Aufsätze (Articles):

Timo Leimbach, Vom Programmierbüro zum globalen Softwareproduzenten. Die Erfolgsfaktoren der SAP von der Gründung bis zum R/3-Boom, 1972 bis 1996, S. 5-34.
Thomas Welskopp, Bis an die Grenzen des Gesetzes. Die Reaktion der legalen Alkoholwirtschaft auf die National Prohibition in den USA, 1920 bis 1933, S. 35-58.
Heinrich Hartmann, Zwischen Projektionsfläche und Handlungsraum. Raumvorstellungen bei Bayer und PCAC, 1890 bis 1914, S. 59-86.
Ben Wubs, Unilever’s Struggle for Control. An Anglo-Dutch Multinational under German Occupation, S. 87-103.

Abstracts:

Timo Leimbach, Vom Programmierbüro zum globalen Softwareproduzenten. Die Erfolgsfaktoren der SAP von der Gründung bis zum R/3-Boom, 1972 bis 1996.
(From programming bureau to global software producer – the success factors for the SAP company from its foundation to the R/3-software boom, 1972-1996.)

People thinking of software usually mention two names: Microsoft and SAP. The fact that SAP is a German enterprise is less widely known, as it contradicts the widespread assumption of American dominance in the computer industry for both hardware and software. SAP is also unusual when looked at in terms of a German enterprise. The aim of this article is to sketch a business history of SAP. The main focus is the period before SAP became well known for their R/3-software. I want to outline which persons and ideas stood behind the concept of standardized and integrated business software and how SAP developed from a small software company to a global market leader.

Thomas Welskopp, Bis an die Grenzen des Gesetzes. Die Reaktion der legalen Alkoholwirtschaft auf die National Prohibition in den USA, 1920 bis 1933.
(Probing the Limits of the Law: The Adaptation of the Legal Alcohol Industries to the Conditions of National Prohibition in the United States, 1920-1933.)

The constitutional alcohol prohibition in the U.S., which came into effect in January 1920, and lasted to December 1933, effectively forced established brewers, distillers, and vintners out of their core businesses. Although their property was not «taken» in a legal sense, prohibition amounted to nothing else but a «cold expropriation» of its value. Under the conditions of National Prohibition an illegal underground economy of alcohol production and distribution mushroomed instead, which by the end of the 1920s produced sales of around five billion Dollars a year – approximately the same sum Americans would have spent on alcoholic beverages anyway if Prohibition had not come. The article examines how the legal businesses, the brewers, distillers and Californian grape farmers, dealt with this life-threatening situation and with the emergence of a tempting «wet» black market out of their reach if they did not choose to cross the line into illegality themselves. National Prohibition is treated as a measure of extreme state intervention, like other supply prohibitions or war economy regulations, to which the legal enterprises reacted in a flexible, fully opportunistic manner. The breweries, distilleries, and grape concentrate makers probed the limits of the law when they, after a short period of adaptation and re-orientation, turned to the manufacture, transport, and sale of the half-finished ingredients of alcoholic beer, spirits, and wine. While they themselves never really left legal territory – since their products did not contain fermented alcohol – they nevertheless provided the illegal black economy with raw materials ready to be refined into the final product on a scale that enabled the criminal alcohol business to become the third highest ranked industry in the U.S. by the end of the 1920s.

Heinrich Hartmann, Zwischen Projektionsfläche und Handlungsraum. Raumvorstellungen bei Bayer und PCAC, 1890 bis 1914.
(Between projection screen and area of action. Space conceptions at Bayer and PCAC, 1890 – 1914.)

The following paper seeks to conceive of space as a core category of corporate organization, especially in periods of structural change. Based on two case studies from French and German chemical enterprises between 1890 and 1914, it highlights how different agents tried to shape space in order to make it functional within the organisation of their enterprises. The German Bayer company tried to actively define new borders and hierarchies inside the enterprise by planning a new plant at Leverkusen. By contrast, French PCAC’s inorganic production was largely dependent on its natural environment in the Alps and at its sites near the Mediterranean Sea. Instead of actively transforming its organization, it tried to adjust it to its external determinants. In either case, space was a contentious factor in designing new corporate structures, whether treated as an external or a functional factor.

