Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T11:53:11.190Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Reichskuratorium für Wirtschaftlichkeit: Fordism and Organized Capitalism in Germany, 1918–1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

J. Ronald Shearer
J. Ronald Shearer
Affiliation:
J. RONALD SHEARER is visiting assistant professor of history at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Reichskuratorium (RKW) was founded in 1921 by Carl Friedrich von Siemens and his subalternate, Carl Köttgen. The organization strove to implement measures of industrial and organizational efficiency in Germany in the interwar era following the American models of Frederick W. Taylor and Henry Ford. This study uses the organization as a vehicle to evaluate varieties of organized capitalism in German business and industrial history since the late nineteenth century. Most recent research has identified forms of organized capitalism that include significant input from organized labor along with state and industry as the most “modern” forms. While these efforts stagnated and eventually failed in Germany's interwar Weimar Republic, they are still seen as the origin of a characteristic and successful postwar model of organized capitalism. Acknowledging that this view is accurate, this study draws attention to the alternate model of the RKW which strove to implement technical and organizational measures of industrial and economic efficiency using state funding but avoiding significant input from organized labor. This variation of German organized capitalism emerged from the more traditional, self-regulating patterns of the late nineteenth century. It persisted through the Weimar Republic, through World War II, and into the postwar era. Less fruitful for understanding the character of the RKW are models from the 1970s Cold War era which elaborated a strongly symbiotic version of organized capitalism between state and big business, which allegedly subordinated efforts of big business to state interests.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 71 , Issue 4 , Winter 1997 , pp. 569 - 602
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Maier, Charles S., Recasting Bourgeois Europe: Stabilization in France, Germany, and Italy in the Decade after World War I (Princeton, N.J., 1978Google Scholar); Feldman, Gerald D., Army, Industry, and Labor in Germany, 1914–1918 (Princeton, N.J., 1966Google Scholar); idem., Iron and Steel in the German Inflation, 1916–1923 (Princeton, N.J., 1977); and most recently his definitive work, The Great Disorder. Politics, Economy, and Society in the German Inflation, 1914–1924 (Oxford, 1993Google Scholar).

2 See Feldman, Gerald D., “German Big Business between War and Revolution. The Origins of the Stinnes-Legien Agreement,” in Entstehung und Wandel der modernen Gesellschaft. Festschrift für Hans Rosenberg zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Ritter, Gerhard A. (Berlin, 1970), 312–341Google Scholar.

3 Maier, Recasting Bourgeois Europe, 141–142. Feldman, The Great Disorder, 137–155. See also von Moellendorff, Wichard, Konservativer Sozialismus (Berlin, 1932), 166–195Google Scholar.

4 Maier, Recasting Bourgeois Europe, 140–141; von Oertzen, Peter, Betriebsräte in der Novemberrevolution (Düsseldorf, 1963Google Scholar); Feldman, The Great Disorder, 138–143, 289–292. For the situation specifically in the Ruhr mines, see Burghardt, Uwe, Die Mechanisierung des Ruhrbergbaus 1890–1930 (Munich, 1995), 239–243Google Scholar.

5 The putsch effort occurred in the early days of March 1920 and was centered in Berlin. It was defeated by a general strike of Berlins working classes. The business and labor representatives of the ZAG disagreed about appropriate reaction to the effort to overthrow the new Republic. See Feldman, Gerald D., “Big Business and the Kapp Putsch,” Central European History 4 (1971): 91–130CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Feldman, Gerald D. and Steinisch, Irmgard, Industrie und Gewerkschaften, 1918–1924. Die überforderte Zentralarbeitsgemeinschaft (Stuttgart, 1985CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

6 Moellendorff's white paper, or Denkschrift, on the planned economy, which he submitted to the Reich Economics Ministry, has been published as “Denkschrift des Reichswirtschaftsministeriums zur wirtschaftspolitischen Lage” and “Wirtschaftsprogramm des Reichswirtschaftsministeriums,” both of 7 May 1919, in Akten der Reichskanzlei, Weimarer Republik. Das Kabinett Scheidemann, 13. Februar bis 20. Juni 1919, ed. Schulze, Hagen (Boppard am Rhein, 1971Google Scholar), documents 63a, 272–283 and 63b, 284– 289, respectively. The original documents may be found in the Bundes-Archiv, Koblenz (BA), R 43 1/1146.

7 Maier, Recasting Bourgeois Europe, 140–141.

8 On the collapse of coal socialization efforts, see Wulf, P., “Die Auseinandersetzung um die Sozialisierung der Kohle in Deutschland 1920/21,” Vierteljahresschrift für Zeitgeschichte 25 (1977): 46–98Google Scholar.

