The Baumwoll-Aktiengesellschaft Bremen (Baumag) was founded in November 1941 as a private company of cotton traders and spinners. It was put in charge of the cultivation of cotton in the German occupied Soviet territories, especially the Ukraine and the Crimea, by the state-controlled Ostfaser. Thus, the history of the Baumag allows an insight in the structure of the new enterprises which were supposed to manage the exploitation of the Soviet Union, and also in the German occupational practice as a whole. The remarkable aspect of this is the mixture of private entrepreneurs and state, party and military representatives in the supervisory board of the Baumag. Furthermore, the influence of the German big banks, first of all the Deutsche Bank, attracts attention. The experts of the company followed the first German troops and took over the Soviet system of cotton cultivation. However, there were many problems which complicated the work of the Baumag, above all the lack of fuel and seed and the deportation of workers during harvest. The Baumag was increasingly impeded by the malfunctioning occupational administration. So the company could never reach its declared aim: the improvement of German supply with cotton.

Germany was a late-comer as a colonial power. The first wave of annexations occurred in 1884-85 when the greater part of the German colonial empire was acquired, and was followed by a second minor wave in 1897-99 when Kiautschou, the Caroline and Mariana Islands and Samoa were also obtained. The article describes and explains the annexation of the Caroline and Mariana Islands, and argues the case that the prime motive for the annexation was economic expansion, and not the extension of naval power. After ceding their Caribbean possessions, the Philippines and Guam to the United States, Spain agreed to sell Germany the Caroline Islands of Yap, Ponape and Kusaie in September 1898, and all the Caroline and Mariana Islands except Guam in December of the same year. A Spanish-German treaty was signed on 12 February 1899, fixing the price at 25 million pesetas, equivalent to 17 million marks. Secretary of State von Bülow glorified the acquisition of the Caroline and Mariana Islands as the cornerstone for the proud building of a \"Greater Germany\". The economic importance of the Islands, however, was negligible. In Germany\'s imperialist \"Weltpolitik\" of the 1890s, the Caroline and Mariana Islands were to symbolise dreams of greater colonial gains never to be realised.

Untertitel: A dialogue on social responsibilityDuring the last decades of the 19th century and the interwar period the Belgian Catholic Church entered into an intense dialogue with the entrepreneurial milieu. Building on older networks several Catholic entrepreneurs' organizations were created. These structures developed intricate discourses, confronting business men with their social responsibility, shaping and affirming their identity and worldview in contrast to that of their liberal counterparts. Belgian Catholic entrepreneurs associations radiated a particular organizational culture, exuding a genteel atmosphere of a socio-religious debating club. But they also advocated a clear Christian identity, in line with Catholic social teachings and neo-scholastic philosophy. Only a (re)Christianization of the business world, so they argued, would provide a durable solution to existing social tensions. The bon patron catholique had to become an instrument of moral regeneration and social renovation. Members were urged to highlight the Catholic identity of their company, to guide and monitor the families that worked for them and to offer clear and regular support to social works. The discourse of the Belgian Catholic entrepreneurial organizations on the social responsibility of their members would only slowly move away from its paternalist roots. Nonetheless in the interwar period a more structural vision on social relations arose, resulting into a closer collaboration with the Christian workers movement. This prepared the Belgian Catholic entrepreneurs’ organizations for their leading role in the post-war welfare state and its systems of interest mediation and collective bargaining.

Untertitel: Der Rücktritt Ernst Brandis vom Vorsitz der Bezirksgruppe Steinkohlenbergbau Ruhr im Juni 1937Mining Elite and National Socialist Elite. Ernst Brandi´s Resignationfrom the Chair of «Bezirksgruppe Steinkohlenbergbau Ruhr» in June 1937 So far little is known about Ernst Brandi´s resignation from the chair of the «Bezirksgruppe Steinkohlenbergbau Ruhr», which was the compulsory organization for the Ruhr mining industry during the Third Reich. The only matter of common knowledge is that the resignation could be traced back to the declared intention of NSDAP-Gauleiter in Essen and Oberpräsident of the Rhine Province, Josef Terboven. Therefore regional historiography takes Brandi´s withdrawal as an argument for both the growing distance between NSDAP- and mining-elites and the rapidly decreasing influence of the once powerful mining organizations. The article reinterprets Brandi´s resignation describing its detailed circumstances for the first time. It will be argued that the mining organizations managed to keep a high degree of self-government even under political pressure.

