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Autarky, Ideology, and Technological Lag: The Case of the East German Chemical Industry, 1945–1964

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Raymond G. Stokes
Raymond G. Stokes
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow
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Extract

The ignominious and total collapse of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1989/90 revealed all too clearly the disastrous state of the country's economy, especially in comparison to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). This fact must not, however, be seen in isolation from another, apparently contradictory one: From the beginning to the end of its existence, the GDR was the shining economic and technological star in the communist firmament in Eastern Europe. GDR electronics and optics were crucial to the Soviet space program and to East-bloc military production, which counted among communism's few technological successes. Its chemical and automobile industries were also well regarded in the Eastern bloc and in many developing countries. The GDR's technological prowess—especially when combined with its favored and very lucrative relationship with the FRG—made for a reasonably high standard of living, not just in relation to other countries in the Soviet bloc, but in relation to other industrialized countries as well.

Type
Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , March 1995 , pp. 29 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1995

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References

1. See Bentley, Raymond, Technological Change in the German Democratic Republic (Boulder, CO, 1984), esp. 199.Google Scholar

2. idem, Research and Technology in the Former German Democratic Republic (Boulder, CO, 1992)Google Scholar.

3. On the emergence of the petrochemical industry in the FRG, see Stokes, Raymond G., Opting for Oil: The Political Economy of Technological Change in the West German Chemical Industry, 1945–1961 (Cambridge and New York, 1994);CrossRefGoogle Scholar more generally, see Spitz, Peter, Petrochemicals: The Rise of an Industry (New York, 1988)Google Scholar. On I. G. Farben, see for instance Plumpe, Gottfried, Die I. G. Farbenindustrie A. G. (Berlin, 1990);Google ScholarHayes, Peter, Industry and Ideology: I. G. Farben in the Nazi Period (Cambridge and New York, 1987);Google ScholarStokes, Raymond G., Divide and Prosper: The Heirs of I. G. Farben under Allied Authority (Berkeley, 1988)Google Scholar.

4. VEB Leuna-Werke “Walter Ulbricht” [hereafter Leuna-Werke], Büro des Generaldirektors, “Die Bedeutung der chemischen Industrie für die Volkswirtschaft in der DDR 1945–1956,” n.d. [ca. late 1956], Leuna-Werke A. G. Werksarchiv, Merseburg, [hereafter LWA] 3225.

5. Stokes, Divide and Prosper, 90.

6. Leuna-Werke, Büro des Generaldirektors, “Die Bedeutung der chemischen Industrie für die Volkswirtschaft in der DDR 1945–1956,” n.d. [ca. late 1956], LWA 3225; Gimbel, John, Science, Technology, and Reparations, (Stanford, 1990), 16–17Google Scholar.

7. This and the following are based primarily on documents in LWA 1195; for complaints on salary and other issues by returning scientists and technicians, LWA 1170; for Dr. Geiseler's work, for instance, Rat zur technischen Entwicklung des Werkes, “Bericht über die wissenschaftliche Forschung im Jahre 1953,” 30 December 1953, LWA 6056.

8. Leuna-Werke, Jahresbericht 1950, LWA 8870.

9. Leuna-Werke, Jahresbericht 1995, LWA 8875.

10. Leuna-Werke, Jahresbericht 1946, 1, 12, LWA 8866.

11. Geschichte des VEB Leuna-Werke “Walter Ulbricht”: 1945 bis 1981 (Leipzig, 1986), 32, 80–81Google Scholar. Leuna had been given Ulbricht's name on 13 January 1951, Leuna-Werke Jahresbericht 1951, 1, LWA 8871 (although another source claims this occurred in 1952: Büro des Generaldirektors, “Die Bedeutung der chemischen Industrie für die Volkswirtschaft der DDR 1945–1956,” n.d., 4, LWA 3225)Google Scholar.

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13. Ibid., 2ff.

14. “Die Leuna-Werke ‘Walter Ulbricht’ im Jahre 1955,” 4 January 1955, LWA 3538.

15. See Stokes, Opting for Oil, esp. chapters one, two, and three; see also Stokes, Raymond G., “Technology and the West German Wirtschaftswunder,” Technology and Culture 32, no. 1 (1991): 1–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On continuities in the thinking of West German industrialists more generally, see, for instance, Berghahn, Volker, The Americanisation of West German Industry (Cambridge and New York, 1986);Google ScholarBerghahn, Volker and Friedrich, Paul, Otto A. Friedrich, ein politischer Unternehmer (Frankfurt, 1993)Google Scholar.

