Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2008
At a time when the Republican party in America seems to have abandoned its brief hopes of proclaiming a new paradigm, it may seem apropos to observe that old ones die hard—and not only in public life. A case in point from the scholarly world is the subject of this essay: the persistent historiographical notion of industrial factionalism. Throughout this century, students of German political economy have tended to see the country's business world as divided between two groupings. One comprises the classic heavy industries of the first Industrial Revolution and the Ruhr: coal, iron, and steel. Supposedly oriented toward domestic markets, burdened with high labor costs, doomed to flattening gains in productivity and profits, and habituated to hierarchy within their plants and the nation, executives in this grouping have figured in the historical literature as consistently and intransigently united against free trade, labor unions, and parliamentary government—indeed, against modernization itself.
1. See Ullmann, Hans-Peter, Interessenverbände in Deutschland (Frankfurt, 1988), 80.Google Scholar
2. For example, Kuczynski, Jürgen, Die Geschichte der Lage der Arbeiter in Deutschland von 1789 bis zur Gegenwart, vol. 6 (East Berlin, 1964);Google ScholarGossweiler, Kurt, Grossbanken Industriemonopole Staat (Berlin, 1975).Google Scholar
3. For example, Poulantzas, Nicos, Fascism and Dictatorship (London, 1979);Google ScholarAbraham, David, The Collapse of the Weimar Republic, 2nd ed. (New York, 1986);Google Scholar and Mason, Tim, “The Primacy of Politics,” in Turner, Henry Jr, ed., Nazism and the Third Reich (New York, 1972). 175–200.Google Scholar See also Guerin, Daniel, Fascism and Big Business (New York, 1973).Google Scholar Two examples of the two-camps model from the left-wing journalism of the Weimar Republic are: Hilferding, Rudolf, “Politische Probleme: Zum Aufruf Wirths und zur Rede Silverbergs,” Die Gesellschaft 3 (1926): 289–302;Google Scholar and Kunkel, Johann, “Synthetische Politik,” Die Weltbühne 41 (1931): 545–47.Google Scholar
4. See Ullmann, Interessenverbände; Berghahn, Volker, The Americanization of West German Industry, 1945–1973 (New York, 1986);Google Scholar and Geary, Dick, “Employers, Workers and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic,” in Kershaw, Ian, ed., Weimar: Why Did German Democracy Fail? (New York, 1900).Google Scholar
5. See Almond, Gabriel, “The Political Attitudes of German Business,” World Politics 8 (1955–1956): 157–86;CrossRefGoogle Scholaridem, “The Politics of German Business,” in Speier, H. and Davison, W. P., eds., West German Leadership and Foreign Policy (Evanston, 1957), 195–241;Google Scholar and Baum, Rainer, The Holocaust and the German Elite (Totowa, NJ, 1981).Google Scholar
6. Stegmann, Dirk, “Antiquierte Personalisierung oder sozialökonomische Faschismus Analyse,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 17 (1977): 251–74;Google ScholarSaage, Richard, Faschismustheorien (Munich, 1981), 31.Google Scholar
7. von Strandmann, Hartmut Pogge, “Widersprüche im Modernisierungsprozess Deutschlands,” in Stegmann, Dirk et al. , eds., Industrielle Gesellschaft und politisches System: Beitrag zur polit. Serialgeschichte. Festschrift für Fritz Fischer zum 70. Geburtstag (Bonn, 1978), 225–40.Google Scholar On the VDMA, see also Gerald Feldman's article in the same Festschrift for Fritz Fischer. On the failure of the Bdl, see Ullmann, Hans-Peter, Der Bund der Industriellen (Göttingen, 1976), 75–79, 222–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8. See Ziebura, Gilbert, “Sozialökonomische Grundfragen des deutschen Imperialismus vor 1914,” in Wehler, Hans-Ulrich, ed., Sozialgeschichte Heute (Göttingen, 1974), 512–3.Google Scholar
9. On the closed social world of the Ruhr magnates, see the two articles by Faulenbach, Bernd, “Die Herren an der Ruhr,” in Niethammer, Lutz et al. , eds., “Die Menschen machen ihre Geschichte nicht aus freien Stücken, aber sie machen sie selbst” (Berlin, 1985), 76, 85–88Google Scholar, and “Die Preussischen Bergassessoren im Ruhrbergbau. Unternehmermentalitätzwischen Obrigkeitsstaat und Privatindustrie,” in Mentalitäten und Lebensverhältnisse (Göttingen, 1982), 225–42.Google Scholar
10. See Mielke, Siegfried, Der Hansa-Bund für Gewerbe, Handel und Industrie, 1909–1914 (Göttingen, 1976), 87–90.Google Scholar
11. See Feldman, Gerald and Steinisch, Irmgard, Industrie und Gewerkschaften 1918–1924 (Stuttgart, 1985), 32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12. On the Ruhrs’ diversification, see for the prewar period, Spencer, Elaine Glovka, Management and Labor in Imperial Germany (New Brunswick, 1984), 21–22;Google Scholar and for the postwar period, Feldman, Gerald, Iron and Steel in the German Inflation 1916–1923 (Princeton, 1977), 210–79.Google Scholar
13. See James, Harold, The German Slump (Oxford, 1986), 116–23.Google Scholar
14. See Neebe, Reinhard, Grossindustrie, Staat und NSDAP 1930–1933 (Göttingen, 1981), 129–31, 150–51;Google ScholarHayes, Peter, “David Abraham's Second Collapse,” Business History Review 61 (1987): 461, and the sources cited there;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and James, Harold, “Comment on Dick Geary's Paper,” in Kershaw, ed., Weimar, 180.Google Scholar
