Inhaltsverzeichnis der Beiträge

The Medici-Bank and its structure in the context of its presence. The article deals with the rise and fall of the medieval Medici-Bank in order to shed light on the emergence of a ‹modern› banking sector in Europe. Special attention is paid to the bank’s structure and organisation, which will be analysed in the tradition of the work and ideas of Karl Polanyi as being embedded in the specific historical institutions of medieval Europe. It will be shown that both the medieval banking sector and the structure and organisation of the Medici-Bank reflected the highly specific institutions and circumstances of their time and were in fact igh-end adaptations to them. It will furthermore be investigated in detail how such an organisation had to be shaped in order to overcome the economic difficulties of the 14th century. Finally, the organisation of the Medici-Bank will be discussed against the background of modern business organisation theory. Based on Alfred D. Chandler’s concepts, the Medici Bank can be identified as a very early multidivisional form of organisation.

The Upper Silesian Coal Convention – a «family affair»? This article presents new evidence on the Upper Silesian Coal Convention, a coal-mining cartel in Upper Silesia, in existence from 1898 to 1925. The cartel had evolved from collusive agreements dating back to 1890 and accounted for approximately one fourth of Germany’s coal supply. Yet, market coverage and longevity of the convention, as well as the economic importance of the Upper Silesian industrial district in general, imply that this cartel has been understated in historical research so far. Aristocratic industrialists, the leading group of entrepreneurs in Upper Silesia, shaped the formation and operation of the cartel. They induced an oligopolistic market structure and social homogeneity among cartel members that facilitated cartel formation in Upper Silesia.

The Upper Silesian Coal Convention – a «family affair»? This article presents new evidence on the Upper Silesian Coal Convention, a coal-mining cartel in Upper Silesia, in existence from 1898 to 1925. The cartel had evolved from collusive agreements dating back to 1890 and accounted for approximately one fourth of Germany’s coal supply. Yet, market coverage and longevity of the convention, as well as the economic importance of the Upper Silesian industrial district in general, imply that this cartel has been understated in historical research so far. Aristocratic industrialists, the leading group of entrepreneurs in Upper Silesia, shaped the formation and operation of the cartel. They induced an oligopolistic market structure and social homogeneity among cartel members that facilitated cartel formation in Upper Silesia.

The city of Lüneburg gained its wealth from the production of salt. This was based on a saline spring of saturated brine . It was the northernmost saline spring in central Europe during medieval times. The salt was exported in great quantities to the Scandinavian countries, mostly via the city of Lübeck. The organization of the saltern is characterised by two outstanding features: the first is the clear distinction between ownership and shop management and the second is the co-ordination of the management of a big corporation by guild regulations. This form of organization lasted from the first written reports from the times of ca. 1200 until the year 1800. The division between ownership and management gives an impression of early aspects of different property rights . It shows that under different social and political conditions different solutions to the problem of coordination in a firm will evolve.

Untertitel: Die deutsche Chemieindustrie in der Diskussion um das FCKW-Verbot 1974 bis 1991Negotiating the Ozone Layer. The Role of the German Chemical Industry in the discussion on the CFC-ban, 1974 to 1991 Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) was produced and widely used by the chemical industry until the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was agreed in 1987. However, the discussion on the prohibition of CFC first started in the 70s following research on its damaging effects on the ozone layer by Mario J. Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland. This article aims at answering the question how the different actors within the chemical industry reacted to the discussion to forbid this profitable substance. Companies had to learn how to cope with environmental problems, reacting to the emergence of environmentalist values in society in the 70s. The article focusses on German companies and compares them with US-based DuPont to show the scope of action different companies had in solving the new problems, as required by the public and legislators. The reaction of the companies to the planned CFC ban cannot be explained with a simple challenge-and-responsemodel, but has to be seen in the complex structure of natio nal, international and scientific developments regarding the CFC-discussion.

When, in the last 20 years, historians became interested in the French pharmaceutical industry, the years of the German occupation in World War II became a part of this history, but did not connstitute a distinct subject. However, if we consider France between 1940 and 1944, the changes in the pharmaceutical industry appear quite important. First, the decree on pharmacy of 1941 created a new frame for the industrial enterprises and set up the first rules for the drugs market, including «scientific» and technical criteria that supported the marketing of new drugs. Second, the whole industry, like other activities, had to observe the restrictive rules of a time of scarcity, and more generally, the firms had to arrange with the strong interventionism of the French State . Third, the pharmaceutical sector began to develop into a science-based industry, for since the 1930s, its connections with academic research had yielded new products, like sulphonamides, and new methods. Several questions arise when historian considers the time of the occupation, and these may help to compare the pharmaceutical industry with other industries. Statistical resources provide information about the activities of the firms: the consequences of the German occupation, the loss of foreign markets, and the scarcity of raw materials challenged business and obliged the firms to find alternatives. The choices of the firms are an important question for historians, too: did they actively collaborate with the Germans, did they simply try to survive or did they decide to resist? As the business archives in question too often are not accessible for French historians, they draw on sources from several ministries (e.g. Health, Industry). These documents show a stronger interventionism of the French State . This impression is not the result of the biased perspective stemming from the nature of the state documents, but the shift towrads state interventionism must be considered a major change that also continued after the war.

