Schaffendes Volk: Buna rubber and I.G. Farben fibres, 1937
At the Düsseldorf exhibition crowds inspect Continental tyres of Buna rubber, rubber boots and gloves, patterned fabrics and tufts of synthetic fibre.
Under a wall panel headed BUNA, men in suits and hats crowd round a stack of Continental tyres, bend over them and run their fingers along the treads. Rubber boots and black gloves stand on a display shelf; women in hats study long drapes of printed fabric while a bald man explains, and a crowd presses round a glass counter with tufts of white fibre beneath the lettering of I.G. Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft.
The Reich exhibition Schaffendes Volk, opened in Düsseldorf in May 1937, was the showcase of the Four-Year Plan. Hermann Göring wanted Germany independent of imported rubber, cotton and wool; I.G. Farben, whose Carl Krauch ran the plan's chemical programme, answered with Buna and staple fibre.