Corporate welfare in Japan is multifaceted and extensive. But its scope in terms of recipients is rather limited and its benefits reach a smaller number of persons than corporate welfare in Germany. The reason for this is that it is restricted to the very big companies and their core workforce, which amount to only 25 percent of all employees in Japan and presently is decreasing even more. Old-age benefits play an important role within this system of corporate welfare. They are offered in two modes: the first is a one-time lump-sum payment of considerable size at the time of mandatory retirement-age (teinen), between 55-60 years of age. This type goes back to traditional patterns of employment in family-business in 19th century Japan, where servants after long years of employment with very low payment finally received a severance lump-sum-payment in their forties in order to be able to establish a business of their own. Today, the majority of companies operate a combination of this traditional type lump-sum severance payment with a modern pension system of monthly pension benefits. Corporate old-age pension-systems in Japan relieve the state of the need for higher public social welfare expenses. On the other hand, this privatisation of a considerable part of social welfare has the effect of doubling the discriminatory effects of the dual economic system with outstanding differences between the few big companies and an unusually great number of small and medium-sized companies. These differences in the conditions of social security between the two types of business are even more outspoken than the wage-differentials.

An expansion of personal responsibility and occupational social policies (fringe benefits) are often seen as means to reduce the high level of social insurance contributions in the Federal Republic of Germany; concomitantly, such a policy approach would contribute to a higher economic dynamic. In this context, many observers have referred to the United States of America as a model. In a first step, this paper outlines key elements of the political culture as well as the institutional setting, which have historically contributed to the high level of importance of fringe benefits within the US welfare state. In a second step, it shows that, since the 1970s, the reach of fringe benefits has declined and that they have undergone a qualitative change, while government programs, especially health care programs, were expanded with a certain time lag in an incremental manner. Finally, it is stressed that a stronger reliance on fringe benefits within a welfare system is not necessarily less costly for companies, compared to largely publicly provided social policies, but can have significant side effects.

Untertitel: Das Volkswagenwerk in Wolfsburg und Automobiles Peugeot in Sochaux von 1944 bis 1979The «Wirtschaftswunder» or the «Trente Glorieuses» is often ascribed to the establishment of Fordism, the regime of accumulation which is said to have dominated business and society until the 1970’s. This article examines to what extent the funding of housing by the automobile manufacturers Volkswagen and Peugeot was marked by Fordist elements, such as the subsidisation of privately owned homes. As housing shortages prevailed in Wolfsburg and Sochaux, while the employment increased sharply, the companies engaged in the construction of residential homes and tenements. Therefore they contracted non-profit building companies they controlled; the works councils’ influence remained at a minimum. Since the 60’s, these automobile manufacturers have increasingly subsidised the construction of family homes for their employees, who could afford more and more their own accommodation due to the rise in real wages. As a result, it can be seen that Volkswagen’s and Peugeot’s housing commitment was rather a reaction to corporate need than the systematic implementation of Fordist policy.

Over two thousand monographic studies and countless essays and articles in the field of «enterprise history» - very inadequately defined as the socialist response to capitalist business history - were published in the German Democratic Republic between 1949 and 1990. In a development parallel to that in the Soviet Union, the «history of factories and production plants», later more comprehensively called «enterprise history», was meant to contribute to the «battle of ideologies» during the Cold War. Like local and regional historiography, enterprise history served as a didactic tool and as a integral part of adult education, because it attempted to enhance the «socialist consciousness» of the working population. Ordinary working people encouraged to write the histories of their production plants, cooperatives or (later) collective farms were, supposedly, instilled with pride in their places of work, their home, and in the achievements of socialist economy as a whole. Within the production centres, initiatives in, help with, and control of historiographical activities resided with the ruling party\'s representatives; they were responsible for the output\'s ideological faithfulness to the party line. This attempt at a historiographical «mass-movement» failed, however, since not enough volunteers could be recruited to invest time and energy into enterprise history projects. Regional consulting centres were not able to save the state\'s ambitious goal of a history by workers for workers. With the New Economic System of the 1960s, enterprise history received fresh impulses from a stronger inclusion of business management aspects. The aim now was to show how, in the past, the working class had successfully overcome economic and technical difficulties, thus ideally motivating the workers for even greater efforts in the future. With the political EastWest-détente and in an attempt to raise the quality of research, the writing of enterprise history was made to shift from the workers at their production plants to historians, archives, and libraries and was thus «professionalized». Verbal confrontations with the capitalist system declined in number and gravity, while analyses of economic, technical, sociological and mathematical questions gained importance. The innovative power of the capitalist system and its entrepreneurs was even acknowledged. As to the use of sources, oral history as a specifically «socialist» source lost its influence, and the enterprise historian now turned to traditional sources, even to the commemorative publications of capitalist companies. Despite the often still questionable content of enterprise history publications, the efforts to expand this branch of historiography for its ideological function were intensive by the ruling party, the SED, since 1977. Within scarcely one decade, over 1.800 local enterprise history committees with almost 20.000 members were created. One important result of their work were the so-called «Tradition cabinets» or small exhibitions. Even more than general economic history, enterprise history in the German Democratic Republic was utilized to legitimize the rule of the SED, which resulted in the ideological lobsidedness and partiality of every publication. As main fact collections, documentations, or bibliographical aids, though, they may still be helpful for today\'s business historians.