Ben Wubs, Unilever’s Struggle for Control. An Anglo-Dutch Multinational under German Occupation.

This article examines the effects of Germany’s occupation of the Netherlands on the corporate governance structure of the Anglo-Dutch Unilever company, which had huge interests on both sides of World War II. It focuses on the continental side of the business, in particular on the Netherlands and Germany, at the highest corporate level. I argue here that Unilever survived various serious threats by the German occupation because the group had prepared itself legally well in advance of the war. Its highly decentralised operating structure helped the company to survive the ambitions of some parts of the Nazi State. However, the infighting between various German agencies prevented a complete sequestration of the continental business. In the end the appointment of a special Reichs Commissioner for the Unilever group as well as the deteriorating war conditions for Nazi Germany eventually worked to the advantage of Unilever.

Buchbesprechungen (Reviews):

Avraham Barkai, Oscar Wassermann und die Deutsche Bank. Bankier in schwieriger Zeit (Kim Priemel)

Harold James, Familienunternehmen in Europa. Haniel, Wendel und Falck (Claus W. Schäfer)

Bernhard Stier/Johannes Laufer, Von der Preussag zur TUI. Wege und Wandlungen eines Unternehmens 1923-2003 (Roman Köster)

Hans Pohl/Bernd Rudolph/Günther Schulz, Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Sparkassen im 20.Jahrhundert (Harald Wixforth)

Johannes Bähr/Andrea H. Schneider, Teilzahlung im Wandel. Von der Kreditanstalt für Verkehrsmittel AG zur Diskont und Kredit AG 1924-1951 (Harald Wixforth)

Peter Hayes, From Cooperation to Complicity. Degussa in the Third Reich (Joachim Lund)

Thomas Weihe, Die Personalpolitik der Filialgroßbanken 1919-1945. Intervention, Anpassung und Ausweichbewegungen (Ingo Köhler)

Imke Thamm, Der Anspruch auf das Glück des Tüchtigen. Beruf, Organisation und Selbstverständnis der Bankangestellten in der Weimarer Republik (Dieter Ziegler)

Ralf Stremmel, Kammern der gewerblichen Wirtschaft im «Dritten Reich». Allgemeine Entwicklungen und das Fallbeispiel Westfalen-Lippe (Sebastian Beck)

Michael C. Schneider, Unternehmensstrategien zwischen Weltwirtschaftskrise und Kriegswirtschaft. Chemnitzer Maschinenbauindustrie in der NS-Zeit 1933-1945 (Ulrich Heß)

Sophie Fetthauer, Musikverlage im «Dritten Reich» und im Exil (Ute Brüdermann)

Rüdiger Hachtmann (Hrsg.), Ein Koloss auf tönernen Füßen. Das Gutachten des Wirtschaftsprüfers Karl Eicke über die Deutsche Arbeitsfront vom 31. Juli 1936 (Dieter Ziegler)

Industrie-Club e.V. Düsseldorf (Hrsg.), Treffpunkt der Eliten. Geschichte des Industrie-Clubs Düsseldorf. Texte und wissenschaftliche Bearbeitung von Volker Ackermann (Werner Bührer)

Reinhard Schlögl, Oskar Czeija. Radio- und Fernsehpionier, Unternehmer, Abenteurer (Kilian J. L. Steiner)

Holger Starke, Vom Brauerhandwerk zur Brauindustrie. Die Geschichte der Bierbrauerei in Dresden und Sachsen 1800-1914 (Roman Köster)

André Steiner (Hrsg.), Überholen ohne einzuholen. Die DDR-Wirtschaft als Fußnote der deutschen Geschichte? (Armin Müller)

Christophe Lécuyer, Making Silicon Valley: Innovation and the Growth of High Tech, 1930-1970 (Michael Friedewald)

Richard Tilly (verantw. Hrsg.), Vertrauen/Trust (Boris Gehlen)

Rolf Petri (Hrsg.), Technologietransfer aus der deutschen Chemieindustrie (1925-1960) (Frederike Sattler)

Dorothee Hochstetter, Motorisierung und «Volksgemeinschaft». Das nationalsozialistische Kraftfahrkorps (NSKK) 1931-1945 (Stefan Brüdermann)

Titus Kockel, Deutsche Ölpolitik 1928-1938 (Benjamin Obermüller)