Herstellung von Cyankali, was sowohl die Scheideanstalt wie auch Siemens & Halske interessierte. Letztere hatten in Südafrika ein Goldextraktionsverfahren eingeführt, das auf der Anwendung von Cyankali basierte. Back.

Note 67: Ebenda, S. 50f., 67f., 72f. Back.

Note 68: Haber, 1900-1930, S. 201. Immerhin wurde während des Krieges die Leistungsfähigkeit Trostbergs von 30.000 auf 80.000 Tonnen jährlich ausgebaut, vgl. Janke, Geschichte, S. 5. Back.

Note 69: HS 2196 (ArBASF, T 14/1): Fischer an Aufschläger, 11.10.1914. Back.

Note 70: Vgl. dazu Feldman, Gerald D., Die Deutsche Bank vom Ersten Weltkrieg bis zur Weltwirtschaftskrise 1914-1933, in: Gall, Lothar u.a., Die Deutsche Bank 1870-1995, München 1995, S. 138-314, hier S. 157. Back.

Note 71: HS 2196 (ArBASF, T 14/1): Haber an BASF, 16.10.1914. Back.

Note 72: Ebenda, Vermerk Hüttenmüller vom 29.10.1914; ArBASF, T 14/1: Vermerk Büro Dr. Michel, Abkommen mit der DAVV, 12.11.1914. Back.

Note 73: HS 2202: BASF an Agfa und Bayer, 1.12.1914. Back.

Note 74: ArBASF, T 14/1: Büro Dr. Michel, Entwurf einer Eingabe, 4.11.1914. Back.

Note 75: HS 2198 (auch ArBASF, T 14/1): Haber an BASF, 1.11.1914. Back.

Note 76: HS 2200: BASF an Haber, 17.11.1914. Back.

Note 77: HS 2202: BASF an Agfa und Bayer, 1.12.1914. Back.

Note 78: HS 2200: BASF an Haber, 17.11.1914. Back.

Note 79: HS 2200: BASF an Landwirtschaftsminister von Schorlemer, 26.11.1914. Back.

Note 80: ArMPG, X/12: NL Fischer, Film 2: Protokoll der Sitzung der Stickstoffkommission vom 30.11.1914, S. 4. Back.

Note 81: Ebenda, Protokoll vom 1.12.1914, S. 2. Back.

Note 82: Ebenda, S. 8. Den Vertragstext vgl. HS 2204 (ArBASF, C 10); zusammenfassend auch Plumpe, I.G. Farbenindustrie, S. 71. Back.

Note 83: HS 2208: BASF an Haber, 20.1.1915. Back.

Note 84: ArMPG, X/12, NL Fischer, Film 2: Protokoll der Sitzung der Stickstoffkommission am 1.12.1914, S. 8. Back.

Note 85: Ebenda, Protokoll der Verhandlungen mit der BASF wegen eines staatlichen Darlehens zur Vergrösserung der Stickstoffdüngerproduktion im Finanzministerium am 5.12.1914; ArBASF, T 14/1: BASF an Haber, 2.12.1914. Back.

Note 86: ArMPG, X/12, NL Fischer, Film 2: Protokoll der Sitzung der Stickstoffkommission, o.D. [= 11.12.1914], S. 2f., 7; HS 2204: BASF-interner Vermerk, 8.12.1914; HS 2206: BASF an Haber, 14.1.1915; BASF an Fischer, 16.1.1915; HS 2208: Haber an BASF, 19.1.1915; Rathenau/KRA an BASF, 20.1.1915: Bestätigung der mit Haber mündlich getroffenen Vereinbarungen. Back.

Note 87: ArMPG, X/12, NL Fischer, Film 2: Protokoll der Sitzung der Stickstoffkommission, 12.12.1914, S. 5ff., bes. S. 7, 10. Back.

Note 88: Feldman, Deutsche Bank, S. 157. Back.

Note 89: Den Wortlaut der Depesche vgl. in HS 2208: BASF an Reichsleitung und preussisches Staatsministerium, 27.1.1915. Back.

Note 90: HS 2208: Telefonnachricht Hüttenmüller/BASF an Haeuser/Höchst, 27.1.1915. Back.

Note 91: Das Folgende, wenn nicht anders vermerkt, nach: Helfferich, Karl, Der Weltkrieg, Bd. 2: Vom Kriegsausbruch bis zum uneingeschränkten U-Bootkrieg, Berlin 1919, S. 111ff., Zitate S. 111, 114, 119; Eucken, Stickstoffversorgung, S. 104f., 155; Janke, Geschichte, S. 55, 68-70; Plumpe, I.G. Farbenindustrie, S. 72f.; HS 2208: Haeuser an Hüttenmüller, 30.1.1915; HS 2212: Auszug aus dem Protokoll einer Sitzung im Landwirtschaftsministerium 12.3.1915; ArBASF, Voigtländer-Tetzner, Die Bindung des Luftstickstoffs 1895-1940, Ms. o.J. [1940], 323ff. Back.

Note 92: Helfferich, Weltkrieg, Bd. 2, S. 120, 126f. Back.

Note 93: HS 2210: BASF an Carl Engler, 1.2.1915. Back.

Note 94: HS 2210: Haber an Engler, 30.1.1915; Haber an BASF, 2.2.1915; Engler an BASF, 2.2.1915. Back.

Note 95: HS 2210: Haber an BASF, 2.2.1915. Back.

