Aufsätze (Articles):

Martin Lutz, Siemens und die Anfänge des Sowjetsgeschäft: Zur Bedeutung von Vertrauen für ökonomisches Handeln, S. 135-155.

Arjan van Rooij, Nylon – the material and its challenges: The case of Dutch hosiery firms, 1945-1965, S. 156-176.

Kim Christian Priemel, Gekaufte Geschichte. Der «Freundeskreis Albert Vögler», Gert von Klaas und die Entwicklung der historischen Unternehmensforschung nach 1945, S. 177-202.

Yvonne Zimmermann, Heimatpflege zwecks Suppenpromotion. Zum Einsatz von Lichtbildern und Filmen in der Schweizer Lebensmittelbranche am Beispiel von Maggi, S. 203-226.

ABSTRACTS:

Martin Lutz, Siemens and the Beginnings of Soviet Trade: The Importance of Trust for Economic Action.

Siemens was the largest electrotechnical company operating in Russia before 1914. Beginning during World War I, and finally as a result of the Bolshevik industrial nationalization, Siemens lost its Russian property. But even after the October Revolution there was common ground for business relations between the Soviet government and Siemens. Soviet Russia on the one hand depended on foreign trade to accomplish its industrialization and electrification goals. Siemens, on the other hand, was looking for new markets to lower the negative effects of the economic crisis in Germany and the loss of Western markets during World War I. Bilateral German-Soviet relations were gradually established after 1921 and provided a framework of treaties for these business relations. However, the actual establishment of these trade relations between the German company and Soviet Russia remained difficult. Siemens was skeptical about even beginning to communicate with the Bolsheviks and very critical about the general perspectives of Soviet trade.
Based on the assumptions of the New Institutional Economics theory, this article focuses on the establishment of communication and business relations between Siemens and Soviet Russia. It will be argued that information, cultural knowledge and trust had a significant influence on the corporate strategy. The establishment of business relations between Siemens and Soviet Russia will therefore be interpreted in this article as an institution building process.

Arjan van Rooij, Nylon – the material and its challenges: The case of Dutch hosiery firms, 1945-1965.

This paper investigates the introduction of nylon, the first fully synthetic yarn, into the Dutch hosiery industry. Synthetic materials have often been studied from a producer perspective, which emphasizes the work they do to introduce new or improved materials in the plants of processors. In this article processors are central, which emphasizes their knowledge base and suggests that involvement of the material's producer increases with the extent to which the material disrupts the markets and technologies of processors.

Kim Christian Priemel, Gekaufte Geschichte. Der «Freundeskreis Albert Vögler», Gert von Klass und die Entwicklung der historischen Unternehmerforschung nach 1945.

Bought History. The ‹Friends of Albert Vögler›, Gert von Klass, and the Development of German Entrepreneurial Historiography after 1945.

The reinvention of German business history as a serious, widely respected and institutionalised academic discipline in the past two decades has somewhat obscured the shadier ancestral lines it goes back to. Biographical studies, especially of leading entrepreneurs and managers, long enjoyed a doubtful reputation as uncritical, if not outright untrue hagiographies, meant to show a lighter side to the stark world of capitalism. This was particularly true for the post-war decades which saw many a pre-1945 business leader rise to prominence again. Facing actual and possible challenges from Allied rule as well as from the German labour movement, corporate business embarked on a course of apologetic public relations by rewriting the historical record of state-business relations under Nazi rule. Among the instruments chosen for this purpose, commissioned biographical works of well-known industrialists like the late Albert Vögler featured prominently. The Vögler-book by German playwright Gert von Klass set a precedent for a range of follow-up publications. It was not only paid for by a superb selection of Ruhr managers, but to a large extent the study was also corrected, amended, and drawn up by these men. In the end, this led to a strategy of least resistance, ‹reconciling› not only historical facts with PR tenets but also conflicting narratives among Klass’s customers. While both the intellectual credentials and the sales performance of the published book turned out to be unimpressive, it contributed manifestly to the perception of German business histories as bought history, written by hired guns and financed by ‹big business›.

Yvonne Zimmermann, Heimatpflege zwecks Suppenpromotion. Zum Einsatz von Lichtbildern und Filmen in der Schweizer Lebensmittelbranche am Beispiel von Maggi.

