Superior Cover Design, Chem Industry, Nazism, and "Race Suicide" (1944)

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 2301

Bob Edwards, MP (1905-1990) was a trade unionist and socialist who wrote a particularly savage appraisal of the British chemical industry during WWII.  The pamphlet stopped me because of the cover design, and then of course by its subtitle:  War on the People, an Exposure of the Chemical Kings and their Nazi Associates.  And the big deal about this was that it is the second edition, and it was printed in 1944.  

I don't want to start even just a little on the matter of American/Allied multinationals  (like Brown Brothers, Standard Oil, Renault, I.C.I., Ford) doing business with Nazi-controlled companies and concerns, mainly because it is a very deep story and a simple scratch reveals too much and it sounds too odd to be true, but it all seems to be so.  Edwards though concentrates on the British chemical industries, and in particular the Imperial Chemical Industries (I.C.I.), which Edwards has a long association with as his personal labor affiliations in general have been with the chemical trade.

This is already the "third edition" in two years for Edwards, so the pamphlet must have proved (a) interesting  or (b) printed in very small runs allowing for corrected bits here and there.  He addresses the "Chemical Kings" and how much  they effect local and international communities, and extend their political power, and about unfair labor practices, and large profits, swindles, and in one three-paragraph section the association of I.C.I. and I.G. Farben--Edwards concentrating on business arrangements and profits, though at this point there is no mention of any of the Farben connections to the Holocaust.  He moves on to chemical warfare, the "prostitution of science" , poison gas, a magnesium conspiracy with Hitler, and other bits...and allows himself the position of having a solution for it all--the socialization of the I.C.I.  

It is unclear from this pamphlet how Edwards stood on the war, or what it would mean to socialize the massive chemical industry, though it seems at least that the reorganized industry would not be doing business with Hitler, though it is unclear if there would be any involvement with the war beyond that.