IG Farben Building

The IG Farben Building (German: IG Farben-Haus), also known as the Poelzig Building (Poelzig-Bau), is a building complex in Frankfurt, Germany. It is the central building of the Westend Campus of Goethe University Frankfurt. Designed by Hans Poelzig in the New Objectivity style and completed in 1931, it was built as the corporate headquarters of IG Farben. It was the largest building constructed in the Weimar Republic and remained Europe's largest office complex until the 1950s. Under Nazi rule, IG Farben became part of Germany's war economy and used forced labour, including at Buna-Monowitz near Auschwitz. The Norbert Wollheim Memorial in front of the IG Farben Building commemorates the company's forced labourers. After American forces occupied Frankfurt in March 1945, the building became a headquarters for the Allied and American military administrations. Dwight D. Eisenhower worked there, and the Frankfurt Documents, an important step towards the founding of West Germany, were presented there in 1948. The building later housed the United States Army's V Corps and was named the General Creighton W. Abrams Building in 1975. The United States returned the complex to German control in 1995. The state of Hesse acquired the site for Goethe University in 1996. Following renovation, the building reopened in 2001. It now contains humanities institutes, a library centre and the Fritz Bauer Institute, as well as a permanent exhibition about the site's history.