Note 96: RT-Drucksache Nr. 47 vom 8.3.1915, 13. Legislaturperiode, II. Session 1914/15. Das Monopol erstreckte sich demnach auf a) anorganische stickstoffhaltige Mineralien, vor allem Chilesalpeter; b) künstliche Stickstoffverbindungen wie Salpetersäure, salpetrige Säure, Ammoniakgas, Kalkstickstoff; c) stickstoffhaltige Düngemittel wie Natron-, Kalk-, Ammoniaksalpeter oder Natriumnitrit, schwefelsaures Ammoniak, Harnstoff und Guanidin. Back.

Note 97: Vgl. Hartwig, Alfredo, Die Bedeutung eines Stickstoffmonopols für Deutschland, Berlin 1915, S. 34ff. Hinter dieser Schrift standen vermutlich der chilenische Staat und die Chilesalpeterimporteure. Back.

Note 98: RT-Drucksache Nr. 47/8 vom 21.8.1915; zum Stickstoff-Handelsmonopol vgl. auch Janke, Geschichte, S. 56f. Back.

Note 99: Vgl. dazu Eucken, Stickstoffversorgung, S. 157f. Back.

Note 100: Vgl. dazu im einzelnen die Akten in HS 2210ff. sowie ArBASF, T 14/1. Hervorzuheben sind vor allem das eindringliche 13seitige Schreiben des BASF-Vorstands an Helfferich vom 12.4.1915 (HS 2212), die Denkschrift "Zum Stickstoff-Handelsmonopol" vom selben Monat, die Protokolle der Verhandlungen der befaβten 7. Reichstagskommission mit Industrievertretern am 17. und 18.5.1915 (alle ArBASF, B4/457) sowie die am 24.7.1915 versandte Denkschrift an einfluβreiche Abgeordnete (ArBASF, B 4/455). Back.

Note 101: RT-Drucksache Nr. 47/4, 13. Legislaturperiode, II. Session 1914/15, 7. Kommission: Gutachten Emil Fischers, 5.5.1915. Vgl. dazu auch Moy, Fischer, S. 114. Back.

Note 102: ArBASF, T 14/2: BASF an Engler, 20.7. und 30.7.1915. Back.

Note 103: BArch, NL 158: Moellendrof, Nr. 124: Moellendorff, 2. Bericht. Stickstoff als Beispiel grundsätzlich veränderter Friedenswirtschaft, 3.2.1917. Back.

Note 104: Helfferich, Weltkrieg, Bd. 2, S. 124f. Back.

Note 105: ArBASF, T 14/2: Oppenheim an Müller, 12.6.1915. Back.

Note 106: ArBASf, W 1 Haber/Merseburg: Haber an BASF, 11. und 16.3.1916. Back.

Note 107: Ebenda, Haber an BASF, 14.4.1916. Back.

Note 108: Helfferich, Weltkrieg, Bd. 2, S. 127. Back.

Note 109: ArBASF, W 1 Haber/Merseburg: Haber an BASF, 6.9.1915. Back.

Note 110: Ebenda, BASF an Haber, 10.9. und 30.10.1915 Back.

Note 111: Unterredung von Bosch mit Leutnant Schmitz/KRA am 4.2.1915, zit. nach Plumpe, I.G. Farbenindustrie, S. 74. Back.

Note 112: ArBASF, W 1 Haber/Merseburg: Haber an BASF, 8.3.1916. Back.

Note 113: Ebenda, Haber an BASF, 11.3.1916. Back.

Note 114: Ebenda, Haber an BASF, 11.3.1916; BASF an Haber, 28.3.1916. Back.

Note 115: Ebenda, BASF an Haber, 11.4.1916; Plumpe, I.G. Farbenindustrie, S. 75f.; Nagel, Stickstoff, S. 43f.; Mach, Entwerfen, S. 43ff. Back.

Note 116: Eucken, Stickstoffversorgung, S. 109ff.; Plumpe, I.G. Farbenindustrie, S. 78ff. Back.

Note 117: Zu Bueb ebenda, S. 80f.; Heine, Jens Ulrich, Verstand & Schicksal. Die Männer der I.G. Farbenindustrie A.G. (1925-1945) in 161 Kurzbiographien, Weinheim u.a. 1990, S. 75f. Back.

Note 118: BArch, NL 158: Moellendorff, Nr. 103: Protokoll der Besprechung über eine einheitliche Stickstoffbewirtschaftung, 2.12.1916. Back.

Note 119: Eucken, Stickstoffversorgung, S. 111f. Back.

Note 120: Vgl. die Schreiben Ludendorffs an das Reichsschatzamt bzw. Staatsekretär von Roedern, 14.4. und 22.5.1918, in: Ludendorff, Erich (Hg.), Urkunden der Obersten Heeresleitung über ihre Tärigkeit 1916/18, Berlin 1920, S. 205, 207f., Zitat S. 208. Back.

Note 121: Im folgenden, wenn nicht anders angegeben, nach Eucken, Stickstoffversorgung, S. 112-119. Back.

Note 122: Die Zahlen für 1913 bis 1930 bei Janke, Geschichte, S. 78, Tabelle. Back.

Note 123: Haber, 1900-1930, S. 202, Anm. 3. Back.

Note 124: Zum Folgenden Eucken, Stickstoffversorgung, S. 177f.; Janke, Geschichte, S. 57-64. Back.

Note 125: 1920 übernahm die Stickstofftreuhand GmbH, die von den Bayerischen Stickstoffwerken und der Deutschen Petroleum AG in Berlin gegründet worden war, die Reichsstickstoffwerke in Piesteritz und Chorzow als Treuhänderin des Reiches. Im Folgejahr verkaufte sie diese an die ebenfalls 1920 eigens zu diesem Zweck gebildete Mitteldeutsche bzw. Oberschlesische Stickstoffwerke AG. Letztere fielen dann an den polnischen Staat. Back.