At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Badische Anilin & Soda-Fabrik (BASF) was “without question the largest chemical factory in the world,” at least in the field of organic chemical production. The firm's history – and especially its early history – mirrors to an unusual degree the development of an entire industrial sector, the coal-tar dye industry.

The coal-tar dye industry came into its own as the most important “new” industrial sector in Germany during the second half of the nineteenth history, prior to, but also alongside the electrical industry. Through the increasingly scientific basis of its production, it proved an important force for economic modernization in imperial Germany. Furthermore, within the space of just a few decades, the industry was able to secure a virtual international monopoly owing to its capabilities in production and sales of synthetic dyestuffs. In fact, on the eve of World War I, it manufactured more than 80 percent of world production and accounted for 90 percent of world trade in the field. What is more, the industry had also expanded into new areas of production. The largest firms had already incorporated into their planning and production programs promising new areas such as pharmaceuticals, photographic supplies, and the synthesis of rubber and ammonia.

When the German coal-tar dye industry first started out, its rapid rise to a commanding position in the world economy could not have been predicted.