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17. Beer, John J., The Emergence of the German Dye Industry (Urbana, 1959; reprint New York, 1981);Google ScholarTammen, Helmuth, Die I. G. Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft (1925–1933). Ein Chemiekonzern in der Weimarer Republik (Berlin, 1978);Google Scholar Hayes, Industry and Ideology; Morris, Peter, “The Development of Acetylene Chemistry and Synthetic Rubber by I. G. Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft, 1926–1945” (DPhil diss., Oxford University, 1982); Die I. G. Farbenindustrie A. G..Google Scholar

18. Dr. Reitz, , “Neuere amerikanische Arbeiten über Erdölchemie,” 11 December 1946, in BASF Unternehmensarchiv, Ludwigshafen, F9/66; Büro der Werksleitung, “Besprechungsbericht,” 28 November 1947, LWA 6026.Google Scholar

19. Stokes, Opting for Oil, chapters four and five.

20. DrFritsche, Wolfram, to Dr, Eckhard et al. , “Betr.: Neues Versuchsprogramm,” 10 February 1950, LWA 6026Google Scholar.

21. Rainer Karlsch, “Der Traum vom Öl.”

22. Liebermann, Sima, The Growth of European Mixed Economies, 1945–1970 (New York, 1977), 276, 279–80, and 284–85Google Scholar.

23. Leuna-Werke, , “Zur Entwicklung von ‘Leuna II’ (1958–1986),” Zahlen und Fakten zur Betriebsgeschichte 54 (1986): 4Google Scholar.

24. Chemie gibt Brot—Wohlstand—Schönheit. Chemiekonferenz des Zentralkomittes der SED und der Staatlichen Plankommission in Leuna am 3. und 4. November 1958 (published by Central Committee of the SED, Sections Agitation and Propaganda and Mining, Coal, Energy, and Chemistry, n.d.), quote on 22, seen in LWA.

25. Ibid., 29–30, 35, quote, 35, emphasis in original.

26. Ibid., 28, emphasis in original.

27. On the New Economic System, which Ulbricht helped implement in 1963, see Liebermann, , The Growth of European Mixed Economies, esp. 279–80Google Scholar.

28. Ministerium für Chemische Industrie, Arbeitsgruppe Entwicklung der Chemischen Industrie, “Zentraler Plan Forschung und Technik 1958 bis 1960,” 1 October 1957, 24, LWA 15621, my emphasis.

29. Leuna-Werke, , Technisch-ökonomisches Büro der Produktionsdirektion, [Memo, no title], 19 May 1964, quote 2–3, LWA 12514Google Scholar.

30. Leuna-Werke, , “Zur Entwicklung von ‘Leuna II’ (1958–1986),” 5, 9–10 (see n. 23)Google Scholar.

31. Ibid., 11.

32. Staatliche Plankommission, Abteilung Chemie, “Bilanzbetrachtung zur Entwicklung der Petrolchemie 1966–1975,” 29 November 1965, quotes on 1–2, LWA 13132. [N.B.: It is not clear from the tables in this source if the 35 percent includes all petroleum-based starting materials, since coal-based raw materials and imported raw materials (which potentially were based on petroleum) are combined in the figures and contrasted with materials “aus Erdöl in der DDR hergestellt” (produced in the GDR from petroleum). But it appears likely that at most a tiny percentage of the combined coal-based and imported starting materials were based on petroleum.]

33. Verband der chemischen Industrie, Chemiewirtschaft in Zahlen, 6th ed. (Düsseldorf, 1964), 83;Verband der Chemischen Industrie, “Petrochemie,” n.d. [late 1960], 3 (one of series of monographs prepared by the VCI and sent to the CEFIC [European Center of Federations of Industrial Chemistry] in a letter of 31 January 1961)Google Scholar, Bayerwerksarchiv, Leverkusen, 271/1.1.52.15.

34. For a critique of corporations and democracy, see e.g. Deetz, Stanley A., Democracy in an Age of Corporate Colonization (Albany, NY, 1992)Google Scholar.

35. Two examples are Dr. Fritsche, Wolfram to Dr. Eckhard, et al. , “Betr.: Neues Versuchsprogramm,” 10 February 1950, LWA 6026; Schirmer to General Koenen, “Betr.: Auswertung der Chemie-Konferenz und Vorbereitung des Perspektivprogrammes für die chemische Industrie,” 25 November 1958, LWA 6123.Google Scholar