West German Industry and the Challenge of the Nazi Past, 1945-1955

by Wiesen, S. Jonathan

• ISBN13: 9780807826348
• ISBN10: 0807826340
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-10-01
• Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr

Summary

In the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust, West German industrialists faced a major crisis in their public image. With mounting revelations about the use of forced and slave labor, the "Aryanization" of Jewish property, and corporate profiteering under National Socialism, industrialists emerged from the war with their national and international reputations in tatters. In this groundbreaking study, Jonathan Wiesen explores how West German business leaders remade and marketed their public image between 1945 and 1955. He challenges assumptions that West Germans--and industrialists in particular--were silent about the recent past during the years of denazification and reconstruction. Drawing on sources that include private correspondence, popular literature, and a wealth of unpublished materials from corporate archives, Wiesen reveals how German business leaders attempted to absolve themselves of responsibility for Nazi crimes while recasting themselves as socially and culturally engaged public figures. Through case studies of individual firms such as Siemens and Krupp, Wiesen depicts corporate publicity as a telling example of postwar selective memory. In his introduction and conclusion, Wiesen considers the recent establishment of a multibillion dollar fund to provide financial compensation to the victims of industrial exploitation during World War II. This acknowledgment by German industry of its ongoing responsibility for its past crimes underscores the contemporary relevance of Wiesen's study.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Glossary and Abbreviations	xv
Introduction	1	(2)
West German Industry's Crisis of Legitimacy	3	(1)
Public Relations and Collective Memory	4	(3)
The Industrial Milieu	7	(2)
The Scope of This Study	9	(2)
German Industry and National Socialism: A Brief Overview	11	(6)
A Company Encounters the Past: The Case of Siemens	17	(35)
Siemens at the End of World War II	19	(3)
A Legacy of Complicity	22	(6)
Memory in Action: Rewriting the Company Past	28	(10)
Rhetorical Fine-Tuning	38	(3)
Allied Policies Toward German Industry	41	(3)
Berlin Politics, Workers, and Siemens Guilt	44	(8)
The Beginnings of a Collective Identity	52	(42)
Mass Arrests and the Rebuilding of Industrial Organizations	53	(3)
Hermann Reusch and the Deconcentration of Industry	56	(4)
The Campaign against Dismantling	60	(7)
Nuremberg, Denazification, and the Crafting of Memory	67	(13)
The Courtroom Defense: Religion, the Worker, and der Burger	80	(6)
Organized Labor and the Politics of Industrial Guilt	86	(8)
Creating the New Industrialist	94	(35)
The End of Nuremberg	95	(3)
Corporate Publicity: West German Industry Looks to the United States	98	(3)
Public Relations Comes to Germany: The Deutsches Industrieinstitut	101	(13)
The Publications of the DI	114	(5)
Youth, Religion, and the Entrepreneurial Ethos	119	(10)
Selling the New Industrialist	129	(28)
Industrialists and the Social Markets Economy	130	(8)
The Unternehmer and Popular Culture	138	(4)
Markets, the Trade Fair, and the Ethic of Independence	142	(7)
The Lingering Presence of the Nazi Past	149	(8)
Industry, Culture, and the Decline of the West	157	(22)
Industry and Culture before 1945	157	(3)
Industrialists and West Germany's Spiritual Renewal	160	(3)
The United States, Democracy, and the Revolt of the Masses	163	(2)
Art Exhibitions and Cultural Patronage	165	(5)
Cultural Pessimism and Ideas of Decline	170	(6)
Industrialists as Cultural Elites?	176	(3)
Trade Unions, Workers, and the New Social Partnership	179	(22)
The Struggle Over Codetermination	180	(8)
The Unternehmer and the Worker	188	(2)
Human Relations and the Language of Conciliation	190	(2)
Workers' Publications and the Economic Miracle	192	(9)
Krupp, the United States, and the Salvation of West German Industry	201	(35)
Krupp and the Campaign for Amnesty	202	(3)
Taking the Legal Case to the Public	205	(4)
International Developments and the Amnesty of German Industrialists	209	(6)
U.S. Conservatives and the Rescue of German Industry	215	(14)
Krupp and Louis Lochner's Tycoons and Tyrant	229	(7)
Conclusion: The New Industrialist and West German Memory	236	(9)
Notes	245	(46)
Bibliography	291	(24)
Index	315