What documents and testimony in the Bruno Tesch Zyklon‑B trial detail sales to Auschwitz and how do they differ from IG Farben records?
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Executive summary
The Bruno Tesch trial record contains contemporaneous company statements, witness testimony from firm employees and SS personnel, and bookkeeping evidence documenting large consignments of Zyklon‑B sent to Auschwitz—material the British tribunal used to find Tesch and Weinbacher guilty [1] [2] [3]. By contrast, the documentary trail linked to I.G. Farben in subsequent trials and scholarship centers on upstream manufacturing, corporate licensing and supervisory‑board connections to Degesch and suppliers rather than the distributor delivery notes relied upon at Hamburg, producing distinct, complementary but not identical evidentiary pictures [4] [5] [6].
1. What the Tesch trial papers actually showed about sales to Auschwitz
The printed trial transcript and archival statement record contain multiple strands: Dr. Bruno Tesch’s sworn statement denying knowledge of human gassing while acknowledging his firm’s exclusive distribution rights east of the Elbe; testimony from ex‑employees and bookkeepers (Anna Uenzelmann, Karl Ruehmling, Alfred Zaun) who placed large consignments of Zyklon‑B being shipped to Auschwitz and other camps; and SS witnesses and former camp personnel (Wilhelm Bahr, Perry Broad) who described both training by Tesch staff and tins/cans of Zyklon‑B at camp sites—evidence the prosecution tied to escalating monthly deliveries, estimated at nearly two tons in early 1944 to Auschwitz [1] [2] [3] [7]. The court also considered a contemporaneous affidavit from a high‑ranking German official asserting widespread knowledge by 1943 that gas was used to kill, which the prosecution introduced to show the accused’s alleged awareness of the product’s human use [8].
2. Documentary form in the Tesch case: company records and eyewitnesses, not factory ledgers
The Hamburg tribunal’s case rested heavily on internal company materials and eyewitness testimony: travel reports, bookkeeping entries and statements by clerks and disinfection operatives who handled orders and saw labels or cans in transport [2] [3]. The prosecution emphasized quantity patterns in Testa’s ledgers and the firm’s distribution monopoly, arguing the pattern of orders and deliveries made ignorance implausible [1] [3]. The record thus blends documentary business records with human testimony linking Testa’s shipments to Auschwitz, rather than detailed manufacturing invoices from chemical producers.
3. How IG Farben/ Degesch records and the Farben trials differ in focus and content
Material associated with I.G. Farben and Degesch—summarized in later trials and legal scholarship—tracks the upstream manufacture, licensing arrangements and corporate structures: Degesch’s role as the monopoly manufacturer of packaged Zyklon‑B, the participation of producers like Dessauer Werke and Kaliwerke, and IG‑provided stabilizers and supervisory‑board links rather than distributor delivery slips [4] [5]. The I.G. Farben prosecutions pursued executive culpability based on corporate control, production capacity, use of forced labor at Farben facilities near Auschwitz, and supervisory ties to Degesch—evidence of corporate complicity distinct from the distributor‑centric ledger and eyewitness mix at Tesch’s trial [6] [9].
4. Where the two records overlap and where they diverge
Overlap: both bodies of evidence place Zyklon‑B produced in Germany into SS hands and identify Degesch and its licensed distributors (Heerdt/Lingler and Tesch & Stabenow) as nodes in the supply chain [4] [5]. Divergence: the Tesch trial offers granular delivery and employee testimony tying particular Testa consignments to Auschwitz shipments and alleged knowledge of misuse; the Farben corpus emphasizes manufacturing, corporate licensing, and institutional links to the SS—less about specific distributor invoices and more about organizational responsibility and material contribution to the extermination system [2] [6] [9].
5. Alternate readings and prosecutorial context
Contemporary and later commentators note differing interpretations: some writers have argued the British tribunal foregrounded political motives and relied on testimonial reconstruction, while revisionist pieces contest the sufficiency or interpretation of the evidence presented at Hamburg [7] [10]. At the same time, mainstream archives and scholarly work treat the Tesch transcripts as primary evidence that distributors supplied large consignments to camps and that Degesch/IG Farben formed the production backbone—two complementary lines of proof rather than mutually exclusive narratives [1] [4] [6].
6. Limits of the surviving public record
The sources assembled here document trial testimony, company statements and later scholarly synthesis, but publicly available excerpts in the supplied record do not reproduce every original invoice or internal IG Farben production ledger; where those factory‑level documents exist they are summarized in the Farben trials and scholarship rather than printed in full in the Tesch transcript excerpts provided [3] [9] [4]. Therefore the comparison rests on the different emphases of distributor‑level bookkeeping and witness testimony (Tesch trial) versus manufacturer and corporate governance records (IG Farben/ Degesch).