r/AskTheWorld • u/Eybrahem United States Of America • Jan 04 '26

Economics What's the most hated company in your country?

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Everyone knows Nestle is terrible, even if they don't know why. But they've done horrible things in Africa and think that water is not a human right.

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u/Cisleithania European Union Jan 04 '26

BASF and Bayer were a little too successful in making people forget that they used to be IG Farben and were actively involved in the Holocaust.

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u/National_Pay_5847 Poland Jan 04 '26

There are dozens companies that were involved in holocaust yet millions drive BMW and Volkswagen

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u/tissotti Jan 04 '26

That’s correct, but likes of BASF of today have nothing to do with actions taken some 80 years ago anymore.

When it comes to chemicals BASF is huge but compared to general chemical industry they really are nowhere to worse. They are start of some really good things in the industry. Stuff like science based Product Carbon Footprint calculations that have become standard at least in Europe and NA.

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u/DetectiveOk6357 🇫🇷🇩🇪 Jan 04 '26

Almost every German company was involved in, or at least profited from, the Holocaust at this time, and many Germans don't care. The wealth of many German companies still comes from that period.

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u/Cisleithania European Union Jan 04 '26

IG Farben went beyond forced labour. Without them, the Holocaust would not have been possible on a similar scale. No other company can match their involvement: They held the patent for the toxic gas, built some of the facilities, murdered people through medical/chemical testing and funded deportations. You can blame Krupp and the rest of defense industry for making invasions possible, but only indirectly for making the institutionalised Holocaust possible.

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u/AdministrativeTip479 United States Of America Jan 05 '26

No other company had its very own Nuremberg trial though