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Entrepreneurs in Heavy Industry: Upper Silesia and the Westphalian Ruhr Region, 1852 to 1913*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Toni Pierenkemper
Toni Pierenkemper
Affiliation:
Wissenschaftlicher Assistent, WestfälischeWilhelms-Universität
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Abstract

Do variations in the circumstances under which heavy industry was developed in different regions account for the kinds of “entrepreneurs” those regions attracted? In this note on his current research, Doctor Pierenkemper concludes that varying circumstances do, indeed, account for varying backgrounds of entrepreneurs, and offers evidence from two contrasting regions in early German heavy industry. He offers the further hypothesis that as circumstances affecting growth — such as finance, market stability, and the need for professional management — change, certain kinds of backgrounds may become more applicable while others become less so.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , Spring 1979 , pp. 65 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1979

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References

1 Fuchs, Konrad, “Wirtschaftliche Führungskräfte in Schlesien 1850–1914, Zeitschrift für Ostforschung, XXI (1972), 264–288Google Scholar; especially 264.

2 For a similar attempt with railroad entrepreneurs, see, Pierenkemper, Toni, “Die Zusammensetzung des Führungspersonals und die Lösung unternehmerischer Probleme in frühen Eisenbahn-Gesellschaften,” Tradition, XXI (Jg., 1976), 37–19Google Scholar, and Die westfälischen Schwerindustriellen. (Göttingen, 1979), especially Kapitel IV, which is more inclusive and statistically significant.

3 Jäger, Hans, “Gegenwart und Zukunft der historischen Unternehmerforschung,” Tradition, XVIII (Jg., 1972), 120.Google Scholar

4 Unlike most of economic theory, modem decision theory cannot offer such a prescriptive formulation, see, Krelle, Wilhelm, Präferenz- und Entscheidungstheorie (Tübingen, 1969).Google Scholar On the contrary, one requires “a descriptive theory of human decision-making which approaches reality and systematically considers the social context of the decision.” Cf. Kirsch, Werner, Entscheidungsprozesse Bd. I: Verhaltenswissenschaftliche Ansätze der Entscheidungstheorie (Wiesbaden, 1970)Google Scholar, foreword.

5 Hans Jäger, “Gegenwart und Zukunft,” 120, and in general, Bahrdt, Hans-Paul, “Fiktiver Zentralismus in den Gro/Sunternehmungen,” Kyklos, Internationale Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaften, Bd. 9 (1956), 483–489.Google Scholar

6 Kindleberger, Charles P., Economic Growth in France and Britain 1851–1950, (Cambridge, Mass. 1964), 113–114CrossRefGoogle Scholar refers to four special difficulties in this context: 1. the problem of harmony in the growth cycle (“timing”), 2. the problem of constructing averages, 3. the problem of comparable conditions, which is connected to 4. the problem of alternative but equally successful strategies.

7 For example, McCloskey, Donald, Economic Maturity and Entrepreneurial Decline. British Iron and Steel 1870–1913, (Cambridge, Mass., 1973).Google Scholar

8 Pierenkemper, Toni, “Struktur und Entwicklung der Schwerindustrie in Oberschlesien und im Westfälischen Ruhrgebiet, 1852–1913,” Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte (1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which presents regional and temporal demarcation as well as defining and subdividing “heavy industry.”

9 For sources used in the biographical reconstruction for the Ruhr industrialists, see Toni Pierenkemper, Die westfälischen Schwerindustriellen, the source discussion in the appendix. Data for biographical reconstruction were obtained from an extensive sifting of numerous “Festchriften,” biographies, and necrologies in major trade journals, e.g., “Glückauf” and “Stahl und Eisen.” Interestingly enough, the most valuable sources were the necrologies. In the current work we consider as “entrepreneurs” both managers and founders, although in the previous work a difference was expressly maintained. The biographies of Upper Silesian entrepreneurs came from Perlick, Alfons, Oberschlesische Berg- und Hüttenleute. Lebensbilder aus dem oberschlesischen Industrierevier (Kitzingen Main, 1953).Google Scholar Cf. also the source discussion there.

