The Göttingen-based Sartorius family business during the Third Reich - an exemplary case of
economic normality and adaptation to the regime.Established in 1870 by Florenz Sartorius as a
precision mechanical workshop the Sartorius Group today is a leading partner for
biopharmaceutical research and the industry. The roots of the company's two current divisions
can be traced back to the firm's early years specifically the founding of the membrane filter
company (Membranfilter-Gesellschaft m.b.H) in 1927. For the first time Manfred Grieger
examines the activities Sartorius and its entrepreneurs engaged in during the Nazi era. He
reveals the relationship between the company and the government as well as the actions of the
leading players of the family-run business during the Nazi regime. In doing so he also focuses
on the question of succession within the family of entrepreneurs since the transition from the
second to the third generation falls within this period.The author explores the changing role
of the company in the wartime economy the decline in civil-sector production and the
increasing importance of manufacturing finished products at Sartorius for the armaments
industry as well as the employment of forced laborers. Moreover he examines which influence
the firm's key decisionmakers had on this development. Manfred Grieger also addresses the
denazification process at management level which sheds an exemplary light on the individual
coming to terms with the past of economic elites who experienced their own economic miracle in
the Federal Republic of Germany.
