GERMANY: SCUFFLES BRAKE OUT AT SHAREHOLDER MEETING DISCUSSING THE LIQUIDATION OF IG FARBEN WHICH PRODUCED ZYKLON B GAS USED IN NAZI DEATH CAMPS
Record ID:
648822
GERMANY: SCUFFLES BRAKE OUT AT SHAREHOLDER MEETING DISCUSSING THE LIQUIDATION OF IG FARBEN WHICH PRODUCED ZYKLON B GAS USED IN NAZI DEATH CAMPS
- Title: GERMANY: SCUFFLES BRAKE OUT AT SHAREHOLDER MEETING DISCUSSING THE LIQUIDATION OF IG FARBEN WHICH PRODUCED ZYKLON B GAS USED IN NAZI DEATH CAMPS
- Date: 23rd August 2000
- Summary: FRANKFURT, GERMANY (AUGUST 23, 2000) (REUTERS) 1. LV PROTESTERS IN STREET WITH BANNERS (3 SHOTS) 0.24 2. CU CYCLONE B ON BANNER 0.30 3. SLV POSTER READING (German) 'YOU DOGS: DO YOU WANT TO DISSOLVE FOREVER?' 0.39 4. MV/SLV SHAREHOLDERS ARRIVING UNDER POLICE PROTECTION (3 SHOTS) 1.09 5. SV PROTESTER ARGUING WITH POLICEMAN (German), SAYING 'WHY ARE YOU ALLOWING THESE PEOPLE TO MEET?' 1.25 6. CU 'WE ARE THE PEOPLE' (German) T-SHIRT 1.34 7. WS/SV/MV SHAREHOLDERS SEATED INSIDE (2 SHOTS) 1.59 8. SCU (SOUNDBITE) (German) VOLKER POLLEHN, LIQUIDATOR IG FARBEN, SAYING: "IG Farben was the German Reich's largest company, the fourth largest in the world, the largest chemical company. To assume that such a company with its thousands of patents, its thousands of daughter companies and the thousands of claims can be dissolved within just a few years is an illusion, it's thoughtless." 2.26 9. LV/CU PODIUM (2 SHOTS) 2.42 10. SLV PROTESTERS OUTSIDE 2.47 11. SCU (SOUNDBITE) (German) PETER GINGOLD OF THE ASSOCIATION AGAINST IG FARBEN, SAYING: "We have come here for the past fifteen years and have demanded the liquidation (of IG Farben) and compensation of the entire fortune. Not more and not less." 2.59 12. WS PROTESTERS WITH BANNERS 3.10 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 7th September 2000 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: FRANKFURT, GERMANY
- Country: Germany
- Reuters ID: LVA2AILXV5WZ52AQHLY8KVXUVAIU
- Story Text: Minor scuffles broke out at a shareholder meeting on
Wednesday to discuss the liquidation of IG Farben, the German
company that produced the Zyklon B gas used in Nazi death
camps.
The liquidators say they want to dissolve the firm by 2003.
Protesters demanded the firm, which is now in
receivership, be liquidated immediately and that its
estimated 20 million marks (9 million US dollars) assets be
handed over to survivors of the forced labour regime it ran
during World War Two.
Shareholders belonging to anti-fascist groups and shouting
"Nazis Out" tried to storm the podium at the meeting in
Frankfurt as a member of a fringe far-right party stood up to
speak. They were ejected after scuffles with security guards.
The once-huge conglomerate employed up to 400,000 people
as forced labourers during the Third Reich, of which several
thousand are still alive today. An endowment was set up last
year to provide them with compensation payments.
But demonstrators outside the meeting said that was not
enough and demanded that the labourers should also receive the
company's remaining assets, which are mainly in real estate
since its break-up by the Allies after the end of the war.
Its receivers said this was impossible, however.
IG Farben liquidator Volker Pollehn said the company is
too huge to simply close down.
"IG Farben was the German Reich's largest company, the
fourth largest in the world, the largest chemical company. To
assume that such a company with its thousands of patents, its
thousands of daughter companies and the thousands of claims
can be dissolved within just a few years is an illusion, it's
thoughtless," said Volker Pollehn.
More likely was a date of around 2003, he said, adding
that in any case not all of its assets could be channelled to
surviving forced labourers because other financial and legal
obligations had to be met.
Peter Gingold of the Association Against IG Farben said
the protesters had been making these demands for 15 years and
that nothing will stop them.
"We have come here for the past fifteen years and have
demanded the liquidation (of IG Farben) and compensation of
the entire fortune. Not more and not less," Peter Gingold
said.
IG Farben formerly comprised Bayer AG, BASF AG and Hoechst
AG, the latter now part of French-German life sciences group
Aventis.
The deadly Zyklon B gas it produced was among the most
notorious of the weapons used by the Nazis in the Holocaust, a
genocide campaign which resulted in the murder of six million
European Jews.
The German state and thousands of private firms agreed
last year to set up a 10 billion mark ($4.6 billion) fund to
compensate more than a million surviving forced labourers and
other Third Reich victims.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, however, criticised
on Wednesday what he called the insufficient participation of
German companies in the fund.
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