Untertitel: Auftragsverlagerungen in die besetzten Gebiete während des Zweiten WeltkriegesGerman companies received comprehensive shipments of goods producted by enterprises located in German-occupied countries during World War II. Analysis of this issue is largely absent from existing scholarly literature. This article addresses this gap by examining a case study of the means by which Auto Union AG outsourced work to foreign firms. When dealing with their external suppliers, the Auto Union AG clearly worked for its own interests, and fulfilled the requests of the foreign companies only if there was no other possible solution.

The Role of the Ghetto Litzmannstadt (Łódź) for the Clothing Provision of the German Armed Forces and Private Firms (1940 to 1944) Shortly after the establishment of the Ghetto in Łódź, the German administration set up a textile and clothing department. As Łódź was the leading Polish textile center, many ghetto inhabitants had basic or advanced skills in the textile and clothing business. After several months it became clear for the Jews that working for the Germans was the only chance to making themselves valuable and to avoid or postpone being deported to extermination camps. The textile and clothing department soon became the largest sweatshop in the ghetto and was also an important provider of textiles, clothing and leather goods for the German economy. Previous research followed the claim of the department's head that the German military took over 90 per cent of its production. We show for the large textile and clothing department that the share production for civilian purposes was much higher, around 50 per cent. Moreover, we analyse the business relationship between the ghetto administration and German firms.

There are a lot of rumours about C & A Brenninkmeyer but de facto we know very little. Despite of the fact that this Dutch giant of German origin operates very successfully in more than 5 Westeuropean countries on the ready-made clothing scene, we have no deeper understanding of the concern\'s process of growth, of its volume of business or its profits. Ask the managers for details of their organisation and methods, and they will explain politely but firmly: We are a private company and therefore prefer not to make these things public\' (Daily Mail of 21 April 1965). It should therefore not be so much of a surprise that there is still no scientific business-history of C & A, and that the concern is not mentioned in any of the great current encyclopedias. C. is for Clemens and A. for August Brenninkmeyer from Ibbenbühren in Germany (Westfalia), who first set up shop in 1841 in the little Dutch-Frisian town of Sneek, after having operated for a long time as travelling traders in textiles (the so-called Tüötten\'). The industrial revolution and the European urbanisation at the end of the 19th century made the foundation of other settlements possible, the rising chain-store in the Netherlands was soon followed by a European one, starting in 1911 in Germany and in 1922 in England. About the causes of the C & A success since then and now, five generations and a fortune later, one can only guess. One of them may be for instance the perfectly working internal communication-system: although the national managements work quite autonomously, the Amsterdam head-office knows by evening everything about the concern\'s results of the day.

The essay about the hire-purchase-credits tries to look at the way of life of the west German society 1948-1960. It asks for the consumers, their behaviour of economizing, their moral of payment, their income and for consumer goods. The hirepurchase developed in the following steps: 1. 1948-1950 was the hire-purchase business rebuilt; the level of consume arrives 1950 the level from the pre-war period. 2. Modern goods for house and household (for example refrigerator) were bought 1950-1955 on hire-purchase. 1953 paid 30% of the society installments. 3. A new generation of consumer goods like cars were paid by hire-purchase. The part of the society who paid installments sank, new kinds of credits were offered for the consumers. The author describes the social composition of the people who bought on the installments, the goods that were sold by hire-purchase, the discussion about it and the attitude of the society to installment. Anyway the author describes the organisation of the hire-purchase business. In summary the hire-purchase credits gave a great part of the west German society the chance to participate in the expansion of the economy, which was called a «Wirtschaftswunder».

Untertitel: Die Rationalisierungsbewegung und die Beschleunigung des Lebens in den Weimarer JahrenTaylorism and Fordism forced people to work faster in industry and household. Movements getting faster were also applied to leisure time. Life has obtained a new rhythm eversince. It had been set in motion with ,speed' gaining enormous prestige in the 1920's society.

In the 19th century there were a lot of coachfactories in Europe. The largest factories produced hundreds of coaches and carriages per year. The early 20th century brought about a change. Steam, electric and petrol cars replaced coaches in the streets of the large cities. More and more the coachfactories were forced to look for new products and markets. One of the most interesting enterprises was the Austrian coachfactory Jakob Lohner Company in Vienna. This factory produced cars and their bodies, aeroplanes, trailers, tramways and carriage parts.