Untertitel: Die Reaktion der legalen Alkoholwirtschaft auf die «National Prohibition» in den USA, 1920 bis 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, destillers, and vintners out of their core business. 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 bill. dollar a year - approximately the same sum Amercans would have spent on alcoholic beverages anyway if Prohibition had not come. The article examines how the legal branch of the business, the brewers, distillers and Californian grape farmers, dealt with this life-threantenign 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 adaption and reorientation, 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.

Untertitel: A biographical sketch of Hector Ledru, manufacturer and inventor(1798 to 1876)During the first half of the nineteenth century, the french economy underwent a major technological change, with small and medium-scale entrepreneurs driving the industrilisation by developing and exploiting new technologies. This paper examines the life of one such entrepreneur, Hector Ledru (ca. 1798 to 1876), who started out in the sugar industry of the post Napoleonic era. He soon morphed into an entrepreneur exploiting patents in the manufacture of wooden barrel manufacture, galvanised iron and metal pipes, before an example of the archetypical small and later medium-scale entrepreneur making his way in post Napoleonic France, never reaching national fame, but all the way adjusting to the various social and economic circumstances.

This article discusses the high propensity of British-owned enterprises to engage in foreign direct investment over the last one hundred years. It surveys the extensive literature on the historical development of British multinationals in the primary, service and manufacturing sectors. It shows that Britain was the largest home economy in the world for multinationals before 1945, and has remained the second largest after 1945 until the present day. The article relates the high level of British multinational investment to the existence of extensive capital markets, but it also suggests that such investment could not have been sustained without significant management skills. It is argued that the existence of large British multinational investment may challenge prevailing interpretations of twentieth century British business history which stress the poor quality of its management. Over the last thirty years the British-controlled share of world sales has declined less sharply than British exports. This may suggest that British economic decline has been caused less by management failure than by other factors, especially public policy failures which helped to drive British companies to seek better opportunities in foreign countries.

Untertitel: Mechanische Rechenmaschinen als WelterfolgA curiosity concerning the history of mechanical calculating machines is, that they came into the offices later than 1870. At this time their theoretical and constructive principles were known since more than 200 years. But the first calculating machines, the ancestors of the computers, were only built in single exemplars and disappeared in private museums. The great time of the calculating machines in Germany began ten years before the change of the century. Due to the process of industrialization, the increase of population and higher efforts in accounting the amount of calculations and statistics expanded rapidly. The mechanical calculating machines promised to help managing the new tasks. The company "Grimme, Natalis & Co.", later "Brunsviga", was the most successful producer of calculating machines in Germany. Beginning 1892 till 1959 nearly half a million "Brunsvigas" were sold. The basis for this success were the effective advertising and the distribution system, which were the most remarkable strategy of the company. The name "Brunsviga" became a synonym for calculating machines during fifty years. At last, 1959, "Brunsviga" was integrated in the "Olympia AG", which was a part of the AEG-trust. Some years later, when the first electronic computers came to the market, the history of mechanical calculating machines came to an end. But the Brunsviga-story is a good example for the thesis, that the diffusion of technical products is not only a technical or economic problem, but that it could only be understood considering the whole cultural context.

Quoting and annotating the publications of the fourth Paris World Fair registers and critics this review on the patronage activities of various Prussian and German exhibitors contributes to the discussion on integrated stabilization and programs for social reforms. These were introduced by various societies and enterprises of the Northern German Confederation and the South-German states later copied by foreign societies. The image cultivation of these enterprises and the reasons given for the necessity to improve social stability were named in the tenth group \"to improve the physic and moral conditions of the population\" on an international level. This makes plain the anxiety caused by the pending social conflicts which had to be solved by all means in order to prevent strikes and to assure economic growth. The study contributes mainly to the history of social politics followed by German societies before the introduction of Bismarck\'s social legislation in the 1880\'s.