Heads Will Roll

Abstract

During the ’twenties life in Germany had become tolerable and eventually comfortable. The Germans were used to working hard without complaining too much and in a remarkably short time after the inflation they were building the finest ocean liners in the world and were flooding world markets with the products of their chemical industry. In 1925 the leading chemical firms had decided that a cartell would be more profitable than competition and, under the chairmanship of Nernst’s friend, Carl Duisberg, had combined into the ‘Interessen Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie’. With a share capital of 650 million marks I.G. Farben became the largest industrial combine in Europe. In the same year Paul von Hindenburg was elected President of the Weimar Republic. Seven years had been enough to forget the misery and losses of war and it was time for the army to reassert its old supremacy.