Glossary

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The Charge in Wollheim v. I.G. Farben

 a  “Above all, the defendant also was aware that the prisoners literally worked themselves to death, inasmuch as it was general knowledge that prisoners who were too weak to perform the heavy labor were reported and, after medical examination, taken by the SS to the special camp at Birkenau to be gassed.”

(Henry Ormond, charge, November 3, 1951. HHStAW, Sec. 460, No. 1424 (Wollheim v. IG Farben), Vol. I, pp. 1–6, here pp. 4–5. (Transl. KL))

In August 1950, the Tripartite I.G. Farben Control Group (TRIFCOG) called upon the creditors of the former I.G. Farben conglomerate and its subsidiaries to present their outstanding debts. Norbert Wollheim, a former prisoner in the Buna/Monowitz concentration camp, read the notices to creditors and asked himself, “My God, if the shareholders are entitled to present claims, how about us?”[1]

 

Wollheim had already testified in the I.G. Farben Trial at Nuremberg and now saw an opportunity to assert the former concentration camp prisoners’ claims against their previous “employer,” I.G. Farben, under civil law, in addition to the criminal law aspect. He sought the advice of Henry Ormond, a lawyer he knew in Frankfurt am Main, to clarify the legal basis for these claims and discuss the manner in which claims could be successfully pursued.

 

Because of the Allies’ decision to decartelize the I.G. Farben corporation, there were a number of obstacles to be overcome beforehand. For example, a complaint against I.G. Farben in Liquidation (i.L.) required the permission of the supervisory authority in charge, TRIFCOG. Moreover, the requisite documents now were spread out among the archives of the individual companies, and the facts to prove the case would first have to be collected. Ormond filed an action against I.G. Farben i.L. with the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court (LG, Landgericht) on November 3, 1951: He demanded “that the accused [I.G. Farben] make good the loss the plaintiff [Norbert Wollheim] suffered as a result of the misuse of his labor by the accused in the period from March 15, 1943, to January 18, 1945.”[2] After consultation with Wollheim, Ormond set the value of the claim at 10,000 DM, without specifying an exact amount for the damages for pain and suffering. In addition to the court costs, the possibility of appeal proceedings played a part in the estimation of the claim in financial terms; to take a decision to a higher court for review, the amount in controversy had to be more than 6,000 DM.

 

Henry Ormond based the complaint on civil law, charging I.G. Farben with unjust enrichment and unlawful acts. He contended, for one thing, that I.G. Farben—without legal basis—had enriched itself from the use of Wollheim’s labor (§ 812 BGB). I.G. Farben i.L., Ormond argued, was also liable for aggravated behavior, as it had exploited the concentration camp prisoners in knowledge of the contraventions of the law and contrary to good morals (§ 819 BGB).  a 

 

For another thing, Ormond claimed damages in the complaint (§ 823 BGB), saying that I.G. Farben had intentionally “impaired” Norbert Wollheim’s health, his “liberty, the right to his labor, and his human dignity and therefore is obligated to make restitution to him for the damage incurred thereby.”[3] Also, he contended, I.G. Farben, by cooperating with the SS, had acted in a manner that was contrary to good morals (§ 826 BGB).

 

The first pleadings to the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court, Ormond’s statement of complaint and the reply of the I.G. Farben lawyers, were quite succinct and limited to the essentials. I.G. Farben i.L. hired Frankfurt attorney Dr. Jakob Flesch as legal representative in these proceedings. Henry Ormond had until March 1952 to name witnesses and produce additional evidence. For this purpose, he took trips at his own expense, including one to Paris at the turn of the year 1952, to consult the documents from the Nuremberg I.G. Farben Trial at the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine. Henry Ormond’s commitment to this lawsuit far exceeded the conventional standard, because neither he nor Norbert Wollheim saw this as an isolated case, but as a test case that aimed to clarify the claims of all former prisoners of I.G. Farben at Auschwitz.

(PH; transl. KL)



Material

[pdf] Anklageschrift Wollheim-Prozess_3.11.1951 (in German; Archive of the Fritz Bauer Institute)

 

Source

Henry Ormond, charge, November 3, 1951. HHStAW, Sec. 460, No. 1424 (Wollheim v. I.G. Farben), Vol. I, pp. 1–6.

 

Literature

Norbert Wollheim: “Wir haben Stellung bezogen.” In: Richard Chaim Schneider: Wir sind Da! Die Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland von 1945 bis heute. Berlin: Ullstein, 2000, pp. 108–120.

[1] Norbert Wollheim: “Wir haben Stellung bezogen.” In: Richard Chaim Schneider: Wir sind Da! Die Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland von 1945 bis heute (Berlin: Ullstein, 2000), pp. 108–120, here p. 118. (Translated by KL)

[2] Henry Ormond, charge, November 3, 1951. HHStAW, Sec. 460, No. 1424 (Wollheim v. I.G. Farben), Vol. I, pp. 1–6, here p. 1. (Translated by KL)

[3] Ormond, charge,  p. 6.