9 Translating the title “Reichskuratorium für Wirtschaftlichkeit” is difficult. The word Wirtschaftlichkeit has no single equivalent in English. The German word connotes, in general, the overall effectiveness of an industrial or economic enterprise or production process. Robert A. Brady, writing in the 1930s, rendered the name as “National Board for Economy and Efficiency.” See Brady, Robert A., The Rationalization Movement in German Industry: A Study in Economic Planning (Berkeley, Calif., 1933Google Scholar). More recently, Mary Nolan has opted for “National Productivity Board.” See her Visions of Modernity: American Business and the Modernization of Germany (Oxford, 1994Google Scholar). Martin Pamell adopts the somewhat anachronistic variation, “Imperial Institute of Efficiency,” since the organization was not founded until after the collapse of the German Empire in 1918. See Martin, F. Parnell, The German Tradition of Organized Capitalism. Self Government in the Coal Industry (Oxford, 1994Google Scholar). On the German tradition of “organized capitalism,” see Organisierter Kapitalismus. Voraussetzungen und Anfänge, ed. Winkler, Heinrich August (Göttinngen, 1974CrossRefGoogle Scholar); Charles S. Maier has elaborated a variation of “corporatism” in his Recasting Bourgeois Europe. Abelshauser, Werner, “The First Post-Liberal Nation: Stages in the Development of Corporatism in Germany,” European History Quarterly 14 (1984): 285–318CrossRefGoogle Scholar, argues that the “heyday” of German corporatism was the interwar era (296–304); more recently, Pamell, in his The German Tradition of Organized Capitalism, stresses the dimension of industrial “self-regulation” (Selbstverwaltung) within industry-state relations in Germany since the imperial period.

10 Frederick Winslow Taylor died in 1915. He is associated with scientific and stopwatch studies of labor processes and shop-floor production practices, and the planning of such industrial tasks by a managerial echelon. Ford developed the techniques of assembly line and flow manufacture. On Taylor, the most recent biography is Kanigel, Robert, The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency (New York, 1997Google Scholar). See also Nelson, Daniel, Frederick W. Taylor and the Rise of Scientific Management (Madison, Wisc., 1980Google Scholar). On Henry Ford, see Sward, Keith, The Legend of Henry Ford (New York, 1968Google Scholar).

11 Maier, Charles S., “Between Taylorism and Technocracy: European Ideologies and the Vision of Industrial Productivity in the 1920s,” Journal of Contemporary History 5 (1970): 27–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Maier argues here that both the European Left and Right came to view technocratic and efficiency measures, based largely on the production time studies and efficiency efforts of the American engineer Frederick W. Taylor from the prewar years, as having potential to circumvent the “zero-sum” class conflict between labor and industry in the immediate years after 1918. His analysis and argument, however, do not extend very far beyond the collapse of these Utopian strivings in the early 1920s.

12 Hilferding, R., “Probleme der Zeit,” Die Geselhchaft I/I (1924), 2Google Scholar, quoted in James, Harold, The German Slump: Politics and Economics 1924–1936 (Oxford, 1986), 119Google Scholar. For the original full statement of Hilferding's theory of “finance capitalism,” see Hilferding, Rudolf, Finanzkapital. Eine Studie über die jüngste Entwicklung des Kapitalismus (Vienna, 1910Google Scholar).

13 See the collected essays, especially those by Wehler and Kocka in, Winkler ed., Organisierter Kapitalismus.

14 The classic study of Germany's integrated and regulated war economy during World War I is Feldman, Army, Industry, and Labor. See also Zunkel, Friedrich, Industrie und Staatssozialismus. Der Kampf um die Wirtschaftsordnung in Deutschland 1914–1918 (Düsseldorf, 1974Google Scholar).

15 Chandler, Alfred D. Jr., Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism (Cambridge, Mass., 1990), 393–592Google Scholar, especially 393–395 and 587–592. Chandler does identify a declining significance of the large private German banks, or “Grossbanken,” by the 1930s, however. See pp. 590–591.

16 Gerald D. Feldman, “Der deutsche Organisierte Kapitalismus während der Kriegsund Inflationsjahre 1914–1923,” in Winkler ed., Organisierter Kapitalismus, 150–171; quotation from p. 166.

17 See Abelshauser, “The First Post-Liberal Nation.”

18 Maier, Recasting Bourgeois Europe, 3–15.

19 While acknowledging a concept of “organized capitalism” in describing German political economy before World War I, Martin Parnell argues strongly that its chief quality has been the autonomy of self-regulatory industrial institutions. Parnell offers a case study of the Rhenish-Westphalian Coal Syndicate, whose history he traces from its inception in the late nineteenth century through the post-World War II era. See Parnell, The German Tradition of Organized Capitalism.

