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Institutional Pressures and Organizational Identity: The Case of Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau in the GDR and Beyond, 1945–1996

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2018

Katrin Schreiter  and
Davide Ravasi
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Abstract

This article explores the case of Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau (DWH)—a furniture and interior manufacturer founded in 1898—through state socialism after 1945 and reprivatization in the 1990s. Our analysis suggests that the firm's survival through multiple systemic disruptions was partly due to the preservation of a unique identity despite heavy institutional pressures for conformity. DWH adopted a “mixed conformity” strategy that attempted to pitch multiple concerns (cultural-aesthetic, ideological, economic) of political authorities against one another to buffer sociopolitical pressures, thus ultimately conforming to some (identity-consistent) demands, while violating other (identity-threatening) ones. This allowed DWH to successfully navigate tensions between sociopolitical expectations and the need to preserve a collective sense of distinctiveness and continuity over time.

Keywords

organizational identityinstitutional pressuressociopolitical legitimacyconformityproduct designplanned economyGDRDeutsche Werkstätten Hellerau
Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 92 , Issue 3 , Autumn 2018 , pp. 453 - 481
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2018 

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Footnotes

We would especially like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their critical comments and helpful suggestions. We are thankful to the Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau for giving us access to their archival documents and historical pictures, with special thanks to Annette Hellmuth for her support. For their time and expertise, we thank the interviewees of this project: Fritz Straub, Werner Kreische, and Klaus Rudel. We gratefully acknowledge the participants at the conference “The Nationality of the Company” (Nov. 2017, Frankfurt), in particular Alfred Reckendrees and Ralf Ahrens, for their insightful comments on an earlier draft of this article. Finally, we are indebted to Paolo Aversa, who suggested this collaboration of two scholars who share an interest in similar questions from quite different disciplinary perspectives.

References

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21 Schmidt quoted in Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau (DWH), ed., Mythos Hellerau: Ein Unternehmen meldet sich zurück (Darmstadt, 2002), 10.

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23 Typification describes ideal types of shapes developed by architecture and design experts, based on professional experience and skill, applied to a task until the best, universally accepted solution is found. Impressed by the dire domestic economic situation of World War I, Schmidt actively promoted typification to become the standard nationwide under a system of managed, or “organized,” capitalism he called “state socialism.” He believed that under centralized economic and aesthetic control Germany could reach its full potential as an international cultural leader and export power. Mass production was not the end of typification, but rather the means to diffuse good taste among the general population. See letters from Schmidt to Dr. Else Meisner, 10 Mar. 1916–1 Nov. 1917, collection Deutscher Werkbund, Werkbundarchiv—Museum der Dinge, Berlin (hereafter, WbA-MdD).

24 DWH, Mythos Hellerau, 38.

25 Harrod, “Deutsche Werkstätten,” 28; Harrod, W. Owen, “Bruno Paul's Typenmöbel, the German Werkbund, and Pragmatic Modernism, 1908–1918,” Studies in the Decorative Arts 9, no. 2 (2002): 33–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 “Timeline,” Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau, accessed 2 Aug. 2016, http://www.dwh.de/en/mythos/chronology/. This early recognition might have contributed to the perception, among its members, of design innovation and modernist aesthetic as central to the identity of DWH (see Canato and Ravasi, “We Are What We Do,” for a theoretical discussion).

27 Harrod, “Deutsche Werkstätten,” 39–40.

28 Nabert, Thomas, Möbel für Alle: Die Geschichte der sächsischen Möbelindustrie (Leipzig, 2014), 192Google Scholar.

29 Klaus-Peter Arnold, Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau: Vom Sofakissen zum Städtebau. Herkunft und Gegenwart. Zur Geschichte der Deutschen Werkstätten und der Gartenstadt Hellerau, exhibition brochure (Freudenberg on Main, 2013), 45, WbA-MdD.

30 “Hellerau,” Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau, accessed 10 Aug. 2016, http://www.dwh.de/en/hellerau/.

