The European Competitors

Hoechst, and BASF The First European Path-Deflners 

The creation of the modern chemical industry by Bayer, Hoechst, and BASF is one of the most impressive achievements in the annals of industrial history. The three began in the 1880s to commercialize the first manmade dyes. They were not the inventors of this new technology they acquired them from British and French pioneers.  

By 1913 the individual paths of learning of these multisectored first movers had begun to diverge. Bayer, the largest, which had paved the way in dye production, had already developed a strong base in pharmaceuticals by com- 

on the other hand, concentrated more on the manufacture of standard dyes, and produced much more of the basic intermediates, both organic and inorganic. Of the Big Three, BASE was the leader in chemical engineering and process innovation. Between 1903 and 1913, two of its chemists—Fritz Haber as the discoverer and Carl Bosch as the co-developer—pioneered a way to produce nitrates from air that became the basic ingredients for fertilizers and military explosives. 

1924 to merge into a single enterprise. They finally agreed to exchange their corporate shares for those of a new enterprise, I. G. Farbenindustries AG, and so in October 1925, the giant I. G. Farben came into being.  

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