20 Organized labor was relatively slow to recognize the potential of rationalization and efficiency organizations such as the RKW for affecting labor issues in the Weimar era. The first real critique by the Weimar Left of the RKW for lack of significant labor input came only in 1930 by Otto Suhr, the Social Democrat. See Suhr, Otto, “Das Reichskuratorium für Wirtschaftlichkeit,” Die Arbeit 1 (1930): 454–464Google Scholar.

21 Though stressing the same three-part character of current German corporatism as does Abelshauser, namely that of capital, labor, and the state, Parnell acknowledges the primacy of industrial and state cooperation as the origins of German corporatism. The participation of organized labor came later, following World War I, and was integrated into a corporatist system whose foundations were laid before the war. See Parnell, The German Tradition of Organized Capitalism, 234–235.

22 Brady, The Rationalization Movement in German Industry.

23 See Chandler, “The United States: Competitive Managerial Capitalism,” Scale and Scope, 47–233.

24 On the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft, a state supported scientific research institution with interests in several areas, including biology, coal, and chemistry, see, Festschrift der Kaiser Wilhelm-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften zu ihren zehnjährigen Jubiläum dargebracht von ihren Instituten (Berlin, 1921Google Scholar), and Handbuch der Kaiser Wilhelm-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften (Berlin, 1928Google Scholar). Both were released by the institution itself. On the society in the Nazi era, see Macrakis, Kristie, Surviving the Swastika: Scientific Research in Nazi Germany (New York, 1993Google Scholar).

25 In this respect, the RKW resembled another supra-industrial interest organization, the Reichsverband der Deutschen Industrie (RDI) which was founded near the end of World War I to lobby the interests of big business in a concerted way. The RDI, however, was more strictly a lobby and interest representation organization. The RKW actively sought to find new techniques of efficiency and cost savings.

26 See Feldman, Army, Industry, and Labor; and Zunkel, Industrie und Staatssozialismus.

27 The first to identify and analyze this pattern in German corporatism was Charles S. Maier. See his, “Between Taylorism and Technocracy.”

28 The American economist, Robert A. Brady, drew attention to the RKW along with numerous other planning and rationalization organizations as early as 1933. See his Rationalization Movement in German Industry; the RKW offered its own account of itself in 1928 and its relation to the Weimar “rationalization movement” in one of its own publications. See Hinnenthal, Hans, Die Deutsche Rationalisierungsbewegung und das Reichskuratorium für Wirtschaftlichkeit (Berlin, 1928Google Scholar). See also Büttner, Hans Wolfgang, Das Rationalisierungs-Kuratorium der Deutschen Wirtschaft (Düsseldorf, 1973Google Scholar). One recent exception to the RKWs neglect is Nolan, Visions of Modernity.

29 On Carl Friedrich von Siemens and his career, see, Goetzeler, Herbert et al. , Wilhelm und Carl Friedrich von Siemens: die zweite Unternehmergeneration (Stuttgart, 1986Google Scholar); and Siemens, Georg, Carl Friedrich von Siemens; ein grosser Unternehmer (Freiberg, 1962Google Scholar). On Köttgen, Carl, see the short biographical sketch in Meister der Rationalisierung, ed. Pentzlin, Kurt (Düsseldorf, 1963), 458–462Google Scholar; and The Golden Book of Management. An Historical Record of the Life and Work of Seventy Pioneers, ed. Urwick, L. (London, 1956), 152–154Google Scholar.

30 The publication series did not begin until 1927. For a list of the titles in the series up to 1936, see Verzeichnis der RKW-Veröffentlichungen abgeschlossen im januar 1936 (Berlin, 1936Google Scholar).

31 In this year Adolf Schilling took over the position of editor of the journal Technik und Wirtschaft. Schilling had been named the original Geschäftsfuhrer or Administrative Manager of the RKW in 1921. The journal was published by the widely known and respected organization of German engineers, the Verein Deutscher Ingenieure or VDI.

32 On the Deutscher Verband technisch-wissenschaftlicher Vereine (German Association of technical-scientific organization, or VD), see the organization's business report for the year 1921–1922, “Geschäftsbericht für das Jahr 1921/22,” in the Historical Archive of the Siemens-Konzern in Munich, Germany, Siemens-Akten-Archiv, (hereafter SAA), 4/LF 564. The organization is relatively obscure and fully unstudied, but included well known member organizations such as the Association of German Engineers (Verein Deutscher Ingenieure (VDI)), Association of German Foundrymen (Verein Deutscher Eisenhüttenleute), and the Association of German Chemists (Verein Deutscher Chemiker), among many others. The 1921–22 business report lists twenty-six scientific and technical organizations among the Verband's members. It's director at this point was A. Thiele. The organization held its 1922 annual business meeting in the “Ingenieurhaus” in Berlin. See Ibid., 1.

