“What befell the plaintiff and his Jewish comrades, exceeds, to an extent previously unimaginable, what was considered possible or even endurable in the period of the adduced Reich court rulings in Germany.”[1]

After proceedings lasting 18 months, and after examination of 23 witnesses in all, the 3rd Civil  Chamber of the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court (Landgericht) handed down its decision in the matter of Wollheim v. I.G. Farben on June 10, 1953: “The defendant is sentenced to pay the plaintiff the sum of 10,000 DM, in addition to 4 percent interest on that amount as of July 1, 1951, placed in a blocked account to be opened in the Rhein-Main-Bank. The defendant must pay the costs of the litigation.”[2] The ruling followed Henry Ormond’s claim word for word. I.G. Farben AG had lost the Wollheim suit in the court of first instance, an outcome unexpected by many trial observers.

Invoking the ascertained facts regarding the charge of “crimes against humanity” in the I.G. Farben Trial in Nuremberg, the ruling in the Wollheim suit follows the argumentation of the charge for long periods: The judges emphasize the joint responsibility of I.G. Farben for the treatment of the prisoners, which met the elements of the offense of bodily injury and impairment of health (§§ 823 Abs. 1, 847 BGB). Considering the size and importance of the factory in Monowitz, the court deemed I.G. Farben’s failure to instruct a member of the executive board to examine the conditions on site as a violation of the company’s responsibility. Thus, the court ruled, I.G. Farben was liable for damages[3] for the miserable treatment of the prisoners and its consequences. The court based its ruling on the fact that the witnesses for the plaintiff, in comparison with those for I.G. Farben, had given credible and convincing testimony, while I.G. Farben’s witnesses had made “a poor impression in general.”[4]  a  Further, the court stated that I.G. Farben—despite the conditions complicated by the wartime situation, which the judges readily acknowledged—had had room for maneuvering to improve the prisoners’ situation: “After extensive scrutiny, however, the Chamber has become convinced that such opposition to the SS would have been possible to a certain extent for the defendant, had it seriously so desired.”[5] I.G. Farben had failed to take advantage of this opportunity.

This statement is especially remarkable when one takes the circumstances into account: At the time the ruling was handed down, the era of National Socialism in Germany was dealt with predominantly by repressing the events; the FRG concentrated entirely on the economic upturn and integration with the West. Legal historian Joachim R. Rumpf draws this conclusion in his dissertation: “[I]t might well be an absolute exception in the history of law that a court found such clear words.”[6]

Not least, the court, in its ruling, guarded against the anticipated appeal and rebutted in advance the assertion that the conditions in Monowitz were lawful in terms of the legal situation of the time.  b 

While Henry Ormond and Norbert Wollheim felt almost overwhelmed by the enormous interest in their suit, the I.G. Farben lawyers were already preparing to appeal.  c  On December 12, 1953, they submitted their grounds for appeal to the Frankfurt am Main Higher Regional Court (Oberlandesgericht).

(SP; transl. KL)

Material

[pdf] Urteil im Wollheim-Prozess_10.06.1953 (in German; Archive of the Fritz Bauer Institute)

Source

Verdict in the Wollheim suit, June 10, 1953. HHStAW, Sec. 460, No. 1424 (Wollheim v. I.G. Farben), Vol. III, pp. 446–488.

Literature

Rumpf, Joachim R.: “Der Fall Wollheim gegen die I.G. Farbenindustrie AG in Liquidation.” Unpublished dissertation, Leibniz University, Hanover, 2007.