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The I.G.-Farben Heritage, Bayer and PR. Business Strategies After 1945 Christian Kleinschmidt, University of Bochum

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The I.G.-Farben Heritage, Bayer and PR. Business Strategies After 1945 Christian Kleinschmidt, University of Bochum “Corporate Images – Images of the Corporation” – 9 th EBHA Conference, Frankfurt am Main 2005 The I.G.-Farben heritage, Bayer and PR. Business strategies after 1945 Christian Kleinschmidt, University of Bochum The American influence on the German economy is not least reflected in the numerous anglicisms which shaped economic language and communication within German companies after the end of the war. “Public relations” is, along with “marketing”, “human relations” and “controlling” just one such term which became adopted by German managers in the fifties. During the period of the economic miracle (the “Wirtschaftswunder”), PR was of particular importance to German companies in their efforts to re-enter the international market. After the war, large companies were discredited both nationally and internationally for their part in the outbreak of war and the holocaust. Given the negative experience of the National Socialist propaganda apparatus on the one hand, and the exemplary role of the American economy on the other, German companies such as Krupp or the successor companies of IG Farben made their own postwar efforts to re-build confidence at home and abroad. As one German publication put it in the fifties, “winning confidence and not issuing propaganda”. Carl Hundhausen finally coined the phrase “winning public confidence” (“Werbung um öffentliches Vertrauen”), which became widespread as the, albeit not word for word, translation of the American term “public relations”: “Our companies are not only trying to build confidence in their products….which actually exist and can be grasped, but these companies are well advised to build confidence in themselves too, as American companies have been doing for years”. 1 And this was of particular significance for German companies following 1 Carl Hundhausen, Werbung und Public Relations der Eisen- und Stahlindustrie in den Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika, in: Stahl und Eisen 70, 1050, p. 1050 1 the period of National Socialism. At the same time, the USA was also important as a potential trading partner and export market. In the fifties, the IG Farben successor Bayer, for example, had similar problems to Krupp with regard to its standing abroad, especially in the USA. The Bayer-trade- mark, the famous Bayer-cross, had been confiscated in the USA in 1941. So it was important to give the name Bayer a new meaning. The presentation of Bayer to the American public was developed together with the American firm “Julius Klein Inc.” Julius Klein had devised a “Combat Public- Relations-Plan” under General Marshall during the Second World War, as an antidote to Goebbels’ propaganda. After the war, Klein set up his own firm and worked for Bayer and other German firms like Rheinmetall or Siemens with the aim of improving the company’s image in the USA. Repeatedly, Klein encouraged Bayer’s top management to become more engaged in public discussion in the USA, so as to win “public confidence” . And in doing so, Bayer put the emphasis on its long experience and tradition within modern chemistry. Indeed, in the mid-fifties, Bayer set up a large-scale PR offensive in the USA, only a few years after Haberland, the chairman of the board, had had doubts about whether to use the Washington Post to approach the American public. Hence Klein argued in favour of the necessary measures not only as one element of a successful corporate strategy. In particular there was the recent past to consider along with the mentality of the American public, at least as he interpreted it. Various factors were involved „not the least of which is the conviction that America’s sons have died in wars not of her own making, that America has paid heavily for these wars, has never gotten any thanks for it, and on top of that is now spending billions of taxpayers’ money to rehabilitate foreign countries, thus building competition for her own industries…We are not concerned here with 2 historical facts, but with what the American public assumes to be true.”2 Thus it was also paramount “to correct the notion that the former I.G. Farben’s successor of today is identical with the I.G. Farben empire of yesterday.”3 Klein underlined the necessity of re-emphasizing the name Bayer, of strengthening the public acceptance and reputation of Bayer and its’ products, as of generally overcoming resistance against products “made in Germany”. As he pointed out, PR was not a question of legal dispute but of shaping public opinion. Such PR measures should “further and foster in American public opinion acceptance of the fact that trade with Germany will substantially benefit the United States, for an economically and industrially strong Germany is essential to our foreign and military policy vis-à-vis Soviet Russia.