33 See, SAA 4/LF 668, “Bericht über die Gründungsversammlung des Reichskuratoriums für Wirtschaftlichkeit in Industrie und Handwerk am 10. Juni 1921 im Ingenieurhaus zu Berlin.”

34 As one of the newer, “dynamic” industries of the late nineteenth century, the Siemens firm counted as a leader in many trends that are considered characteristic of modern, efficient business practice. These efforts included increasing bureaucratization and managerial supervision of production, the use of more complex cost accounting, and central work offices for planning and coordinating production. On the general history of the firm, see Siemens, Georg, Geschichte des Hauses Siemens (Freiburg/Munich, 1947-1952Google Scholar); on bureaucratic modernization, see Kocka's, Jürgen now standard work, Unternehmsverwaltung und Angestellenschaft am Beispiel Siemens 1847–1914 (Stuttgart, 1969Google Scholar), and idem, “Family and Bureaucracy in German Industrial Management, 1850–1914,” Business History Review 45 (1971): 133–156. Also, more recently, von Freyberg, Thomas, Industrielle Rationalisierung in der Weitnarer Repbulik. Untersucht an Beispielen aus dem Maschinenbau und Elektroindustrie (Frankfurt, 1989Google Scholar).

35 Two of the most important organizations quickly subordinated to the new RKW were the Normenausschuss der Deutschen Industrie (Committee on German Industrial Norms, NDI) and the Ausschuss für wirtschaftliche Fertigung (Committee for Efficient Manufacture, AwF). Both these organizations emerged during World War I. See Brady, Rationalization Movement, 422–423. See also Hinnenthal, Die deutsche Rationalisierungsbewegung, 12–16; and Büttner, Rationalisierungs-Kuratorium der Deutschen Wirtschaft, 1–25.

36 See, SAA 4/LF 668, “Satzung des Reichskuratoriums für Wirtschaftlichkeit in Industrie und Handwerk beim Deutschen Verband technisch-wissenscahftlicher Vereine, e.V,” Section 8; and “Bericht Über die Gründungsversammlung,” p. 3, where Siemens noted that, “Der Industrie muss Kritik darüber zustehen, welche Arbeiten wesentlich erscheinen und aufzunehmen sind. Dies ist einer der Hauptgründe, warum das Reichskuratorium mit führenden Herren der Industrie zu besetzen ist.-Die Grundlage wäre Selbständigkeit der Arbeitsstellen in Bezug auf ihr Arbeitsgebiet. Die Pflicht der Organisationen bestände nicht nur in der Berichterstattung.”

37 For similar industrial attitudes in heavy industry in the Ruhr, especially in the coal mining sector, see Tschirbs, Rudolf, Tarifpolitik im Ruhrbergbau, 1918–1933 (Berlin, 1986CrossRefGoogle Scholar), passim, but especially 286–299.

38 Other members at this first meeting included the chemist and industrialist Carl Duisberg, Professor Adolf Schilling, and Fritz Neuhaus, the General Director of the machine building firm Borsig A.G. in Berlin-Tegel. From the Reich Postal Ministry came Julius Lerche, while the Reich Economics Ministry sent Paul Freiherr von Buttlar and Heinrich Ruelberg. Georg Klingenberg and Arthur Thiele represented the Deutscher Verband für technisch-wissenschaftlicher Vereine and Waldemar Hellmich participated on behalf of the Association of German Engineers (Verein Deutscher Ingenieure, VDI). See, SAA 4/LF 668, “Bericht über die Gründungsversammlung.”

39 SAA 4/LF, 668 “Mitglieder des Reichskuratoriums für Wirtschaftlichkeit in Industrie und Handwerk beim Deutschen Verband technisch-wissenschaflicher Vereine.” Document is undated, but belongs either to late 1921 or 1922. The phrase “beim Deutschen Verband technischen-wissenschaftlicher Vereine” in the RKW's title did not appear for more than a year or two after the founding of the organization.

40 This new group of members included figures such as Albert Vögler, director of the then large Deutsch-Luxembourg Mining and Smelting company; Georg Lippart, a director of the MAN machine building firm in Nuremberg; and Felix Deutsch, chairman of the board of directors of the AEG electrical conglomerate in Berlin. Next to Siemens as Chair (Vorsitzender) and Köttgen as Vice-Chair (stellvertretender Vorsitzender) of the organization, the number three position of leadership went to Prof. Adolf Schilling who became Administrative Director (Geschäftsführer).

41 “…der Zweck des Reichskuratoriums ist in erster Linie die Hebung der Wirtschaftlichkeit industrieller und gewerblicher Produktion auf alien Fachgebieten durch rationelle Wirtschaft und Stützung des Einzelunternehmens,” in “Bericht über die Gründungsversammlung,” SAA 4/LF 668, 1.

