Aufsätze
Peter Borscheid Der ökonomische Kern der Unternehmensgeschichte
Florian Triebel / Jürgen Seidl Ein Analyserahmen für das Fach Unternehmensgeschichte
Michael Friedewald Telefunken und der deutsche Schiffsfunk 1903-1914
Drahomír Jancík / Eduard Kubu / Jirí Novotný / Jirí Šouša Der Mechanismus der Enteignung jüdischen Goldes im "Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren" und seine Funktionsweise (1939 - 1945)
Abstracts
To concentrate on the economic core must take priority in the future within business history. Therefore the New Institutional Economics will be of great support. The following article will give some aspects to it. The discussion over the involved disciplines comes, however, only on second place.
This article takes up the ongoing discussion in German business history. Starting with a short structured summary of the more important theoretical approaches which are used in business history so far, it is intended to set up a framework for the historical analysis of business firms. This framework takes into account the multiple and various aspects of the firms as a subject as well as of business history itself. The analytical framework is based on the conclusion that business firms are influenced by its surroundings in many ways. On the other hand, firms create and influence their surroundings through their entrepreneurial actions. The multiple and interdependent relations of business firms and their surroundings form a structured network. Its shape, intensity and stability differs from firm to firm and change in the course of time. The strings of the network reach not only the markets in which the firms take part, but also the spheres of culture, society, and nature. The framework is visualized in a graphical model which shows the business firm in the center of the network and its interrelations. Finally, some possibilities are given for further research using this analytical framework.
On May 27, 1903 the "Gesellschaft für drahtlose Telegraphie m.b.H." (System Telefunken) was established as a subsidiary of the Allgemeine Electricitäts Gesellschaft (AEG) and Siemens & Halske AG. In the following years the new enterprise, which had a practical monopoly in Germany, was aggressively seeking markets both in Europe and in North America. In marine uses radio was filling a gap in the existing communications technology large enough to give Telefunken a chance to establish itself. In German merchant shipping, wireless stations were at first considered a dispensable luxury, that were useful only for large shipping companies for advertisement purposes on their transatlantic routes. The meaning of wireless telegraphy for the distress rescue entered the public consciousness by a series of spectacular ship rescues beginning in 1909 and the "Titanic" disaster in 1912. To make their new "quenched spark system" useful and attractive for civilian merchant shipping it was necessary for Telefunken to develop new technical facilities and organisational structures. Telefunken engineers revised the transmitter and the receiver of their radio system, designed add-on modules for the maritime radio, and made the operation of the devices more uniform and user-friendly. Telefunken started to operate stations on shipboard with their own devices and personnel to make it easier for the German shipowners to use wireless technology. Additionally the German Post Office and the military establishment put pressure on the shipowners to equip their vessels with wireless stations from Germany. Until 1914, Telefunken and the German Postal, Telephone and Telegraph Administration established a number of maritime radio services that expanded the field of application of wireless telegraphy further. On the eve of World War I Telefunken had thus become one of the major "global players" in the emerging field of radio communications.
The study deals with the mechanism of the illegal expropriation of gold and gold artefacts owned by people or companies of Jewish origin in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia during the Second World War. Analysis of the legislative framework of the expropriation process identifies the decisive role of the Office of the Reichsprotektor as the supreme administrative organ of the Nazi occupation. The study explains the institutionalisation of the expropriation process in terms of three lines of activities. The first line represents the activity of the state secret police (Gestapo), and the second the purchasing monopoly of the peculiar "Hadega" commercial company which was under the control of both the Office of the Reichsprotektor and the Kreditanstalt der Deutschen, a bank with a tradition of nationalist sympathies, The third line represents a chain of institutions specially set up to appropriate and exploit Jewish property (chiefly the so-called Auswanderungsfond and Vermögensamt) The study also defines the subordinate role of the autonomous organs of Czech economic administration that worked under the direct control of representatives and collaborators of the Reich and German regime of occupation. It provides data on the quantity of gold and jewelry expropriated. The expropriation process involved an absurd combination of the principle of formally private enterprise and the state interests of Nazi Germany. The real "entrepreneur" with Jewish gold was of course the Reichsprotector himself, who delegated the deals to be made to "business" subjects under his control. The mechanism of transactions which find no parallel in the civilised world, shows the sophistication and systematic thoroughness of the Nazis in the liquidation and sale of Jewish property on markets in Germany and abroad.