10 This definition is most consonant with the “positional definition of an entrepreneur” in Biermann, Benno, Die soziale Struktur der Unternehmerschaft (Stuttgart, 1971), 14.Google Scholar

11 More expressly:: 1) “Official” means civil officials, who were employed at the government mining and foundry administration, which managed its own mines and foundries. As this arrangement existed only in Upper Silesia, this category does not appear for the Ruhr. 2) “Owner” describes a person who ran a firm either as sole proprietor, in a partnership, or as owner of a large part of the share capital. 3) “Salaried employees” occupied a managerial position without an ownership interest.

12 After 1912 the Prussian Mining Authority, with a production of over 7 million tons of bituminous coal or almost 17 per cent of total production, was the largest producer of coal in Upper Silesia. Jüngst, Ernst, “Die Konzentration im deutschen Wirtschaftsleben, im besonderen im Steinkohlenbergbau,” Glückauf (1913), 1473–1474.Google Scholar The advance of heavy industry resulted directly from the establishment of state mines and foundries, and indirectly from the encouragement of innovation in private firms and subsidization of their sales, for example, by consumption bonuses. “Der Bergbau im Osten des Königreichs Preuβen. Der oberschlesische Industriebezirk.” Festschrift zum XII Allgemeinen Deutschen Bergmannstag in Breslau 1913, Bd. II (Kattowitz, 1913), 82, 89; Fuchs, Konrad, Vom Dirigismus zum Liberalismus. Die Entwicklung Oberschlesiens als preuβisches Berg- und Hüttenrevier (Wiesbaden, 1970), 122Google Scholar; Speier, Paul, Entstehung und Entwicklung der Oberschlesischen Montan-Industrie und die Oberschlesischen Montan-Actien-Werthe (Breslau, 1885), 9–10, 15.Google Scholar

13 Schofer, Lawrence, The Formation of a Modern Labor Force. Upper Silesia, 1865–1914 (Berkeley, 1975), 29Google Scholar, and Fuchs, Konrad, Schlesiens Industrie. Eine historische Skizze (München, 1968), 16–17.Google Scholar On the legal status of raw materials, see, “Der Bergbau im Osten des Königsreichs Preussen,” 100 ff.

14 For the Gewerke (Owners of mining shares) see Tenfelde, Klaus, Sozialgeschichte der Bergarbeiterschaft an der Ruhr im 19. Jahrhundert (Bonn-Bad Godesberg, 1977), 78 ff.Google Scholar The subject of social origins of the industrialists will be taken up again later.

15 Of the 19 owners in Upper Silesia all but 5 were nobles; only 3 of the 43 owners in the Ruhr could be considered noble.

16 We have divided heavy industry into a) unintegrated mining companies b) firms with blast furnaces and/or steel works, and c) mixed firms with both mining and foundry activities. Cf. Pierenkemper, Die westfalischen Schwerindustriellen, 88 ff.

17 On the mining laws of the Ruhr and in comparison with Upper Silesia, see Fischer, Wolfram, Die Bedeutung der preuβischen Bergrechtsreform für den industriellen Ausbau des Ruhrgebiets (Dortmund, 1961), 9–10.Google Scholar

18 Pierenkemper, Die westfälischen Schwerindustriellen, 229 ff, especially 233–234.

19 Lütge, Friedrich, Deutsche Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte (Berlin, 1966), 488CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Treue, WilhelmWirtschaftsgeschichte der Neuzeit (Stuttgart, 1962), 560Google Scholar and Beutin, Ludwig, Gesammelte Schriften zur Wirtschafts- usd Sozialgeschichte (Köln, 1963), 289.Google Scholar