42 Siemens declared the RKW's purpose to include, “Förderung aller Bestrebungen zur Hebung der industriellen und gewerblichen Fertigung.” “Satzung des Reichskuratoriums,” SAA 4/LF 668, 1.

43 SAA 4/LF 668, “Geschichtliche Entwicklung,” 5.

44 SAA 4/LF 668, “Bericht über die Gründungsversammlung,” 2.

45 Ibid.

46 For quotations as well as the discussion of the legal character of the new RKW, see “Bericht über die Gründungsversammlung,” SAA 4/LF 668, 9–10.

47 The leadership of Germany's machine building and electrotechnical branches in the Weimar era has never been as thoroughly studied as its counterpart in heavy industry. I have taken this overview from the short biographical sketches provided by Pentzlin (himself a member of the movement in his early career), in Meister der Rationalisierung (Düsseldorf, 1963Google Scholar). The following is a brief table of birth dates for the seven important German industrialists from the 1920s that Pentzlin included in his collection of rationalization experts:

Willy Hellpach was the youngest of the above and did not completely fit the pattern in that he was an academic psychologist and not an industrialist. He had strong ties, however, to the emerging field of industrial psychology, or Psychotechnik, and adhered to the rationalization movement from its early years. He was only five or six years younger than Siemens and Köttgen. On organization and managerial trends in Germany before and after World War I, see Kocka, Jürgen, “Industrielles Management. Konzeptionen und Modelle in Deutschland vor 1914,” Vierteljahresheft für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 56 (1969): 332–372Google Scholar. For a general conceptual and historical overview, see Chandler, Alfred D. Jr., and Daems, Herman, “Administrative Coordination, Allocation and Monitoring Concepts and Comparisons,” in Recht und Entwicklung der Groβunternehmen im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Horn, Norbert and Kocka, Jürgen (Göttingen, 1979), 28–54Google Scholar. Why these trends appeared first, or predominantly, in the machine building sector is an unanswered question. In part, the answer for Germany is simplified by the fact that these techniques first appeared in America's metal and machine building branches. As these trends were transferred to Germany, they came naturally into those sectors for which they needed little adaptation. Though in Germany it was not simply a question of methods transferred from America. For the influence of Italian trends in shop management in German iron and steel plants in the late nineteenth century, see Stollberg, Gunnar, Rationalisierungsdebatte 1908–1933. Freie Gewerkschaften zwischen Mitwlrkungund Gegenwehr (Frankfurt, 1981), 34–35Google Scholar. That many of these trends did appear first in American machine building and metal working sectors is an important issue. A technological answer is that the character of machine building technology lends itself to repetition, part standardization and, hence, rationalization and mass production. Assumedly, America was the most advanced industrial country in this respect, due in part to its traditional shortage of skilled labor. For a skeptical view of the labor shortage thesis for the American case, however, see Licht, Walter, Working for the Railroad: The Organization of Work in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, N.J., 1983), 77–78Google Scholar. The most important and thorough work in the development of mass production techniques in America is Hounshell, David A., From the American System to Mass Production, 1800–1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States (Baltimore, Md., 1984Google Scholar). For a sampling of the extensive literature on Ruhr industrialists, see Pierenkemper, Toni, “Entrepreneurs in Heavy Industry: Upper Silesia and the Westphalian Ruhr Region, 1852 to 1913,” Business History Review 53 (Spring 1979): 65–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem., Die westfälischen Schwerindustriellen, 1852–1913: Soziale Struktur und untemehmerischer Erfolg (Göttingen, 1979); Croon, Helmuth, “Die wirtschaftlichen Führungsschichten des Ruhrgebietes in der Zeit von 1890 bis 1933,” Blätter für deutsche Landesgeschichte 108 (1972): 143–159Google Scholar; Spencer, Elaine Glovka, “Rulers of the Ruhr: Leadership and Authority in German Big Business before 1914,” Business History Review 57 (1979Google Scholar); and idem., Management and Labor in Imperial Germany: Ruhr Industrialists as Employers, 1896–1914 (New Brunswick, N.J., 1984).

48 For revisions of the RKW's By-laws (Satzungen) and administrative rules (Geschäftsordnungen), see the various drafts from 1925 with marginal comments by Carl Köttgen and Prof. Adolf Schilling, among others, in SAA 4/LF 668 and SAA 61/LF 109. See also the succinct instructions from Köttgen to the RKW's legal advisor, Justizrat Dr. Zimmer, in Köttgen's letter of 28 Feb. 1925, in SAA 61/LF 109. Köttgen described briefly the problems of determining what the optimal legal form for the RKW should be, as well as the delays this created, in an Aktennotiz dated 17 March 1925, in SAA 61/LF 109. For the final versions of the Satzungen and Geschäftsordnungen, see the copies in SAA 4/LF 668 and SAA 11/LF 109.