31 H. Exner, Möbel und Innenräume (unpublished illustrated booklet, 1953), DC 20/3945, Bundesarchiv, Berlin (hereafter, Barch).

32 Walter Ulbricht to Fritz Apelt (Director of Office for Literature and Publishing), 30 Nov. 1953, DC 20/3945, Barch.

33 See, for example, Clark, Katerina, The Soviet Novel: History and Ritual, 3rd ed. (Bloomington, Ind., 2000)Google Scholar; Groys, Boris, Gesamtkunstwerk Stalin: Die gespaltene Kultur in der Sowjetunion (Munich, 1988)Google Scholar; and Paperny, Vladimir, Architecture in the Age of Stalin: Culture Two, trans. Hill, John and Barris, Roann (Cambridge, U.K., 2002)Google Scholar.

34 Selman Selmanagić, “Der VEB Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau in den Jahren 1945 bis 1951” (1951), in Exner, Möbel und Innenräume, 115. Wurzler had been DWH's business administration manager under Schmidt before the end of the war. Nabert, Möbel für Alle, 187.

35 Considering the political context of the time, this decision may seem surprising because it put the company in opposition to centralized economic policy. It is less surprising, however, if we consider that the “suggested” changes would have required DWH to relinquish its distinctive approach to furniture making and design. Wurzler and the board likely viewed the integrity of the identity and heritage of the company as more important than political support—and willingly incurred the ire of the authorities in order to defend it.

36 “Sitzmöbel aus Formholz,” in Exner, Möbel und Innenräume, 116.

37 Selmanagić, “Der VEB Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau,” 115.

38 Ibid. All translations from archival sources are by the authors.

39 For Selmanagić’s complete biography, see Wüsten, Sonja, “Selman Selmanagić Biographisches,” in Selman Selmanagić: Festgabe zum 80. Geburtstag am 25. April 1985, ed. Wüsten, Sonja, Kuntzsch, Dietmar, and Menday, Hans (Berlin, 1984), 6–41Google Scholar.

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42 For instance, see “Bericht über die zweite künstlerische Unterweisung der Leiter der Entwicklungsstellen durch die Deutsche Bauakademie Berlin am 14.4.1954,” signed by Kant, 20 Apr. 1954, 11764/313.1, Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Dresden (hereafter, SStA).

43 DWH to Bruno Paul, 19 Oct. 1954, 11764/2222, SStA.

44 At this point in time, DWH only manufactured and produced small series models that were designed by the Bauakademie or that found the expressed approval of the artistic board of the Bauakademie. DWH to Ministry for Light Industry—HV Holz- und Kulturwaren Koordinierungsstelle, “betr. Überprüfung der laufenden Produktion,” 29 Sept. 1954, 11764/3131, SStA.

45 “Bericht über die Ausstellung von Möbel-Entwürfen unserer Techniker,” 20 April 1954, 11764/3131, SStA.

46 Kant to Wurzler and Weber, “betr. Vorbereitung K A S und B K V, hier: Notiz von Koll. Weber 10.11.54,” 10 Nov. 1954, 11764/3131, SStA.

47 Protocol, Ministry for Light Industry, HV Holz- und Kulturwaren Koordinierungsstelle, 23 Dec. 1954, 11764/2222, SStA.

48 See Nabert, Möbel für Alle, 227–36.

49 On the different ownership forms, see Geißler, Rainer, Die Sozialstruktur Deutschlands: Zur gesellschaftlichen Entwicklung mit einer Bilanz zur Vereinigung, 5th ed. (Wiesbaden, 2008), 145–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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51 Correspondence and travel reports, folder 11764/1169.2, SStA.