The establishment of the United Steel Works (Vereinigte Stahlwerke Aktiengesellschaft) by several major iron and steel corporations (Konzerne) in 1926 was the most famous project of rationalization. Analyzing the formation of this largest European company historical research has stressed specific 'German lines' of business organization. The author takes a different perspective and argues that the development of the United Steel Works until 1934 should be described as an 'Americanization' of the German iron and steel industry. With regard to the company's development of internal structure, new management strategies, it's use of technology, and the transition to mass production there were many similarities to the US Steel Corporation. The United Steel Works in Germany developed a multi-divisional structure and aimed at return-on-investment as a measure of success. Some elements of the business strategie followed were potentially overcoming traditional German cartel structures. The modern management of this "old industry" company was at least as up to date as the organization of the better known big corporations in the electric industry. The important difference to America was that consumer capitalism as an industrial strategy did not seem plausible to German steel industrialists.

In France social insurance as it existed in Ger-many didn’t establish itself until the intermediate wartime. Since the middle of the nineteenth century the state and large scale enterprises tried out several different forms of pensions funds without great success: old-age protection, «Central funds», and occupational pension schemes. The realization of other models wasn’t possible for a long time due to the conviction in an old age-protection covered alone by contractual agreements with your own children.

Untertitel: Zur Geschichte der Industrieforschung in den europäischen und amerikanischen Elektrokonzernen 1890-1930The emergence of central research laboratories in industry at the turn of the century marks the decisive step in the development of the new «science based industries». The examples of Siemens, Philips and General Electric are showing the problems, which confronted corporate management in coping with the new part of the company. But the laboratories soon proved their value in the national and international competition for the technologies of incandescent lamps and electron tubes. In the wake of World War I industrial research laboratories therefore experienced an enormous expansion at which there was a relative backwardness of British industrial research in comparison to the leading German and US research movement. It were the directors of the research labs who played a decisive role in the organizational expansion, in recruiting the research staff and in formulating the early R&D policy of the big electric companies, each pursuing a rather different concept of implementation of his lab. The laboratories marked a shift to research oriented corporate culture, which emerged from the difficult balance of science- and business-specific values: corporate strategy changed from short term to long term perspective, the new methods of thinking and working diffused the whole company and the labs became the central reservoir for later management. In the eve of the Great Depression the labs had grown to complex bureaucratic organizations which hampered the innovativeness of the industry and showed the need for the reorganization of industrial research.

The Volksfuersorge, an industrial life insurance company, was founded in 1913 by trade unions and consumer co-operatives. In the same time as the trade unions the Volksfuersorge was brought into line with the party in May 1933 and transferred to the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF). The Volksfuersorge tripled the number of insurance contracts until the end of World War II and became with 7,1 million insured persons Europe’s most insurance holders keeping insurance company. The unique rise of the Volksfuersorge in the «Third Reich» was due to the continuity of the existing business concept, as well as a partial identity of interests among the new national socialist management, the trade unionist-social democratic personnel and the avocational insurance agents rooting in the former working class movement. The Volksfuersorge was used as a reservoir of capital to finance armament and to credit war loans. It utilized the German occupations since 1938 to found subsidiary companies and buy share holdings and struggled for the leading position in European industrial assurance sector. The DAF-Volksfuersorge was an extraordinary strict anti-Semitic enterprise which even topped the governmental repression against Jewish insurance holder. Although the allies after World War II were aware that the Volksfuersorge within the DAF was a part of the NS-governmental system they granted the «Alte (Old) Volksfuersorge» in 1947 to re-found the trade unions and consumer co-operatives and to take over the insurance policies and the assets of the DAF-Volksfuersorge in western part of Germany.

In Germany during the First World War there were very different conceptions concerning the post-war reorganization of the economy. Business demanded the unrestrained reconstruction of a free economic system, whereas the state required the pledge of the economy in the public interest and the trade unions even called for complete socialization. But the end of the war changed the whole situation; a new beginning was necessary. First the relationship between the workers and the unions had to be regulated in a new way. Conflicts were no longer possible; a provisional social peace had to be established. Second the attitude towards the state had to be changed. Business had to create a new means of co-determination and participation suitable to the new democratic state. Third the economy had to be reorganized. Instead of horizontal concentration with cartels and syndicates there had to be a vertical concentration from the raw Materials to the finished goods. And fourth the international economical relations had to be regulated. In view of the concentration in British and US industry continental European industry had to enter into an alliance too. But this proved to be a very difficult process in the years between the wars.