Rudolf Tschirbs Kabalen und Nächstenliebe. Die rheinisch-westfälischen Bergwerksindustriellen und das Grubenunglück von Courrières 1906
The biggest mining accident, and the greatest catastrophe in the history of human labour up to this point, the Courrieres pit disaster, which occurred on 10 May 1906, shook the European public twice. First, in the immediate context of the catastrophe itself, which claimed 1099 miners as victims, then later in 1931, after the appearance of G.W. Pabst's 'Comradeship', a film version based on the events of the mining disaster. The Ruhr mining industry had sent two experienced rescue squads from the 'Shamrock' and 'Rheinelbe' mines to France, and their efforts were hailed by some as the shining act of friendship between two nations, by others as the manifestation of international solidarity between miners. However, in actuality, the dispatch was initiated by one individual, by Bergmeister (master miner ?) Engel, member of the executive board for the Essen Bergbau-Verein. The Ruhr industrialists felt obligated to go along with the plan for aid, which Engel had offered the befriended French mining industrialists. During this period between the First Moroccan Crisis and the Schlieffen Plan it seemed for a short moment, as if the Ruhr mining industry had given a signal indicating the possibility of international understanding / cooperation (the possibility of a rapprochement ?). In the spring of 1906 this glimmer of hope turned already out to be an illusion, of course.
Buchbesprechungen
Deutsche Bundesbank (Hrsg.) Fünfzig Jahre Deutsche Mark, Notenbank und Währung in Deutschland seit 1948 (Albrecht Ritschl)
Dieter Ziegler (Hrsg.) Grossbürger und Unternehmer. Die deutsche Wirtschaftselite im 20. Jahrhundert (Morten Reitmayer)
Lutz Budraß Flugzeugindustrie und Luftrüstung in Deutschland 1918-1945 (Stefanie van de Kerkhof)
Manfred Pohl Die Strabag 1923 bis 1998 (Werner Abelshauser)
Barbara Wolbring Krupp und die Öffentlichkeit im 19. Jahrhundert. Selbstdarstellung, öffentliche Wahrnehmung und gesellschaftliche Kommunikation (Karl-Peter Ellerbrock)
Hans Hermann Spoo Das Bankgewerbe in Neuwied am Rhein im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Harald Wixforth)
Jan Körnert Dominoeffekte im Bankensystem - Theorien und Evidenz (Peter Reus)
Joachim Beer Der Funktionswandel der deutschen Wertpapierbörsen in der Zwischenkriegszeit (1924-1939) (Karl Häuser)
Jörg Lichter Preußische Notenbankpolitik in der Formationsphase des Zentralbanksystems 1844 bis 1857 (Bernd Kulla)
Thorsten C. Kölmel Das Auslandsgeschäft deutscher Versicherungsunternehmen in den USA: unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Allianz und Münchner Rück; eine versicherungs-, unternehmens- und wirtschaftshistorische Studie (Peter Borscheid)
Evelyn Kroker / Michael Farrenkopf Grubenunglücke im deutschsprachigen Raum. Katalog der Bergwerke, Opfer, Ursachen und Quellen (Dietmar Bleidick)
Barbara Schleicher Heisses Eisen. Zur Unternehmenspolitik der Österreichisch-Alpine Montangesellschaft in den Jahren 1918-1933 (Alfred Reckendrees)
Jean-Daniel Kleisl Piquerez SA et Ruedin SA. Le patronat de la boîte de montre dans la vallée de Delémont. L'exemple de E. Piquerez SA et G. Ruedin SA à Bassecourt (1926-1982) (Yves Froidevaux)
Gudrun Kruip Das "Welt"-"Bild" des Axel-Springer-Verlags. Journalismus zwischen westlichen Werten und deutschen Denktraditionen (Joachim Lilla)
Clemens Wischermann / Peter Borscheid / Karl-Peter Ellerbrock (Hrsg.) Unternehmenskommunikation im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Neue Wege der Unternehmensgeschichte (Thomas Keiderling)
Jürgen Kocka / Claus Offe (Hrsg.) Geschichte und Zukunft der Arbeit (Peter Borscheid)
Malcolm H. Dunn Die Unternehmung als ein soziales System. Ein sozialwissenschaftlicher Beitrag zur Neuen Mikroökonomie (Hartmut Berghoff)
Achim Hopbach Unternehmer im Ersten Weltkrieg. Einstellungen und Verhalten württembergischer Unternehmer im "Großen Krieg" (Stefanie van de Kerkhof)
Wolfgang Mühl-Benninghaus Das Ringen um den Tonfilm: Strategien der Elektro- und Filmindustrie in den 20er und 30er Jahren (Michael Friedewald)
Pamela Walker Laird Advertising Progress. American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing (Hartmut Berghoff)
Uwe Wallbaum Die Rübenzuckerindustrie in Hannover. Zur Entstehung und Entwicklung eines landwirtschaftlich gebundenen Industriezweigs von den Anfängen bis zum Beginn des Ersten Weltkriegs (Karl-Peter Ellerbrock)
Irene R. Lauterbach Christian Wilhelm Hermann Trommsdorff (1811-1884) (Ulrich Meyer)