52 DWH to DIA Kulturwaren, “betr. Export 1959,” 16 June 1958, 11764/941.1, SStA.

53 Re: Messe Köln, 27 Jan. 1960, 11764/1225, SStA.

54 Correspondence and orders, folder 11764/507.2, SStA; Granz (DWH export manager), “Reisebericht über die vom 14.8. bis 21.8.1971 durchgeführte Dienstreise nach England,” 23 Sept. 1971, 11764/1692, SStA.

55 See Oskar Schwarzer, Sozialistische Zentralplanwirtschaft in der SBZ/DDR: Ergebnisse eines ordnungspolitischen Experiments, 1945–1989, Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte no. 143 (Stuttgart, 1999); and, on the motivations behind NES, see Kopstein, Politics of Economic Decline, 41–72.

56 Schickling (DW Frankfurt) to DWH, 10 Oct. 1966, 11764/3468, SStA; Walter Heyn (DW Munich) to Horst Zaunik (DWH director), 26 Jan. 1967, 11764/3468, SStA.

57 For more details on the design history of MDW, see Ludwig, Andreas, “‘Hunderte von Varianten’: Das Möbelprogramm Deutsche Werkstätten (MDW) in der DDR,” Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History 3 (2006): 449–59Google Scholar.

58 See Harrod, “Deutsche Werkstätten,” 37–38.

59 Travel report, DIA Holz und Papier—Kontor 4 to Sweden, 24 Nov. 1972, 11764/1692, SStA.

60 The initial VVB structure from 1958 had been reformed in 1964, instructing the VVB (Z) Möbel Dresden to manage the industry according to Ulbricht's NES, responsible for the development and execution of the state-directed plan. These responsibilities were transferred to the combines in the 1970s.

61 Horst Zaunik, “Announcement Vereinigung zum VEB MK Hellerau ab 1.1.1970,” 12 Dec. 1969, 11764/2284, SStA. See also Nabert, Möbel für Alle, 269. Forty-six companies belonged to the Dresden-Hellerau combine after the restructuring in 1980. The furniture combine Zeulenroda, by comparison, included only twenty-eight. Lauber, Andreas, Wohnkultur in der DDR—Dokumentation ihrer materiellen Sachkultur: Eine Untersuchung zu Gestaltung, Produktion und Bedingungen des Erwerbs von Wohnungseinrichtungen in der DDR (Eisenhüttenstadt, 2003), 89–92Google Scholar.

62 Nabert, Möbel für Alle, 304.

63 Ibid., 303.

64 DWH, Mythos Hellerau, 34–35.

65 Correspondence and contracts, 11764/2390, SStA.

66 Albrecht to Nebelung, 5 Dec. 1988; Nebelung to Albrecht (AHB), 15 Dec. 1988, 11764/2390, SStA.

67 Collier, Irwin L. and Siebert, Horst, “The Economic Integration of post-Wall Germany,” American Economic Review 81, no. 2 (1991): 199Google Scholar.

68 Werner Kreische, former company director (1990–1992), interview by authors, 26 Oct. 2017.

69 See, for example, Michael Charles Kaser, “Post-communist Privatization: Flaws in the Treuhand Model” (discussion papers in German Studies IGS series vol. 10, Birmingham Institute for German Studies, 1996); Carlin, Wendy and Mayer, C. P., Structure and Ownership of East German Businesses: An Evaluation of the Treuhand (London, 1996)Google Scholar.

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71 Collier and Siebert, “Economic Integration,” 199.

72 Kreische interview.

73 Fritz Straub, managing director, interview by authors, 27 July 2017.

74 Nabert, Möbel für Alle, 346.

75 Straub interview; Kreische interview. See also Nabert, Möbel für Alle, 346.

76 For instance, see the case of Frank Lorenzo's acquisition of Continental Airlines, described in Bethune, Gordon, From Worst to First: Behind the Scenes of Continental's Remarkable Comeback (New York, 1999)Google Scholar.

77 DWH, Mythos Hellerau, 38.

78 Straub interview.

79 DWH, Mythos Hellerau, 60.

80 Ibid., 24.

81 Straub interview.