Aufsätze

Ute Engelen, An Opportunity to abolish Social Benefits? Two Automobile Manufacture in the Crisis of the 1970s, S. 129–153.

Eva Maria Roelevink/Joep Schenk, Challenging times – The renewal of a transnational business relationship: The Rhenish Westphalian Coal Syndicate and the Coal Trade Association, 1918 to 1925, S. 154–180.

Martin Münzel, Flucht, Transfers und Pioniere. Zur Emigration deutscher Bankiers und Verleger nach New York City 1933 bis 1945, S. 181–202.

Harald Wixforth, Die wirtschaftlichen Folgen der Teilung Oberschlesiens. Das Beispiel der Vereinigten Königs- und Lauragütte, S. 203–223

ABSTRACTS

Ute Engelen
An Opportunity to abolish Social Benefits?
Two Automobile Manufacturers in the crises of the 1970s
After decades of prosperous development, the 1970s posed an economic challenge to the automobile industry. For the two manufacturers examined here, Volkswagen and Peugeot, these crises in 1973 and 1979 as well as from the companies’ internal difficulties in the periods 1971 to 1975 and 1979 and 1985 respectively. This paper asks whether these crises were an occasion for the manufacturers to get rid of traditional company benefits. Since the middle of the 1960s, Peugeot’s and Volkswagen’s social policies have been marked by qualitative change, notably by a more intense focus on the individual expectations of the employees, a greater economic conditionality of social benefits and a concentration of the target group of the employees. The article reveals an ambiguous picture of cost cutting in the social domain: While the crises facilitated the questioning of company benefits, most restrictive measures, if ever realized, remained temporary. Moreover, new social initiatives were created despite the crises. Summing up, the crises provided an argument for restricting social policy, but few benefits were definitely eliminated until the end of the 70s. The main reason for the repeal of some social benefits was not their costliness, but that they did no longer correspond to the needs of employees. The following case study suggests that companies do not generally reduce their social benefits during periods of economic crises

Eva-Maria Roelevink/Joep Schenk
Challenging times – The renewal of a transnational business relationship: The Rhenish Westphalian Coal Syndicate and the Coal Trade Association, 1918 to 1925
The article focuses on the transnational business relationship between the German RWKS (Rheinisch-Westfälisches Kohlen-Syndikat, Essen) and the Dutch SHV (Steenkolen Handelsvereeniging, Utrecht), which was a successful sales relationship in the 1890 to 1945 period. On the one hand the importance of the export market for the RWKS is shown, and on the other hand it is reflected on the market intermediation through a foreign sales organization. Whereas the RWKS depended on the SHV for its sales organization, its distributions apparatus and its knowledge of the local market, the SHV depended on the RWKS for the sole selling rights for Ruhr coal on the Dutch market. World War I did not end this interdependent transnational cooperation, but created considerable leeway for tactical and strategical moves on both sides of the border that led to a new balance of power by the middle of the 1920s.

Martin Münzel
Flucht, Transfers und Pioniere
Zur Emigration deutscher Bankiers und Verleger nach New York City 1933 bis 1945
Despite exploring a number of fruitful lines of inquiry, research on emigration from the German Reich between 1933 and 1945 has for the most part neglected business people and entrepreneurs even if a few US American studies in the 1940s highlighted the economic significance on the refugees who had recently arrived from Europe. Against his background and on the basis of 166 individual cases, this article focuses on German-Jewish entrepreneurs who fled to the refugee metropolis of New York City. While there were parallels in terms of timing of emigration between this group and general trends in the emigration movement, it proved possible for about half of the emigrant entrepreneurs to establish themselves in a similar economic sector to that they had left behind. Owing to availability of sources, the article examines in particular for two largest groups of emigrant entrepreneurs, bankers and publishers. Various examples allow depiction, first of all, of the difficulties faced by the migrants in their new country. These included in particular the shortage of financial means which had resulted from the plundering of assets by the National Socialist state as well as the lack of an established reputation on the new country. A further factor was the lack of experience in dealing with American industrial structures and business methods. The examples, however, also make clear those advantages which the refugees possessed as they undertook entrepreneurial activity in their new environment. One of the most important of these lay in the possibility of being able to draw upon kinship structures and emigrant networks. In addition, though, business areas which were further developed in Germany than in the US could be also exploited entrepreneurially, and many of the German refugees thus became “pioneers” in new areas in the US and bearer of entrepreneurial transfer processes.

