Heike Knortz

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Heike Knortz (born February 10, 1962 in Gießen ) is a German economic historian and university lecturer .

Life

Knortz studied history, economic and social history and political science at the Rheinisch-Westfälisch-Technische Hochschule Aachen and the Philipps-Universität Marburg . In 1988 she took up a position as a Research Associate at the University of the Bundeswehr Hamburg , where she in 1992 with a study on the Economic demobilization 1918/22 the example of the Rhine-Main region to Dr. phil. received his doctorate . In 1993 she moved to the Institute for Social Sciences at the Karlsruhe University of Education as an academic senior counselor . 2004 habilitation them there with a thesis on innovation management in the GDR 1973 / 79-1989 . In the meantime she has been appointed adjunct professor for economic history .

Research areas

The focus of Knortz's academic work is the economic, social and corporate history of the 20th century. She conducts research on questions of domestic currencies and balance of payments deficits and examines household books as sources on German consumption and cultural history. Further works are devoted to the topic of “ guest workers as a motor of early European economic integration”, the “passive creative power of the GDR workforce” and the problem of modern anti-Semitism as a special form of xenophobia.

Publications

Diplomatic exchanges

In her monograph on the history of guest workers in Germany, Knortz comes to the conclusion that the actual impetus for the recruitment of so-called "guest workers" did not come from German industry and the increasing demand on the labor market, but from the Federal Foreign Office . Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal and, later, Turkey had urged them to enter into recruitment agreements. For reasons of foreign trade and foreign policy, these expectations were met; in addition, the admission of guest workers seemed opportune as a means of defending against the demands of the trade unions and for increasing the profits of companies. By taking on cheap unskilled labor, outdated industrial complexes such as coal mining or the smaller-scale textile industry could be artificially kept alive instead of making capital-intensive investments to increase productivity. This undesirable development laid the foundation for the later crisis in the 1970s. A “stronger technology-induced growth” in the Federal Republic of Germany was prevented until 1973.

In her review, Patrice G. Poutrus from the Center for Contemporary History Research in Potsdam considers Knortz's conclusions to be exaggerated and the database to be too small. Knortz thinks that immigration to the Federal Republic could have been avoided if the politicians had listened to the national economists. The impression arises that “the Federal Republic could only have been better off without immigration - an impression that is politically questionable and not plausible in terms of contemporary history.” Many insights into the role of the Foreign Office and the rivalry with the Ministry of Economics are also included To find Johannes-Dieter Steinert.

Karl-Heinz Meier-Braun considers the author's theses to be dangerous, as they could provide arguments for xenophobic and conspiracy-theoretical attitudes, as if the state had deliberately lied to "the German people" when it was granted permission for guest workers for foreign policy reasons. The argumentation for her two main theses “primacy of foreign policy” and “economic undesirable development” is one-sided and self-contradicting, since she mentions the economic need for guest workers and the role of the Ministry of Economic Affairs even in the foreign ministry sources mentioned by her should have been noticed. Knortz also ignores the research results that have made it clear that the economic miracle in post-war Germany and the establishment of the social system would not have been achieved without the “guest workers”. “Many Germans rose to better professional positions because of their employment. According to the calculations of the migration researcher Friedrich Heckmann, around 2.3 million Germans managed to move up from blue-collar to salaried positions between 1960 and 1970, mainly because of the employment of foreigners. According to information from the Federal Ministry of Labor from 1976, foreign workers made it possible to reduce the working hours of Germans significantly while maintaining strong economic growth. The foreign employees paid taxes without using any public services. This applies, for example, to the contributions to the pension insurance. ”For a long time this was largely subsidized by foreign workers.

Fonts (selection)

  • Economic demobilization 1918/22. The example of the Rhine-Main area , Peter Lang, Frankfurt / Main u. a. 1992 (= studies on technical, economic and social history, vol. 4).
  • Economic integration and disintegration on the Upper Rhine. A cluster-theoretical-economic-historical analysis of the Europe of the Regions , Peter Lang, Frankfurt / Main u. a. 2003 (= studies on technical, economic and social history, vol. 13).
  • Innovation management in the GDR 1973 / 79-1989: The socialist manager between economic challenges and system blockades , Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 2004 (= writings on economic and social history, vol. 79).
  • Diplomatic exchanges. “Guest workers” in West German diplomacy and employment policy 1953-1973 , Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2008 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  • Economic history of the Weimar Republic. An introduction to the economy and society of the first German republic , UTB textbook, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2010.
  • Guest workers for Europe. The economic history of early European migration and integration , Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2016, ISBN 978-3-412-50178-5 .
Editing
  • Xenophobia in Germany. An interdisciplinary contribution to the discussion , Peter Lang, Frankfurt / Main u. a. 1994.

literature

  • Kürschner's German Scholars Calendar 2011. De Gruyter, Berlin 2011, Vol. 2, p. 2127.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Author information on the website of the publisher Peter Lang , accessed on August 7, 2011.
  2. ↑ Kürschner's German Scholars Calendar 2011 , p. 2127.
  3. ↑ Modern anti-Semitism as a special form of xenophobia , in: Heike Knortz (Ed.): Xenophobia in Germany. An interdisciplinary contribution to the discussion. Peter Lang, Frankfurt / Main a. a. 1994. pp. 13-31.
  4. ^ Johannes-Dieter Steinert: Migration and Politics. West Germany - Europe - Overseas (1945–1961) , Osnabrück 1995; Karen Schönwälder: Immigration and Ethnic Plurality. Political decisions and public debates in Great Britain and the Federal Republic from the 1950s to the 1970s, Essen 2001.
  5. ↑ http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensions/2008-2-184.pdf .
  6. ↑ http://www.swr.de/international/merkwuerdiger-beitrag-zur-migrationsgeschichte/-/id=233334/did=4660052/nid=233334/efiq9/index.html ; positive review: Martin Kröger: Initiative of the sending countries. Foreign Office and Employment of Foreigners 1953-1973 , in: FAZ from June 24, 2008 http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/politik/initiative-der-entsendelaender-1550013.html .
  7. ↑ Reinhold Weber , Karl-Heinz Meier-Braun : Brief history of immigration and emigration in Baden-Württemberg , Der Kleine Buch Verlag , 2016, ISBN 978-3-7650-1414-7 . Pp. 116-117 .
personal data
SURNAME Knortz, Heike
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German economic historian and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH February 10, 1962
PLACE OF BIRTH to water