Hans Kühne

Hans Kühne (born June 3 1880 in Magdeburg - died February 18 1969 in Lindau) was a German chemist on the board of IG Farben and a defendant during the IG Farben Trial.

Early years

The son of Julius and Elisabeth Kühne, Hans Kühne enrolled in the University of Leipzig to study chemistry in 1903, graduating in 1906. He took a job with Chemische Fabrik Marienhütte after university but changed employer several times in the following years, as well as serving in the German Imperial Army in France for a spell in 1915 as part of the First World War. In 1916 he took on a position with Bayer where he flourished, developing a process for the production of sulfuric acid and being awarded his doctorate by the University of Cologne. He was appointed an alternate member of the Bayer board in 1923, a post he held until 1926 when he left to take on full membership of the board at IG Farben.

IG Farben

Kühne first came to attention within IG Farben in the late 1920s when he called for a change in the company structure. He suggested that the company's major product lines should all be centralised at Frankfurt and that for each line a commercial executive should be appointed to work closely with a product manager in order to help secure a greater share of the world market for the company. He also argued for a restructuring at boardroom level, calling for a reduction in the number of senior executives and for those in charge to have greater power. Throughout the late 1920s and the early 1930s Kühne's suggestions were taken on board and held determine a new structure for IG Farben's business practices.