49 See the draft of Köttgen's letter to Raumer of 27 Feb. 1925, in SAA 11/LF 115.

50 See Köttgen, Carl, Das wirtschaftliche Amerika (Berlin, 1925Google Scholar). Köttgen was among the host of German industrialists, engineers, and trade unionists who flocked to America after the end of the inflation to observe first hand the economic miracle that was in progress there. America became fashionable as never before on the Continent. See Nolan, Visions of Modernity, chap. 2, “Journeys to America,” 17–29. Interestingly, each group saw in America what it wanted to see. Industrialists stressed the homogeneous domestic market, relatively low taxes and the willingness of the American worker to submit to higher labor intensity. Trade unionists pointed to the high wages and high purchasing power of the American worker. All agreed, however, that much of what America had, Germany needed. The main question was how to make Germany's industrial system emulate the American. For a contrast to Köttgen's volume, see the report published by the Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschäftsbund (ADGB), on the trip of a group of German labor leaders to America in 1925, Amerikareise deutscher Gewerkschaftsführer (Berlin, 2. ed., 1926Google Scholar). The objective as well as subjective impact of American industrial practice in Germany in the interwar era, of which the above literature is an example, is a relatively neglected topic. For one assessment stressing the influence on German trade union wage policy, see Berg, Peter, Amerika und Deutschland. Über das deutsche Amerikabild der zwanziger Jahre (Düsseldorf, 1963Google Scholar). Burchardt's, Lothar “Technischer Fortschritt und sozialer Wandel. Das Beispiel der Taylorismus-Rezeption,” in Treue, Wilhelm ed., Deutsche Technikgeschichte (Göttigen, 1977), 52–98Google Scholar, carries the analysis of the reception of Taylorism only up to the early 1920s. Maier's “Between Taylorism and Technocracy” likewise emphasizes only the early 1920s. Neither stresses the adoption of American methods into actual practice in Germany.

51 SAA 11/LF 115, Köttgen to von Raumer, 5 March 1925.

52 SAA 11/LF 115, von Raumer to Köttgen, 20 April 1925.

53 Ibid., 2. This was a reference to the description in Köttgens book of the American study of industrial waste and inefficiency directed by the future American President, Herbert Hoover. See Federated American Engineering Societies, Committee on the Elimination of Waste in Industry, Waste in Industry (New York, 1921Google Scholar). The goals and attention to eliminating inefficiencies in business and industry were common to the Hoover report and the RKW. However, the Hoover report did not give rise directly to a well supported and well financed institutional effort as was the case with the RKW.

54 SAA 11/LF 115, von Raumer to Köttgen, 20 April 1925, 2–3.

55 Ibid., 3.

56 Verhandlungen des Reichstags. III. Wahlperiode, 1924. Stenographische Berichte, proceedings of 20 March 1926, Vol. 389, 6428–6429.

57 For an exhaustive account of corporatist collective bargaining negotiations in the Ruhr coal sector, see Tschirbs, Rudolf, Tarifpolitik im Ruhrbergbau 1918–1933 (Berlin, 1986CrossRefGoogle Scholar). For a parallel account in the automobile industry, see Bellon, Bernard, Mercedes in Peace and War: German Automobile Workers, 1903–1945 (New York, 1990Google Scholar).

58 The logic for why Koenen assumed rationalization would not be possible under the Dawes plan is not clear from the sources, but undoubtedly had to do with the scarcity of available investment capital.

59 Ibid., 6428.

60 “Es könnte den Anschein haben, wenn wir einen solchen Streichungsantrag stellen, als ob wir nicht für eine Hebung der Wirtschaftlichkeit der gewerblichen und industriellen Produktion eintreten wollten. Das ist aber bei weitem nicht unsere Absicht.” Ibid.

61 The Institut für Konjunkturforschung is another neglected topic in Weimar business and economic history. For a statement of its purposes and the American model that in part inspired its founding, see the initial issue in 1926 of its major quarterly publication, Vierteljahresheft für Konjunkturforschung.

62 “Wir glauben also, daß die Rationalisierung, soweit sie sozial eine Bedeutung hat, bei diesem Institut (für Konjunkturforschung) entsprechend bearbeitet wird.” Verhandlungen des Reichstags, 6428.

63 Köttgen took care to invite a large number of special guests to the 2 April meeting of the RKW in 1925 when the organization released its resolution for direct Reichstag funding and announced its reorganization. These included Reichstag members such as Prof. Schreiber of the Catholic Center Party, Rudolf Hilferding, and Rudolf Wissell. See Köttgen to von Raumer of 2 Feb. 1925, SAA 11/LF 115. A copy of the 2 April resolution, “An den Reichstag, den Reichsrat und die Reichsregierung,” may be found in SAA 4/LF 668. For Carl Friedrich von Siemens' address to the meeting, see the draft of the “Ansprache von Dr. Ing. e. h. Carl Friedrich von Siemens in der Sitzung des Reichskuratoriums für Wirtschaftlichkeit am 2 April 1925” in SAA 4/LF 668.

