Despite exploring a number of fruitful lines of inquiry, research on emigration from the German Reich between 1933 and 1945 has for the most part neglected business people and entrepreneurs even if a few US American studies in the 1940s highlighted the economic significance on the refugees who had recently arrived from Europe. Against his background and on the basis of 166 individual cases, this article focuses on German-Jewish entrepreneurs who fled to the refugee metropolis of New York City. While there were parallels in terms of timing of emigration between this group and general trends in the emigration movement, it proved possible for about half of the emigrant entrepreneurs to establish themselves in a similar economic sector to that they had left behind. Owing to availability of sources, the article examines in particular the two largest groups of emigrant entrepreneurs, bankers and publishers. Various examples allow depiction, first of all, of the difficulties faced by the migrants in their new country. These included in particular the shortage of financial means which had resulted from the plundering of assets by the National Socialist state as well as the lack of an established reputation in the new country. A further factor was the lack of experience in dealing with American industrial structures and business methods. The examples, however, also make clear those advantages which the refugees possessed as they undertook entrepreneurial activity in their new environment. One of the most important of these lay in the possibility of being able to draw upon kinship structures and emigrant networks.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Pages 181-202
- Authors
Until the end of the First World War, Upper Silesia was one of the most industrialized regions of the former German Kaiserreich. In the aftermath of the War, it was divided, with one part remaining in Germany and the other part of Poland. Its economy faced with a number of problems. The leading sector of the Upper Silesian economy, heavy industry, for example lost many of its former markets in east and east-central Europe. Many large industrial combines suffered financial difficulties and became uncompetitive in relation to firms based in other regions. Under these circumstances some German industrialists and bankers attempted to gain control of Silesian enterprises in order to strengthen their influence in this region. The most prominent was Friedrick Flick, who wanted to control one of the most important combines in Upper Silesian heavy industry, the Vereinigten Königs- und Laurahütte.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Pages 203-223
- Authors
- Harald Wixforth, Gesellschaft für Mitteleuropäische Banken- und Sparkassengeschichte, Bielefeld
The article focuses on the transnational business relationship between the German RWKS (Rheinisch-Westfälisches Kohlen-Syndikat, Essen) and the Dutch SHV (Steenkolen Handelsvereeniging, Utrecht), which was a successful sales relationship in the 1896 to 1945 period. On the one hand the importance of the export market for the RWKS is shown, and on the other hand it is reflected on the importance of a sales organization for a syndicate in general. Whereas the RWKS depended on the SHV for its sales organization, its distributions apparatus and its knowledge of the local market, the SHV depended on the RWKS for the sole selling rights for Ruhr coal on the Dutch market. World War I did not end this interdependent transnational cooperation, but created considerable leeway for tactical and strategical moves on both sides of the border that led to a new balance of power by the middle of the 1920s.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Pages 154-180
- Authors
- Eva-Maria Roelevink, Ruhr-Universität Bochum/Erasmusuniversity Rotterdam
- Joep Schenk, Ruhr-Universität Bochum/Erasmusuniversity Rotterdam
After decades of prosperous development, the 1970s posed an economic challenge to the automobile industry. For the two manufacturers examined here, Volkswagen and Peugeot, these crises derived from external factors like the oil crises in 1973 and 1979 as well as from the companies’ internal difficulties in the periods 1971 to 1975 and 1979 and 1985 respectively. This paper asks whether these crises were an occasion for the manufacturers to get rid of traditional company benefits.
Since the middle of the 1960s, Peugeot’s and Volkswagen’s social policies have been marked by qualitative change, notably by a more intense focus on the individual expectations of the employees, a greater economic conditionality of social benefits and a concentration of the target group of the employees. The article reveals an ambiguous picture of cost cutting in the social domain: While the crises facilitated the questioning of company benefits, most restrictive measures, if ever realized, remained temporary. Moreover, new social initiatives were created despite the crises. Summing up, the crises provided an argument for restricting social policy, but few benefits were definitely eliminated until the end of the 70s. The main reason for the repeal of some social benefits was not their costliness, but that they did no longer correspond to the needs of employees. The following case study suggests that companies do not generally reduce their social benefits during periods of economic crises.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Pages 129-153
- Authors
- Ute Engelen, Institut für Geschichtliche Landeskunde an der Universität Main e.V.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Pages 117-120
The case of the drinks company Campari allows detailed analysis and greater understanding of the role of branding in the success of a business, and it also demonstrates how its success was the result of the interaction between producer and consumer. The importance of the commercial network is also highlighted, in particular its ability to perform the delicate but essential task of acting as an interface between the producer and the market. The original and innovative advertising promoted by Davide Campri played a major role in the creation of this interface. The case also demonstrates that trademark legislation did not always yield the results the company hoped for. Only robust defense of the market through a variety of means managed to overcome legislative limitations and allowed the company to consolidate the success it had achieved.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Pages 47-69
- Authors
- Valerio Varini, Università degli Studi Milano Bicocca (Italy)
- Content Type Journal Article
- Pages 70-85
- Authors
- Toni Pierenkemper, Münster
- Content Type Journal Article
- Pages 121-123
Everything capitalism has to offer is in the department store The development of department stores in the Federal Republik of Germany The development of West German department stores after 1949 started off successfully. Indeed until 1973/4 department stores held a market share of more than ten percent of total retail turnover in Germany, a share greater than that for department store chains anywhere else in Europe. Since then their share decreasing steadily, reaching just 3.9 % by 1994. From 1980 to the present day, decreasing market share was accompanied by only indifferently rising or stagnant gains in turnover from 1980 to the present day. Moreover, this development was accompanied by considerable concentration, so that eventually only four, and in the end only two, major department store corporations were left. This article focuses primarily on the causes of this decline and identifies a number of them by using quantitative data as well several qualitative examples. One of the most important reasons for the decline was the emergence of new types of retail stores, all of which pursued aggressive price strategies. In addition, high costs of department stores due to location and personnel requirements also constituted an important factor in decline as well as mismanagement in numerous cases. But most importantly, the decision of most department store companies to adhere to their traditional strategy of offering a complete range of consumer goods under one roof was the fundamental cause of decline. Beginning in the 1980s, there was a gradual strategic reorientation characterised by the replacement of traditional mentalities focused on turnover by a stress on profit and other measures of performance. This, however, did not help in enabling department stores from regaining lost market share; it only prevented them from losing even more than they did.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Pages 3-30
- Authors
- Ralf Banken, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
Local environment versus transnational opportunity? ENI’s reaction to the protests against the CEL-Pipeline in the 1960s.
In the 60s environmental politics gathered mo – mentum in various consumers and consciousness grew as well. A first prominent expression of the new perception was «The limits to growth» published by the Club of Rome in 1972. The oil crisis of 1973 intensified the awareness of declining growth and growing ecologic sensitivity. But it was not just politics and public opinion which were affected by the new ecologic movements throughout Europe. Companies had to deal with rising costs to meet new environmental laws as well. The importance of amalgamating environmental and business history has been emphasized by some scholars, and European and American research shows some approaches to linking environmental and business history. This article will connect both using the example of environmental protest around the Lake Constance in the 1960s when the Italian state-owned company ENI planned to build the Central European Pipeline from Genoa to Ingolstadt in Southern Germany. The construction has been delayed several times owing to effective protests from German communities which feared the pollution of drinking water.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Pages 31-46
- Authors
- Miriam Gassner, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen