The Devil's Chemists

Beacon Press, 1952. First Edition. Hardcover. Good/Good. Rare hardcover, in dustjacket. Beacon Press, 1952. 374 pages, with index. Good hardcover in full bound orange cloth boards, with Beacon Press logo in black to front and lettering in black to the spine. Previous owner's name and address in ink to front free endpaper; small rectangular piece of brown paper (2.5 " by 0.5 ") pasted down to front free endpaper; and former bookseller's price of $3.00; remnants of erased pencilled writing on front free endpaper. Binding is solid and square, with no other markings. Orange boards are clean and corners and edges are sharp; color not faded at all. Some light foxing to foredge of the page block. Newspaper article announcing upcoming publication of the book is laid in inside the front cover, with a little bit of offset browning to the front free endpaper. Dustjacket is worn but complete, with chipping and several closed tear that are now stabilized in place with a new mylar cover; also shows some rubbing with color loss along the edges, and in a spot at the bottom of the spine. From the cover: "24 conspirators of the international Farben cartel who manufacture wars. They armed the Nazis.... Today they helping arm the Soviets - against us!." Dubois was the chief prosecutor of the I G Farben case during the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials in 1947/48. IG Farben was the leading chemical and pharmaceutical company in Europe and a major supporter and supplier of the Nazi regime. Farben employed slave labor during WWII, participated in forced medical experiments on concentration camp inmates, and manufactured the infamous Zyklon-B gas that was used to murder over one million people during the Holocaust. Dubois was the lead prosecutor against Farben officials during the Nuremberg War Crimes trials, and in this book he details that case in a clear and compelling manner worthy of a good mystery novel. Dubois reveals the connections that some American companies had with IG Farben in the lead up to American involvement in WWII. And finally, he warns about the same thing happening again with companies profiting from doing business arming the Soviets in what was then the early years of the Cold War.