Harald Wixforth
Die wirtschaftlichen Folgen der Teilung Oberschlesiens
Das Beispiel der Vereinigten Königs- und Laurahütte
Until the end of the First World War, Upper Silesia was one of the most industrialized region of the former German Kaiserreich. In the aftermath of the War, it was divided, with one part remaining in Germany and the other part of Poland. Its economy faces with a number of problems. The Leading sector of the Upper Silesian economy, heavy industry, for example lost many of its former markets in east and east-central Europe. Many large industrial combines suffered financial difficulties and became uncompetitive in relation to firms based in other regions. Under these circumstances some German industrialists and bankers attempted to gain control of Silesian enterprises in order to strengthen their influence in this region. The most prominent was Friedrick Flick, who wanted to control one of the most important combines in Upper Silesian heavy industry, the Vereinigten Königs- und Laurahütte.

Buchbesprechungen

Christiane Eifert, Deutsche Unternehmerinnen im 20. Jahrhundert (Meral Avci)

Cornelia Rauh, Schweizer Aluminium für Hitlers Krieg?, Zur Geschichte der „Alusuisse“ 1918-1950 (Benjamin Obermüller)

Norbert Frei/Tim Schanetzky (Hrsg.), Unternehmen im Nationalsozialismus. Zur Historisierung einer Forschungskonjunktur (Harald Wixforth)

Annegret Schüle, Industrie und Holocaust. Topf & Söhne – Die Ofenbauer von Auschwitz (Peter M. Quadflieg)

Anne Sudrow, Der Schuh im Nationalsozialismus. Eine Produktionsgeschichte im deutsch-britische-amerikanischen Vergleich (Benjamin Obermüller)

Hermann- Josef ten Haaf, Kreditgenossenschaften im „Dritten Reich“. Bankwirtschaftliche Selbsthilfe und demokratische Selbstverwaltung in der Diktatur (Holger Martens)

Johannes Bähr/Bernd Rudolph, Finanzkrisen 1931, 2008 (Martin L. Müller)

Richard S. Grossman, Unsettled Account. The Evolution of Banking in the Industrialized World since 1800 (Alexander Engel)

Katja Girschik, Als die Kassen lesen lernten. Eine Technik- und Unternehmensgeschichte des Schweizer Einzelhandels 1950-1975 (Alfred Reckendrees)

Christian Pierer, Die Bayerischen Motorenwerke bis 1933. Eine Unternehmensgründung in Krieg, Inflation und Weltwirtschaftskrise (Christiane Katz)

Armin Müller, Kienzle. Ein deutsches Industrieunternehmen im 20. Jahrhundert (Thomas Hermann)

Hansjörg W. Vollmann, Eigenständigkeit und Konzernintegration. Die Cassella, ihre Eigentümer und ihr Führungspersonal (Christian Marx)

Gunilla Budde (Hg.), Kapitalismus. Historische Annäherungen (Werner Bührer)

Richard Vahrenkamp, Die logistische Revolution. Der Aufstieg der Logistik in der Massenkonsumgesellschaft (Reiner Ruppmann)

Jonas Steinmann, Weichenstellung. Die Krise der schweizerischen Eisenbahnen und ihre Bewältigung 1944–1982 (Hartmut Knittel)

Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Stiftung (Hg.), Krupp. Fotografien aus zwei Jahrhunderten (Ralf Ahrens)