15. See the tables in James, German Slump, 115, and Hayes, “David Abraham's Second Collapse,” 457.
16. See James, “Comment on Dick Geary's Paper,” in Kershaw, ed., Weimar, 180, and German Slump, 176; also Bessel, Richard, “Comments on the Papers of Carl Holtfrerich, Harold James, and Dick Geary,” in Kershaw, ed., Weimar, 188–89.Google Scholar
17. Neebe, Grossindustrie, 39–41, 44–45, 47.
18. Quoted in Wengst, Udo, “Unternehmerverbände und Gewerkschaften in Deutschland im Jahre 1930,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 25 (1977): 104.Google Scholar
19. Useful on Bücher's career, but less reliable in interpreting it, is the entry on him by Bührer, Werner in Benz, Wolfgang and Graml, Hermann, eds., Biographisches Lexikon zur Weimarer Republik (Munich, 1988), 49–50.Google Scholar
20. See the trenchant remarks of James, German Slump, 168–69, 176–78, 189. I take this to be also one of hte chief lessons of Turner, Henry, German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler (New York, 1985).Google Scholar
21. See Turner, Big Business, 191–203; and Hayes, Peter, Industry and Ideology: IG Farben in the Nazi Era (New York, 1987), 46, 62, 144–45.Google Scholar
22. On Werlin, see both Bellon, Bernard P., Mercedes in Peace and War (New York, 1990), 219, 222;Google Scholar and Pohl, Hans et al. , eds., Die Daimler-Benz AG in den Jahren 1933 bis 1945 (Wiesbaden, 1986), 21–23, 35–41.Google Scholar
23. See Hayes, Industry and Ideology, 182–85. and the sources cited there, as well as Mollin, Gerhard Thomas, Montankonzerne und ‘Drittes Reich’ (Göttingen, 1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
24. See Hayes, Industry and Ideology, esp. chap. 5.
25. See Hayes, Industry and Ideology, pp. 159–61, 196, 199; Gillingham, John, Industry and Politics in the Third Reich (New York, 1985);Google Scholar Mollin, Montankonzerne; Geyer, Michael, “Etudes in Political History,” in Stachura, Peter, ed., The Nazi Machtergreifung (Winchester, MA, 1983), 114;Google Scholaridem, “Zum Einfluss der natioalsozialistischen Rüstungspolitik auf das Ruhrgebiet,” Rheinische Vierteljahrsblätter 45 (1981): 214–19, 245;Google Scholar and idem, Deutsche Rüstungspolitik 1860–1980 (Frankfurt, 1984). 137–38, 140, 147.Google Scholar
26. See Rohland, Walter, Bewegte Zeiten (Stuttgart, 1978);Google Scholar the discussion of Rohland in Berghahn, Americanization, 51–53; Kehrl, Hans, Krisenmanager im Dritten Reich (Düsseldorf, 1973);Google Scholar and, on Pleiger, Paul, Riedel, Matthias, Eisen und Kohle für das Dritte Reich (Göttingen, 1973).Google Scholar
27. Berghahn, Americanization, 164, 180, 227–8, 269–82, 304–11, 320–4.
28. See James, “Comment on Dick Geary's Paper,” in Kershaw, ed., Weimar, 180.
29. See Geyer, , “Zum Einfluss der nationalsozialistischen Rüstungspolitik” Rheinische Vierteljahrsblätter 45 (1981): 241–52; and idem, Rüstungspolitik, 147–49.Google Scholar