100 Years of the Bayer Company Archive

Treasures from the past

100 Years of the Bayer Company Archive: documents, photographs, films, advertisements, publications, and other valuable items are examined, evaluated and systematically archived there.

Carl Duisberg was unable to part with any of his notes, so what better idea than to found an archive? This is precisely what the first Bayer Managing Director did exactly 100 years ago.

The call left Michael Pohlenz speechless for a moment. The head of the Company Archive is usually a walking encyclopedia who can answer most questions about the company’s history without stopping to think twice. One day in the spring of 1983, however, he received a call from a specialist at the Federal Criminal Police Office in Wiesbaden. “Were whitening agents used to make paper during the Second World War?” Pohlenz had to pore over old laboratory journals to discover the answer. His research clearly showed that, although tests were being conducted at the time, no products were available on the market.

Guardians of the past Michael Frings, Hans-Hermann Pogarell, Rüdiger Borstel, Monika Gand and Michael Pohlenz (from left) are respected authorities on Bayer's history.

Zoom image

Guardians of the past Michael Frings, Hans-Hermann Pogarell, Rüdiger Borstel, Monika Gand and Michael Pohlenz (from left) are respected authorities on Bayer’s history.

His findings helped uncover one of the greatest scandals in newspaper history. Hitler had not left behind any diaries; the German magazine stern had simply fallen for a hoax. The trickster behind the hoax had himself recorded what he later claimed were the dictator’s thoughts on modern paper – which contained a whitening agent. Pohlenz particularly enjoys recalling this unusual request, as his customers’ queries are not usually quite so spectacular. Which of course does not mean that they’re any less interesting. What was the first year of publication for Bayer reports, the predecessor to today’s report? (1958) Or in what year did the butter lobby demand that margarine be colored blue? (1869) “Sometimes it takes a while,” says the historian Pohlenz, “but we can almost always find the answer.”

That comes as no surprise considering the treasure trove of information guarded by the archivists in the plain-looking industrial complex on the Bayer site in Cologne-Flittard. The five experts here administer material taking up a total of 5,000 meters of shelf space and holding some 40,000 file folders with over ten million documents in them, all carefully sorted and cataloged. Added to this are approximately 60,000 photographs, half of them digitalized, 4,000 books, 1,500 films and 8,000 exhibits. “You collect a lot of stuff in the course of 100 years,” says Pohlenz. After all, Carl Duisberg wasn’t the only one who saved everything.