I.G. Auschwitz, founded in Kattowitz on April 7, 1941, was intended to be the largest chemical factory in Eastern Europe and at the same time a building block in the process of “Germanizing” the region. According to the plan, the production facilities were to supply the Eastern European market with plastics in peacetime, following their use for wartime production. In addition to German skilled workers and forced laborers from all over Europe, increasing numbers of prisoners from the Auschwitz concentration camp were deployed at the gigantic construction site in Auschwitz. In 1942 I.G. Auschwitz built its own corporate concentration camp, Buna/Monowitz.