German Yearbook on Business History 1987

Deutsche Bundesbank’s refusal to continue supporting the dollar at a fixed rate after the dollar nose-dived on March 1, 1973 triggered off an avalanche in the international monetary landscape. It resulted in the collapse of the Bretton-Woods-system of fixed parities and in the introduction of the mixed system of free floating and the European “snake”.

The Society for Business History was founded in 1976 by represen- tatives of business and scholarship. According to its articles of association it pursues the following aims: to stimulate and promote research of all kinds into business history; to engage in such research and publish the results; to organize scientific symposia and public lectures at which scholars, representatives of business and the public can meet; to propagate interest in business history and to preserve and make available the relevant historical material.¹ Over the past decade the Society has been able to realize these aims to differing degrees.

Various accounts have been written of the business history of the Bankhaus Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie in the generation of Simon, Abraham and Dagobert Oppenheim, that is, between 1828 and 1880 and later, using the sources in the bank’s archives.¹ Recently the main focus of attention has shifted from the immediate biography to the cooperation and parallel work of the three brothers.

The Russo-German friendship pact signed on 24 April 1926 in Berlin led to the development of brisk trade between Germany and the Soviet Union, which was seen by German politicians as a counterweight to the pressure of the Western powers and Poland, to which they were hostile. The German Government had said it was prepared to give a 33 % guarantee for supplies of German industrial goods to the USSR to a total value of RM 300 million up to the end of 1930. The loan was given by a bank consortium headed by the Deutsche Bank, while the Reich rediscounted the credits and provided a guarantee against default. The Soviet Union used the RM 300 million loan to buy machines and equipment for the industry it was building up, and German exports to the Soviet Union (consisting mostly of finished products) rose by four and a half times between 1924 and 1928, while German imports from the Soviet Union trebled.

In 1986 the number of publications on business history in the Federal Republic of Germany rose again strongly, with around a quarter more on the subject appearing than in 1985. New was the growing interest in business history in so-called “left” circles, where the main focus used to be on labour and trade union history. Until recently only a small number of professors and company archivists in the Federal Republic of Germany were working on business history, but now a growing number of universities and non-university institutes are showing an interest in this field of research. Since many of the latter come from labour and trade union history, they tend to focus on the social aspects of the subject, and especially in accounts of industry during the Third Reich this often led to controversial discussion on the contents and methods of business history studies, which even went beyond the purely academic field to be fought out in public.

To accompany the exhibition organised by the Braunschweig Chamber of Industry and Commerce and the Norddeutsche Landesbank on the Braunschweig Stock Exchange: “From Stormy Beginnings to Far-Reaching Change 1686–1934” (Braunschweiger Bôrse. Von stürmischer Gründungszeit zum tiefgreifenden Wandel 1686–1934)¹ in December 1986 Rainer Dube wrote a short history of the Braunschweig stock exchange during this period in which he also considers the economic history of the city generally. As well as a large number of illustrations the brochure contains a list of the joint stock corporations founded in Braunschweig between 1800 and 1934, with the date of their establishment and a bibliography. There are no references or footnotes to the text.

The recovery after the end of the Second World War occured under conceivably unfacourable conditions. Demolition of production plants, annihilation and requisition of important construction plants, an inconsistent occupation policy from the Allies and above all the dismantling of available manufacturing sites mark the memories of many contemporaries of the early post-war years. The aim of the VDI’s annual techno-historical conference was to examine the details of the technical reconstruction with special reference to case studies.

At least every one in two workers today is employed in a medium scale enterprise; the great significance of the medium scale enterprises for the development of the labour market today and in the future is an topic for constant debate. Research in the USA has shown that employment rates in big firms are on the decline whereas an increase in employment is expected above all in smaller and medium-sized firms.

“Computer money”, “home banking”, “POS Systems”. Such are the catchword titles of articles in magazines and publications in recent times. New techniques in banking in the areas of information and communication aim at ensuring that payments and remittences can be carried out quicker and in a manner which is more customer-oriented. However, in doing this, on the one hand the security requirements of banks and on the other hand the behaviour of a competition- conscious market must be carefully weighed one against the other. The effects of financial innovations and technical innovations on the employment structure in credit institutions is judged in varying ways in the press. Although the topic innovations has been systematically researched for only sixty years, if we interpret the term innovation broadly we can trace it back to the exchange offices of the later Middle Ages.

The general theme of the 1986 Symposium on the History of Savings Banks co- chaired by Gustav Adolf Schröder, Executive Director of the German Savings Banks and Giro Association, Bonn, and by Professor Dr. Bernd Rudolph, University of Frankfurt/Main, was the develoment of savings banks into full- service credit institutes. The symposium was held by the Gesellschaft zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung über das Spar- und Giro wesen e.V., Bonn, in Lüneburg on September 24/25, 1986.

“Big Bang” took place in London on October 27,1986, that is to say, the transition from the local to the new electronic stock exchange system as the final step within the shift from the system of separate fields of activity for the different types of banks towards unibanking by all-purpose banks. This event, together with the law passed by the German parliament on October 23,1986 on stock exchange listings, which facilitates medium-sized companies’ access to the stock exchange through the creation of a “regulated market”, lent a highly topical note to the symposium organised by the Institue fur Bankhistorical Research.

In 1986 the Daimler-Benz AG celebrated the centenary of the motorcar. The German Society for Business History took the opportunity on the occasion of the jubilee to make a specialists’ contribution to the festivities. The subject of the 11th research symposium was how motorisation has influenced the transport industry in the past 100 years. What possibilities did and does it offer, how was and is it being used and where does it show its limits?

In November 1986 the Institute for Economic and Social History (Prof. Dr. Francesca Schinzinger) at the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen organised a symposium on the historical and contemporary problems caused by economic development in the Euregio Maas-Rhein. Trans-border aspects were considered in particular, as they formed the basis of a longterm research project on the economic and manufacturing history of the Aachen area.