20 For a detailed study, see Albrecht, Günter, Soziologie der geographischen Mobilität (Stuttgart, 1972).Google Scholar

21 On the possibility of developing social strata into an operational concept, see Moore, Harriet and Kleining, Gerhard, “Das soziale Selbstbild der Gesellschaftsschichten in Deutschland, Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie (1960), 86–119Google Scholar, and “Soziale Selbsteinstufung (SSE),” Kölner Zeitschrift (1968), 502–552, as well as Scheuch, Erwin, “Sozialprestige und soziale Schichtung,” in Glass, D.V. and König, R. (Hrsg.), Soziale Schichtung und Mobilität (Köln, 1968), 65–103.Google Scholar

22 Kaelble, Hartmut, Berliner Unternehmer während der frühen Industrialisierung (Berlin, 1972)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Stahl, Wilhelm, Der Elitekreislauf in der Unternehmerschaft (Frankfurt/M., 1973)Google Scholar, and Erickson, Charlotte, British Industrialists. Steel and Hosiery 1850–1950 (Cambridge, England, 1959).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 This conclusion applies mainly to heavy industrialists. Craft origins played a larger role in small and medium-size structured branches of industry. Kocka, Jürgen, Unternehmer in der deutschen Industrialisierung (Göttigen, 1975), 47.Google Scholar

24 Kaelble, Berliner Unternehmer, 30 and Erickson British Industrialists, 12.

25 This is well illustrated in Phillips, Wilhelm, “Der Unternehmer in der Solinger Stahlwarenindustrie im 19. Jahrhundert” (Diss. Köln, 1956), 3 ffGoogle Scholar, Sachtier, Heinz, “Wandlungen des industriellen Unternehmers in Deutschland seit Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts” (Diss. Halle/Wittenberg o.J.), 24Google Scholar, and Visser, Dirk, “The German Captain of Enterprise: Veblen's ‘Imperial Germany’ Revisited,” Explorations in Entrepreneurial History (1969/1963), 314–315.Google Scholar

26 Cf. the organization of education in Prussian civil service: “Vorschriften vom 21. Dezember 1863 über die Befähigung zu den technischen Ämtern der Berg-Hütten- und Salinenverwaltung,” Zeitschrift für das Berg-, Hütten- und Salinenwesen (1864), 297–308. (Regulations regarding qualifications of technical officials of the Mining, Foundry and Salt Works Administration).

27 The education system in the trade unfolded fairly early, while the commercial educational system developed around the turn of the century. Cf. Vergi. Simon, Oskar, Die Fachbildung des preu ischen Gewerbe- und Handelsstandes im 18 und 19. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1902), 864.Google Scholar

28 Kaelble Berliner Unternehmer, 39, Beau, Horst, Das Leistungswissen des frühindustriellen Unternehmertums in Rheinland und Westfalen (Bergisch Gladach, 1959), 31Google Scholar, 68, and Wilhelm Stahl, Der Elitekreislauf, 229, 232.

29 von Laer, Hermann, Industrialisierung und Qualität der Arbeit. Eine bildungsökonomische Untersuchung für das 19. Jahrhundert (New York, 1977), 329.Google Scholar

30 This view is found in contemporary analysis, e.g. Jaeggi, Urs, Macht und Herrschaft in der Bundesrepublik (Frankfurt/M., 1969), 73 ffGoogle Scholar, as well as in historical investigations Nussbaum, Helga, Unternehmer gegen Monopole (Berlin [Ost], 1966), 3Google Scholar, although research in entrepreneurial history usually neglects this perspective: Jäger, Hans, Unternehmer in der deutscher Politik (1890–1918) (Bonn, 1967), 14.Google Scholar

31 It is possible to doubt the political neutrality so often ascribed to the civil service. See, Wehler, Hans-Ulrich, Das Deutsche Kaiserreich 1871–1918 (Göttingen, 1973), 72, 74.Google Scholar

32 Pierenkemper “Struktur und Entwicklung.”

33 See the analysis of cartel movements in the heavy industry in the Ruhr in Pierenkemper Die westfälischen Schwerindustriellen, 262 ff.