Aufsätze (Articles)

Gerald D. Feldman: German Banks and National Socialist Efforts to Supply Capital and Support Industrialization in Newly Annexed Territories: The Austrian Model, S. 5-16

Christiane Eifert: Deutsche Unternehmerinnen und die Rhetorik vom «weiblichen Führungsstil» nach 1945 , S. 17 - 35

Boris Barth: Die Anfänge des Gerling-Konzerns 1904 bis 1926. Der «Outsider» Robert Gerling, das «Feuerkartell» und die Lücke im Markt, S. 36 - 62

Ruth Rosenberger: Von der sozialpolitischen zur personalpolitischen Transformationsstrategie. Zur Verwissenschaftlichung betrieblicher Personalpolitik in westdeutschen Unternehmen 1945 bis 1980, S. 63 - 82

Alexander Engel: Produktionssysteme im Wettstreit. Wissensorganisation im Kampf um den Weltmarkt für Indigo, 1880 – 1910, S. 83 - 104

Abstracts

Gerald D. Feldman: German Banks and National Socialist Efforts to Supply Capital and Support Industrialization in Newly Annexed Territories: The Austrian Model.

This paper examines the collaboration between the German National Socialist Government and the banking sector in supplying credits to assist the economic development of Austria following the German annexation in March 1938. The program, which was based on the granting of Reich-guaranteed credits by a consortium of banks, was the brainchild of Hans Kehrl, a powerful technocrat in the Reich Ministry of Economics. Kehrl worked closely with Wilhelm Keppler, Hitler’s economic adviser and Reich Plenipotentiary for Austria, and both worked for Hermann Göring’s Four Year Plan organization. The basic purpose of the program was to reconstruct the Austrian economy and raise the Austrian standard of living by promoting the rationalization and modernization of the Austrian economy. An effort was made to protect the Austrian economy from being taken over by German enterprises and to make the Austrian economy competitive with the German one as it became integrated into the economy of the Reich. However, a substantial number of credits were given to Austrians to assist them with the «Aryanization» of Jewish businesses, a difficult problem both because of the lack of skill and knowledge on the part of those taking over previously Jewish-owned enterprises and because of their insufficient capital. The program was also bedeviled by the tendency to favor applicants for political rather than economic reasons. Needless to say, this did not promote the economic rationalization or competitiveness desired by Kehrl. In general, the banks were ready to participate in the program so long as the loans were guaranteed, usually at 85 percent, by the Reich. The results of the program, however, did not live up to expectations because of its internal contradictions resulting from conflicts between ideology and economic rationality. Nevertheless, this program based on a public-private partnership between the government, which guaranteed loans, and the banks, which made the loans, served as a model for similar efforts in the Sudetenland and then in the annexed areas of Poland, where similar consortia financed both «settlement» projects for ethnic Germans and large scale industrial operations that employed forced and slave labor.

Christiane Eifert: Deutsche Unternehmerinnen und die Rhetorik vom «weiblichen Führungsstil» nach 1945.

In this article, the question will be discussed why German female entrepreneurs in the late 1960s decided to make use of the concept of «female management style». From its very beginning in 1954, the Association of German Female Entrepreneurs expressed the opinion that business women were exactly the same as business men and therefore refused to represent its members differently. In order to improve the Association’s bad public performance, social scientists were asked for advice in the 1960s. They recommended to signal unmistakable femaleness if business women wanted to be perceived and accepted as a female variant of entrepreneurs. References to female business management perfectly met this requirement. So, the Association of German Female Entrepreneurs now adopted the rhetoric of the «female management style» as an inborn aspect of the female personality. While within economics the concept of the «female management style» is still a highly controversial issue, social scientists prefer a different perspective and argue that processes of professionalisation and engendering are inseparably combined. Therefore, statements of profession are impossible without declaration of gender affiliation. Referring to this approach, the change in representation enforced by the Association of German Female Entrepreneurs is analyzed as an attempt to demonstrate professionalism and finally to gain the longed-for recognition.

Boris Barth: Die Anfänge des Gerling-Konzerns 1904 bis 1926. Der «Outsider Robert Gerling, das «Feuerkartell» und die Lücke im Markt. (The founding of the Gerling-group. The «outsider» Robert Gerling, the «Feuerkartell», and the niche in the market.)

The article deals with the first 20 years of the Gerling group's history. In 1904, Robert Gerling established his first insurance broker's office in Cologne and focused exclusively on the industrial sector. A severe conflict followed between the «outsider» and the so-called «Feuersyndikat», which was a well established cartel of the German fire-insurance companies. The conflict ended with Gerling's full victory and the cartel's breakdown in 1924, for Gerling was able to exploit the crisis of the hyperinflation in an extremely flexible way. For the first time it was possible to use all sources from the Gerling archives.

Ruth Rosenberger: Von der sozialpolitischen zur personalpolitischen Transformationsstrategie. Zur Verwissenschaftlichung betrieblicher Personalpolitik in westdeutschen Unternehmen 1945 bis 1980.
(From a Sociopolitical to a Personnel Political Transformation Strategy. The Scientification of Corporate Personnel Policy in West German Companies, 1945-1980.)