64 For the importance of maintaining this appearance for getting the appropriations bill through the Reichstag Budget Committee in 1925, see von Raumer to Köttgen of 20 April 1925, in SAA 11/LF 115. See also the 2 April Resolution cited in the above note.

65 For a list of the RKW's twenty-five affiliated organizations in 1926, see the RKW's Jahresbericht 1926 (Berlin, 1926), 1–22Google Scholar. A summary of the most important of these is provided in Handbuch der Rationalisierung, ed. Reuter, Fritz (3. ed. Berlin, 1932), 3–48Google Scholar.

66 See the description of the “Gruppe Hauswirtschaft beim Reichskuratorium für Wirtschaftlichekeit,” in Handbuch der Rationalisierung (3. ed., Berlin, 1932), 5–6Google Scholar; also Nolan, Mary, “Housework made Easy: the Taylorized Housewife in Weimar Germany's Rationalized Economy,” Feminist Studies 16 (1990): 549–578CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Visions of Modernity, chap. 10, “Housework Made Easy,” 206–226.

67 On the international rationalization movement, see the work of the International Management Institute, especially its Bulletin, published beginning in 1922. See also Devinat, Paul, Scientific Management in Europe, International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, Series B (Economic Conditions), No. 17, (Geneva, 1927): 223–225, 257–260Google Scholar. The RKW is discussed in several places by Devinat, see especially, 225–227.

68 Some evidence exists of just this kind of conflict over professional turf between the VDI and the RKW in 1925. Exactly what was at issue is not clear from the documents in the Siemens Archive in Munich. In a letter to Direktor Lippart of the MAN in Nuremberg, Köttgen spoke of “crnsthafte Auseinandersetzungen” with the VDI, especially with its Direktor, Waldemar Hellmich. These problems had stretched out “schon über eine längere Zeit” and concerned “die Art, wie das Reichskuratorium arbeiten soll…” See Köttgen's letter of 26 Oct. 1925, in SAA 11/LF 115. The problem concerned in part a squabble over professional territory. The VDI felt the RKW encroached upon the work of the VDI's affiliated Deutscher Verband für Materialprüfungen, a technical organization dealing with specifications for industrial materials. See Köttgen's attempt to reassure VDI Direktor Hellmich that this was not the case, in Köttgen's letter of 2 April 1925, SAA 11/LF 118. The VDI affair also led to the dismissal of Adolf Schilling as Direktor of the RKWs affiliated Gesellschaft für wirtschaftliche Verwaltung. See the complaint of the Vertrauendeute der Gesellschaft für wirtschaftliche Verwaltung of 2 December 1925, that the organization was not being informed concerning the RKW's plans for reorganization, in SAA 11/LF 426. The Gesellschaft demanded clarification of the rumor that the RKW was to be absorbed by the VDI. Köttgen informed Schilling that he was relieved of his responsibilities as Direktor of the Gesellschaft in a letter of 9 December 1925, SAA 11/LF 426.

69 See, for example, letters and applications in SAA 11/LF 115. Figures as prominent as Prof. Eugen Schmalenbach did not hesitate to turn to the RKW. Schmalenbach sought funds to study industrial accounting methods in 1926. See his letter to Carl Friedrich von Siemens of 29 April 1926. Personal connections were also not above use. Hans Blank of a firm in Witten-on-the-Ruhr wrote his old personal friend {Dutzfreund), Köttgen, requesting funding for a relatively obscure organization of technical industrialists. Köttgen's reply was cordial, but pleaded that the RKW did not ordinarily fund purely industrial groups. See his letter to Blank of 18 Feb. 1927 in the same file.

70 For allocations in this 26 month period, see the table in the RKW's Annual Report (Jahresbericht) of 1927 (Berlin, 1928), 31Google Scholar. The yearly report for 1927 reported allocation decisions up to 31 March, 1928. See also the numerous monthly RKW Finanzberichte with monthly allocation figures for the years 1926–1929, in SAA 11/LF 115.

71 The handbook appeared in its first edition in 1930, with two successive editions. The definitive third edition appeared in 1932 and exceeded 1,200 pages. See Reuter, Fritz ed. Handbuch der Rationalisierung (Berlin, 1932Google Scholar).

72 Technik und Wirtschaft was one of Germany's most important journals of industrial economy. It was founded in 1908 by the Association of German Engineers (Verein Deutscher Ingenieure, VDI), the most prominent such organization. The VDI created the journal in the conviction that Germany's highly scientifically-trained technical and engineering professions needed greater awareness of the commercial and economic dimensions of industrial enterprise. On this point, see Homburg, “Die Anfänge des Taylorsystems,” 173–174. Up to 1924, the editor had been Friedrich Meyer. Its acquisition by the RKW in 1924 must be seen as an important maneuver.

