Geschichte, Verdrängung, Aufarbeitung - Die Wirtschaft und der Nationalsozialismus. Verantwortung 80 Jahre nach der Befreiung des Vernichtungslagers Auschwitz.

In the organizer's words:

Official opening event of the exhibition "I.G. Farben and the Buna-Monowitz concentration camp. Economy and Politics under National Socialism" at the GSI

The background

On January 27, 1945, soldiers of the Red Army liberated the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. This marked the end of one of the worst chapters of the unprecedented crimes against humanity committed by the Germans. Since then, millions of murders, legitimized by an inhuman ideology, have found their linguistic synonym in "Auschwitz". However, Auschwitz also stands for a particularly reprehensible interplay between German industry and the National Socialist state. Economic interests and the nationalist will to extermination entered into a symbiosis in forced labor, which culminated in the Auschwitz-Monowitz concentration camp (KZ) created specifically for this purpose. Here, the leading chemical company I.G. Farben built a gigantic production facility, which forced laborers from the concentration camp had to build.

However, history did not end with the liberation: denial and repression characterized the debate about the relationship and responsibility of the economy to the National Socialist state for decades. It was only in the 1990s that the business community began to hesitantly
to face up to its responsibility. Forced labor was not limited to the large corporations and the concentration camps. It extended across all economic sectors and company sizes: for example, there was no company in Germany during the Second World War that did not use forced laborers. Farms and private individuals also benefited from the free labor of people deported to the German Reich.

Opening event

With the opening event, the GSI sheds light on the history of the Buna-Monowitz concentration camp and the role of I.G. Farben and introduces the exhibition "I.G. Farben and the Buna-Monowitz concentration camp. Economy and Politics under National Socialism" by the Fritz Bauer Institute. In addition, the event will trace the history of repression and coming to terms with it in the German economy using the example of Bayer AG - as one of the successor companies of I.G. Farben - and take a look at forced labor in the region.

Program

• Opening and welcome - Wilfried Klein, Gustav Stresemann Institute, Bonn
• Introduction to the exhibition - Dr. Sara Berger, Fritz Bauer Institute, Frankfurt/Main
• Repression and coming to terms. Dealing with the history of National Socialism at Bayer AG - Rüdiger Borstel, member of the advisory board of the Finkelstein Foundation and retired company historian at Bayer AG, Leverkusen/Krefeld
• Forced labor in Bonn. Reappraisal against forgetting - Prof. Dr. Katja Makhotina, University of Bonn

Please register at https://www.gsi-bonn.de/bildungsangebot/zeitgeschehen-gesellschaftspolitik/details/seminar/seminar/detail/geschichte-verdraengung-aufarbeitung-die-wirtschaft-und-der-nationalsozialismus.html