In the decades between the end of World War II and the early 1970s, the personnel policy of West German companies changed fundamentally. This process can be described as a process of scientification. Since the second half of the 1940s, human resource (HR) experts have tried to tackle the problem of transfomation by exploring new methods such as individualized personnel training programs. During the 1950s psychologists were rarely employed by companies. During the same time, however, they founded external institutions, like the «Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Soziale Betriebsgestaltung» where they formed a relatively coherent body of professionals with similiar aims and scope. Gradually, they managed to introduce their ideas, demands and claims to major companies. In the second half of the 1960s, many major companies began a comprehensive reconstruction of their organisational structures, which openend up the chance for human resource experts to achieve their professional aims. Finally, a new strategy of transformation was thus firmly established. This was mainly due to new and specialised forms of expert knowledge. These changes were brought about by human resource experts. Due to their enhanced professionalism, they were accepted as exclusive bearers of human-scientific knowlegde. Human resource experts successfully established themselves as one of the cornerstones of a modern management concept. Therefore the case of HR management contributes to a deeper insight into how organizational structures, i.e. those of personnel departments, changed profoundly within companies.

Alexander Engel: Produktionssysteme im Wettstreit. Wissensorganisation im Kampf um den Weltmarkt für Indigo, 1880 – 1910 (Competing Systems of Production. The Organisation of Knowledge in the Contest for the Indigo World Market, 1880-1910)

In 1897, the BASF launched an artificial version of the single most important textile dye, indigo. Soon it ousted its natural counterpart, which was mainly produced in British India. This success, however, cannot be explained by cost advantages. Rather, the key is to be found in a superior organisation of knowledge. The fragmented and poorly organised production system in British India – consisting of thousands of Indian peasants, hundreds of independent processing facilities and dozens of independent merchants – indeed attempted to develop modern means of distribution and to initiate research in order to improve the comparatively low efficiency of the production process. Yet this attempt at a «scientification of production» proved to be inferior to that in the German chemical industry. Then again, also the BASF had to learn its lessons. With the rise of chemistry as an university subject, expert systems which were formerly closely intertwined with business increasingly withdrew from the economic sphere. Cooperation between universities and companies did only work temporarily, so the establishment of internal expert systems, i.e. R&D departments, became necessary. Knowledge-intense production relying on expert systems was not a new phenomenon after 1850, only the degree to which experts were employed and knowledge was systematised and advanced. Hence, the term «scientification of production» is a problematic one, as the relation between economy and science (the dominant expert system in the later 19th century) developed in manifold and often discrepant ways.

Buchbesprechungen (Book reviews)

Wilhelm Bartmann, Zwischen Tradition und Fortschritt, Aus der Geschichte der Pharmabereiche von Bayer, Hoechst und Schering von 1935 - 1975 (Carl Henning Reschke)

Ursula Becker, Kaffee-Konzentration (Alexander Engel)

Hartmut Berghoff, Moderne Unternehmensgeschichte, Eine themen- und theoreorientierte (Alfred Reckendres)

Hans-Liudger Dienel, Die Linde AG. Geschichte eines Technologiekonzern 1879 - 2004 (Peter Borscheid)

Paul Erker, Bernhard Lorentz, Chemie und Politik, Die Geschichte der Chemischen Werke Hüls 1938 - 1980 (Friederike Sattler)

Edgar Fischer, Tradition und High.Chem. eine chlorreiche Geschichte im Raum Bitterfeld Wolfen - Zur Industriegeschichte der Bitterfelder Region (Claus Christ)

Margot Fuchs, Georg von Arco (1869 - 1940) - Ingenieur, Pazifist, Technischer Direktor von Telefunken, Eine Erfinderbiographie (Michael Friedewald)

Lothar Gall, Der Bankier. Hermann Josef Abs, Eine Biographie (Ralf Ahrens)

Thomas Großbölting, Rüdiger Schmidt (Hg.), Unternehmerwirtschaft zwischen Markt und Lenkung, Organisationsformen, politischer Einfluß und ökonomisches Verhalten (Kim Priemel)

Harold James, Jakob Tanner (Hg.), Enterprise in the Period of Fascism in Europe (Florian Triebel)

Herbert Matis, Dieter Stiefel, Grenzenlos. Die Geschichte der internationalen Spedition Schenker von 1931 bis 1991 (Peter Borscheid)

Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte 2003/1 (Neue Ergebnisse zum NS-Aufschwung) (Kim Priemel)

Alexander Schug, History Marketing, Ein Leitfaden zum Umgang mit Geschichte in Unternehmen (Frank Konersmann)

Ulrich S. Soénius (Hg.), Bewegen - Verbinden - Gestalten. Unternehmer vom 17. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert. Festschrift für Klara van Eyll zum 28. September 2003 (Boris Gehlen)

Erdmann Thiele, Telefunken nach 100 Jahren, Das Erbe einer deutschen Weltmarke (Michael Friedewald)

Justus Vesting, "Mit dem Mut zum gesunden Risiko". Die Arbeitsbedingungen von Strafgefangenen und Bausoldaten in den Betrieben der Region Bitterfeld, Buna und Leuna unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des VEB Chemiekombinat Bitterfeld (Claus Christ)

Oliver Werner, Ein Betrieb in zwei Diktaturen, Von der Bleichert Transportanalgen GmbH zum VEB VTA Leipzig 1932 bis 1963 (Armin Mueller)