73 For a list of publications in the series up to 1936, see RKW, Verzeichnis der RKW Veröffentlichungen abgeschlossen im Januar 1936 (Berlin, 1936Google Scholar). The series numbered 97 titles at this point, plus the publications of several dependent organizations.

74 See Handbuch der Rationalisierung, ed. Reuter, Fritz (3. ed., Berlin, 1932Google Scholar). The first edition came out in 1930.

75 The single sheet Resolution “An den Reichstag, den Reichsrat und die Reichsregierung,” 2 April 1925, declared that, “Mehrerzeugung ist heute das Notwendigste, wirtschaftliche Gesundung ist das Dringendste für uns.” SAA 4/LF 668.

76 C. F. von Siemens, “Eröffnungsansprache” to RKW meeting of 17 Dec. 1925, 3–5; and “Ansprache” of 2 April 1925, 5–6. SAA 4/LF 668.

77 See Nolan, Visions of Modernity.

78 “Ansprache” of 2 April 1925, 1–2, SAA 4/LF 668.

79 Ibid., 3–5, and “Eröffnungsansprache” to the meeting of 17 Dec. 1925, 5.

80 Ibid.

81 “Ansprache,” 2 April 1925, 4.

82 See the year by year summary of the RKW's history in the 50th anniversary review of the organization in 1971 in Die Rationalisierung 22 (1971-1975): 141–168Google Scholar.

83 Die Rationalisierung 22 (1971-1975): 146Google Scholar.

84 Die Rationalisierung 22 (1971-1975): 144–146Google Scholar; “Wirtschaftlichkeit und Leistungssteigerung. Tagung des Reichskuratoriums für Wirtschaftlichkeit,” RKW-Nachrichten 12 (Juni 1938): 45–60Google Scholar. The Congress heard addresses from four keynote speakers. They were Dr. E. Koehler of the Reich Economics Ministry; G. Bauer, Director of the RKW; Gauleiter Wächtler of the Bavarian Ostmark; and Karl Lange from the Wirtschaftsgruppe Maschinenbau (Economic Group for Machine Building).

85 For the invitation to Siemens to attend the RKW Congress, see Seebauer's letter to Siemens of 11 April 1938, SAA 4/LF 668. For his acceptance, see the 50 Year RKW Retrospective in Die Rationalisierung 22 (1971-1975): 145–146Google Scholar.

86 Die Rationalisierung 22 (1971-1975): 146Google Scholar.

87 Ibid.

88 In its review of the RKW's activities during the 1940s, the editors of the 50 year anniversary journal credited Georg Seebaur, the RKW's Nazi era director, for keeping the professional publications of the organization “free from political influences.” Die Rationalisierung 22 (1971-1975): 146Google Scholar. The journal offers no further insight into this brief assertion.

89 Die Rationalisierung 22 (1971-1975Google Scholar), “50 Jahre RKW,” p. 125, portrays photographs of the Chair of the RKW's Board of Directors from its founding by Siemens in 1921 to the current Chair in 1971. Conspicuous is the gap between Köttgen's photograph and his retirement in 1934 and the next occupant of the position, Dr. Adolf Lohse, whose term began in 1950.

90 See relevant documents in Bundesarchiv Koblenz (BAK), R 107/3–4.

91 Die Rationalisierung 22 (1971-1975Google Scholar), “50 Jahre RKW.”

92 Handbuch der Rationalisierung, 3. ed., 139–179.

93 On the extent of the implementation of assembly line and other Fordist measures during the interwar era, see Bönig, Jürgen, “Technik und Rationalisierung in Deutschland zur Zeit der Weimarer Republik,” in Technik-Geschichte, ed. Troitsch, Ulrich and Wohlauf, Gabriele (Frankfurt, 1980), 390–419Google Scholar, who argues that whatever level of assembly line production may have been introduced in the 1920s, it did not constitute a significant transformation of capitalist modes of production. See also Homburg, Heidrun, Rationalisierung und Industriearbeit. Arbeirtsmarkt, Management, Arbeiterschaft im Siemens-Konzern 1900–1939 (Berlin, 1991Google Scholar), who argues that the measures of Fordism and more efficient production did not take hold in the Berlin machine building industry until the 1930s after the effects of the Depression began to fade. On the importance of the widespread discussion concerning rationalization measures rather than their actual implementation in the 1920s, see Shearer, J. Ronald, “Talking about Efficiency: Politics and the Industrial Rationalization Movement in the Weimar Republic,” Central European History 28 (1995): 483–506CrossRefGoogle Scholar.