“4 In other words: Klein argued in favour of a PR strategy at Bayer which should aim to appeal to the American public less in moral than in pragmatic and economic terms. This was also a reflection of the transition in the American policy of occupation from a rather restrictive to a constructive approach, not least under the impression of the Cold War. In practice a series of eight advertisements finally appeared in a selection of American daily papers in 1956 which were designed in cooperation with the company Julius Klein. The German advertising agency Troost, Düsseldorf was responsible for graphic design and technical development. The series of advertisements were intended to be a kind of “visiting card within relevant business circles in the USA” and to draw “the picture of a modern chemicals plant which has made a significant contribution to economic progress in the world since its foundation in 1863.“5 The eight advertisements all followed a similar pattern. Under the main heading on the central theme and short text (on Bayer research or products for example) the same caption was set in bold type: „Chemical Products for the growing needs of mankind“, underlining the role of the company serving 2 Bayer AG Archives, 167/9, Bayer Advertisement Series, (1957) p. 8. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid, p. 19. 5 Ibid, 167/9. Bayer Advertisement Series. 3 the whole of mankind. On the right-hand side the American public could learn that Bayer employed over 45,000 men and women, not only in the production of chemicals but also paints, pharmaceuticals, insecticides and photographic materials. With illustrations reminiscent of a children’s picture book, the Bayer plant was portrayed right in the vicinity of the Cologne cathedral on the Rhine: The design had to conform with legal limitations on the trademark which forbade the use of the Bayer cross in the USA. The series of advertisements did not only accompany the growth in exports from Bayer to the USA after the early 1950s. While Bayer exports to the USA in 1947 represented a value of 4,500 Reichsmark, these increased within the next four years to such an extent that the USA became Bayer’s fourth most important export market. In addition Bayer also transferred parts of production and applications technology to the USA itself. Demand in the USA for pesticides was strong and with „Folidol E-605“ Bayer had a new and effective product to market. In 1950 Bayer was then involved in the foundation of the Chemagro Corporation. Four years later Bayer set up the joint company Mobay together with Monsanto. In 1957 Bayer bought up the Verona Chemical Company and the Pharma Chemical Corporation along with a number of smaller American trading companies for the import of synthetic fibres and fine chemicals.6 So PR at Bayer successfully accompanied this massive involvement in the American market during the fifties. And the strong demand for the pesticide „Folidol E-605“ in the American market is one example for the success of Bayer PR in the USA as formulated by Julius Klein: The aim was to overcome the memory of its predecessor I.G. Farben and of products from subsidiaries such as „Zyklon B“ which had originally been developed as a pesticide, and to create a new and successful profile for Bayer and its products independent of the former I.G. Farben. 6 Plumpe; Schultheis, Meilensteine, p. 486 f. 4 In fact after the 1950s, international demand for products made by those companies which emerged from the former I.G.Farben was again strong. In the case of Bayer, 45% of total turnover was exported to 133 countries worldwide. „Why have things been going so well?“: This was the question posed in “The Economist” in one edition in the year 19677 with an eye to the success of the German chemicals industry which had taken the lead in Europe in the mid-fifties. Within only a few years the I.G. Farben successor companies had increased turnover, production and exports dramatically and were thus able to build on the pre-war achievements of I.G. Farben and to swiftly return to the world market after the Second World War. Contributing factors included not only the constructive policy of occupation pursued by the Allies but also the international demand for raw materials in the context of the Korean War, and also the survival and expansion strategies followed by the individual I.G. Farben successor companies. As the case of Bayer illustrates, this immediate postwar goal of returning to international markets was accompanied by a publicity drive to win public faith: The profile of the now independent companies was defined as both in the tradition of the pre-war achievements of the German chemicals industry as in the service of mankind as a whole, thus discarding the burden of the more recent past. PR at Bayer was driven by less a moral than a pragmatic approach, less concerned with individual figures than with actual matters and the attempt was not even made to justify or even manipulate the recent past.
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