BASF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASF

In 1916, BASF started operations at a new site in Leuna, where explosives were produced during the First World War. On 21 September 1921, an explosion occurred in Oppau, killing 565 people. The Oppau explosion was the biggest industrial accident in German history. Under the leadership of Carl Bosch - a critic of Nazi policies - BASF founded IG Farben with Hoechst, Bayer, and three other companies, thus losing its independence. BASF was the nominal survivor, as all shares were exchanged for BASF shares prior to the merger. Rubber, fuels, and coatings were added to the range of products.

Following the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor in 1933, IG Farben collaborated with the Nazi regime, profiting from guaranteed volumes and prices, and from the slave labor provided by the government's Nazi concentration camps. IG Farben also achieved notoriety owing to its production of Zyklon-B, the lethal gas used to murder prisoners in German Nazi extermination camps. In 1935, IG Farben and AEG presented the magnetophon – the first tape recorder – at the Radio Exhibition in Berlin.

The Ludwigshafen site was almost completely destroyed during the Second World War and was subsequently rebuilt. The allies dissolved IG Farben in November 1945.

Both the Ludwigshafen and Oppau plants were of strategic importance for the war because the German military needed many of their products, e.g., synthetic rubber and gasoline. As a result, they were major targets for air raids. Throughout the war, Allied bombers attacked the plants 65 times.

On 28 July 1948, an explosion occurred at a BASF site in Ludwigshafen, killing 207 people and injuring 3818.[13] In 1952, BASF was refounded under its own name following the efforts of former Nazi Party member and Third Reich Wehrwirtschaftsführer (war economy leader) Carl Wurster.

In 1968 BASF (together with Bayer AG) bought the German coatings company Herbol.

BASF's European coatings business was taken over by AkzoNobel in 1999. BASF bought the Engelhard Corporation for $4.8 billion in 2006. Other acquisitions in 2006 were the purchase of Johnson Polymer and the construction chemicals business of Degussa.

On 19 December 2008, BASF acquired U.S.-based Whitmire Micro-Gen together with U.K.-based Sorex Ltd, Widnes, Great Britain.[22] Sorex is a manufacturer of branded chemical and non-chemical products for professional pest management. In March 2007 Sorex was put up for sale with a price tag of about £100 million.[23]

In May 2015, BASF agreed to sell parts of its pharmaceutical ingredients business to Swiss drug manufacturer Siegfried Holding for a fee of €270 million, including assumed debt.[24]

In October 2017, BASF announced it would buy seed and herbicide businesses from Bayer for €5.9 billion ($7 billion), as part of its acquisition of Monsanto.