{"id":1076,"date":"2026-10-19T17:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T21:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/jrn449-f26\/?p=1076"},"modified":"2026-10-19T17:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T21:06:08","slug":"a-company-cop-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/jrn449-f26\/a-company-cop-out\/","title":{"rendered":"A Company Cop-Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

How does a corporation which aided and abetted the Nazi atrocities properly atone? Is a legitimate reckoning with past wrongs even possible if the company\u2019s goals must be narrowly tailored to maximizing profit?<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m letting my inner cynic write this post.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, we visited Bayer, a pharmaceutical company known for inventing aspirin and commercializing the hormonal IUD. It is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. And it had a hand in the extermination of at least a million Jewry.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Bayer archivist, a nice man named Thore, led us through a seminar on the evolution of memory culture at the company. The presentation sought to track the company\u2019s transformation from marketing a \u201cdefensive narrative\u201d to assuming \u201chistorical responsibility\u201d for its participation in the Nazi atrocities. But the lecture felt remarkably evasive.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most disturbing was the lecture\u2019s silence on the specifics of Brayer\u2019s contributions to the Nazi project. There were mentions of slavery and of a Brayer-sponsored labor camp adjacent to Auschwitz. Beyond that, the company\u2019s shoddy past was broadly whitewashed. Notably, Brayer was responsible for the distribution of Zyklon B, the pesticide used to gas over a million Jews at death camps. There was no acknowledgment of this fact until it was raised by a member of our group during the Q&A. Moreover, only through independent research (read: a Wikipedia skim) did I discover that Brayer conducted medical experiments on inmates at Auschwitz. In one case, the company transported 150 women from Auschwitz to its own facility in order to test a new anaesthetic. An employee wrote to Rudolf Hoss, the death camp\u2019s commandant: \u201cThe transport of 150 women arrived in good condition. However we were unable to obtain conclusive results because they died during the experiments.\u201d I learned of this crime online, rather than from the company historian.<\/span><\/p>\n

It seems that Brayer\u2019s little history project, ostensibly devoted to remembrance, is suffering from amnesia.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond suppressing the most egregious aspects of the collaboration, our lecturer also parroted Nazi legal defense strategies when describing the actions of the company. He argued that Bayer executives perhaps \u201cdid not know\u201d that Zyklon B was being instrumentalized at a death camp. And because of \u201ccomplicated decision structures\u201d at the company and its subsidiaries, assigning blame for the Nazi collaboration was challenging. The company seems more interested in maintaining a facade of innocence rather than engaging in real self-assessment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Part of me wonders if any performance of guilt would have been satisfying. At a corporation where profit is the only prize, accountability will always seem like PR. We know there are ulterior motives. Indeed, it was not until the company faced public backlash \u2013 an economic threat from its customers \u2013 that they began to catalogue their crimes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It may be said, then, that the structure of the corporation inherently limits the authenticity of its soul-searching. Regardless, Bayer made a sorry attempt. Ignoring the least comfortable (and most fatal) aspects of its Holocaust-era activity is certainly not accountability. It\u2019s a cop-out for cash.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How does a corporation which aided and abetted the Nazi atrocities properly atone? Is a legitimate reckoning with past wrongs even possible if the company\u2019s goals must be narrowly tailored to maximizing profit? I\u2019m letting my inner cynic write this post. Today, we visited Bayer, a pharmaceutical company known for inventing aspirin and commercializing the<\/p>\n

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