European Guide on
Banking and Reverse Mortgage Loans
About Guide Guide Summery Order Guide
. . .
E A B H strong lender of reverse mortgage loans. G U G international reverse equity loans. SEBH reverse mortgage loans all across Europe.
EABH GUG SEBH

History of the company/bank and archive description for BASF AG
History of the
company/bank:		 For the production of coal tar dyes and precursors Friedrich Engelhorn in 1865 founded the "Badische Anilin- & Sodafabrik (BASF)". Within a few decades, the company reached a leading position on the world-market for dyes. Especially with synthetic indigo and indanthrene-dyes the company had made fundamental inventions.
At the beginning of the twentieth century the BASF set a new milestone in the history of chemical industry with the "Haber-Bosch"-process. With the catalytic high-pressure synthesis of ammonia the company made the entry into a completely new technology and into a new market possible: that of fertilizers. With the further development of high-pressure techniques, the company in the 1920s was finally able to produce synthetic gasoline and caoutchouc.
But at this time, the BASF no longer was an independent company, but a branch of "I. G. Farbenindustrie AG", which was a merger of BASF, Bayer, Hoechst and two other companies, that came into being in 1925. In the 1930s, the BASF developed plastics. At first, polystyrene and polyvinylchloride were developed, followed by polyethylene and nylon / perlon. But only in the 1950s/60s these materials were produced on a larger scale. Closely related with that was a change in the production methods through the development of the petrochemical industry. In 1951, BASF invented expanded polystyrene, which became one of the most successful new developments of the 50s. One year later, the dissolution of the I. G. Farben - ordered by the Allies - lead to the start-up of the company under its former name. Internationalization and diversification were characteristic for the history of the company in the 60s and 70s. By the enlargement of small production-plants, the erection of new plants and by the acquisition of companies and installations BASF through the years was able to build up a worlwide network of production sites in Europe, the USA, Latin-America and East-Asia. At the same time the company increasingly was able to include consumer-oriented and highly improved products into its production schedule, so that BASF is able to produce more and more final products, for example varnishes and medicaments. BASF has become a company that operates on a global scale and produces basic materials, unfinished products and high-grade products. The production schedule of the company today includes the fields of health care, nourishment, colours, refinement products, chemicals, synthetic materials, fibres, oil and gas.
Archive description The company archive of BASF was founded in 1965 and today is the largest business archive in the state of Rheinland - Pfalz. Since the foundation of the archive the records have been assigned - according to the archive-plan - to 22 subjects. The main part of the archive, made up of two large sectors, still at the present time is arranged according to this principle. The sector "Badische Anilin- und Sodafabrik" (1865 - 1925; 1952ff.) and the sector "I. G. Farbenindustrie AG" (1925 - 1952) are arranged according to the archive-plan. Only when a large and compact whole stock of records has been taken over in the meantime, the principle of pertinence has been abandoned in favor of the principle of provenance.
Recently, a third large sector of the archive is in the process of organization: The so-called group-archive, that will contain the records of the subsidiary companies in Germany and abroad.

At the present time, the company archive of BASF holds 2,100 shelf metres of records. Out of this, approximately 600 shelf metres are records on the social sector and the sector of personnel. Approximately 500 shelf metres of records concern research and approximately 600 shelf metres contain subjects related to the sectors of engineering, production and sales. Another 250 shelf metres of records are dealing with the sector of law.
The oldest records are from the period of the founding years of the company, that means explicitly the 1860s.
Also a number of assets can be found in the company archive, including those of such prominent chemists as Matthias Pier and Walter Reppe. Beyond that, approximately 50,000 historical photographs can be found.
The collections of the company archive include maps and plans, posters, medals, (video-) films, tapes and company- newspapers of BASF and subsidiary companies.

The various records of the archive are opened up in a quite different way. Not always additional methods for the search of records exist, which could be used in addition to the archive-plan. A part of the records is registered in a systematic index and a subject catalogue. Here a computer system is applied. The company newspaper for example - first published in 1913 - is accessible via catchword in a computer database.
Publications
  • BASF AG (ed.) : BASF - Stationen ihrer Geschichte. Ludwigshafen 1995. (brochure, available at the company´s archive).
  • BASF AG (ed.) : 125 Jahre BASF - Stationen ihrer Geschichte. Katalog zur Ausstellung im Rathaus - Center Ludwigshafen (28. April bis 29. Juni 1990). Ludwigshafen 1990. (Catalogue, for examination in the company archive).
Conditions of use By appointment, access to the archive of the company can be granted for scientific research.

home search the database contact