Image Cultivation as Soup Promotion. The Usage of Slides and Films in the Swiss Food Industry – The Example of Maggi.

In Switzerland, the food industry was among the first to explore the medium of film as part of its corporate marketing and distribution policy. From 1909 onwards, industrial films were run as supporting films in commercial cinemas, and at trade fairs and exhibitions. Regarding non-commercial distribution, Maggi led the way. From the early 20s, on travelling lectures, Maggi had displayed films instead of slides. Alongside more «classical» corporate films which gave insight into the agricultural and industrial areas of Maggi, they also produced in-house «homeland portrayals» of the most attractive Swiss (mountain)-regions, in colour, featuring the discrete but well directed company’s presence. This second kind of corporate film promoted the brand name by way of playing on the emotional factor of «homeland» and bestowed Maggi with a firm national image. From the early 30s, numerous consumer goods companies launched advertising campaigns that included free viewings of corporate films mixed with travelogue and cultural films. The private industry’s travelling cinema not only played an important role regarding the socialisation of the rural populace with the medium of film, but also contributed fundamentally to the Swiss film culture of the post-war period. However, in the early 60s, this tradition of travelling cinemas was abandoned, and once the supporting films were forsaken in the cinemas in the 70s, both kinds of corporate films lost their broad impact on the medium. As a kind of public display window, they remain a historical phenomenon.

Buchbesprechungen (Reviews):

David S. Landes, Die Macht der Familie. Wirtschaftsdynastien in der Weltgeschichte (Claus W. Schäfer)

Jörg Roesler/Dagmar Semmelmann, Vom Kombinat zur Aktiengesellschaft. Ostdeutsche Energiewirtschaft im Umbruch in den 1980er und 1990er Jahren (Johannes Bähr)

Agnès Arp, VEB: Vaters ehemaliger Betrieb. Privatunternehmer in der DDR (Achim Müller)
Dirk Schaal, Rübenzuckerindustrie und regionale Industrialisierung. Der Industrialisierungsprozess im mitteldeutschen Raum 1799-1930 (Thomas Urban)

Stefanie van de Kerkhof/Dieter Ziegler (Hrsg.), Unternehmenskrisen und ihre Bewältigung im 20. Jahrhundert/Company Crisis and Crisis Management in the 20th Century(Boris Gehlen)

Reinhold Bauer, Gescheiterte Innovationen: Fehlschläge und technologischer Wandel(Michael Friedewald)

JoAnne Yates, Structuring the Information Age. Life Insurance and Technology in the Twentieth Century(Jan-Otmar Hesse)

Christopher D. McKenna, The World’s Newest Profession. Management Consulting in the Twentieth Century (Timo Leimbach)

Peter Koch, Geschichte der westfälisch-lippischen Versicherungswirtschaft und ihrer Unternehmen (Harald Wixforth) Wissenschaftsförderung der Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe (Hrsg.), Regionalgeschichte der Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe (Harald Wixforth)

Matthias Heymann, Ingenieure, Märkte und Visionen. Die wechselvolle Geschichte der Erdgasverflüssigung (Marc Engels, Alexander Faridi)

Horst A. Wessel (Hrsg.), Mülheimer Unternehmer: Pioniere der Wirtschaft. Unternehmergeschichte in der Stadt am Fluss seit dem Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts (Boris Gehlen)

Tim Schanetzky, Die große Ernüchterung. Wirtschaftspolitik, Expertise und Gesellschaft in der Bundesrepublik 1966 bis 1982 (Werner Bührer)

Henry Ashby Turner, General Motors und die Nazis. Das Ringen um Opel (Claus W. Schäfer)

Angelika Enderlein, Der Berliner Kunsthandel in der Weimarer Republik und im NS-Staat. Zum Schicksal der Sammlung Graetz (Dieter Ziegler)

Herrmann F. Weiss, Buschvorwerk im Riesengebirge – eine Gemeinde in Niederschlesien von den Kriegsjahren bis zur Vertreibung (Harald Wixforth)

Lil-Christine Schlegel-Voß, Alter in der «Volksgemeinschaft». Zur Lebenslage der älteren Generation im Nationalsozialismus (Dietrich Milles)

Lydia Niehoff, 1855-2005. 150 Jahre Druckerei und Verlag H. M. Hausschild Bremen (Kim Priemel)