Steering Association

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Steering associations were a typical form of organization of the German economy between 1939 and 1945. As a result, the private cartels lost their functions. In 1943, the Reich Economics Minister dissolved most of the private cartels by decreeing a cartel settlement. The Nazi steering associations resembled the later combines of the GDR and other real socialist countries - with the difference in private ownership of the factories.

Examples

Important steering associations were: the Reichsvereinigungen RV bast fibers, RV iron, RV coal , RV chemical fibers and RV textile finishing as well as the hollow glass association and the German cement association under its head Heinz Müllensiefen .

Relationship with the cartels

At first there was no catchy name for the new economic corporations, which is why they were often still referred to as cartels . Insiders like the architect of the hollow glass community, Oswald Lehnich, rejected this designation as early as 1939, when the first steering associations were created.

In some cases, private cartels were absorbed into steering associations. Hans Kehrl , general advisor for special tasks in the Reich Ministry of Economics, had developed a procedure for bringing cartels into line in 1941 . In this "Kehrl system", the private associations were dealt with in such a way that they "receive the function of a management agency, which means that they are fully integrated into the management apparatus."

Differences to the organizational form cartel

In their organizational structure, cartels and steering associations were difficult to distinguish at first glance. The main difference lies in the internal control and power relations and in the cui bono of those types of association:

  • In cartels, the collective of carteled entrepreneurs resp. the general assembly of the association is the relevant body. The will of a cartel is determined autonomously. Membership in the cartel is basically voluntary; At a minimum, it is possible to fight out divergent interests between the cartel members.
  • In steering associations, a state appointed or confirmed leader is at the top. In these bodies the leader principle applies ; they receive their global goals from a superior authority, u. U. the top management. General meetings have no decision-making power. The entrepreneurs are affiliated to the steering associations by compulsory membership; only inwardly, in their factories, are they still masters of their property.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Holm A. Leonhardt: Cartel theory and international relations. Theory-historical studies , Hildesheim 2013, p. 223
  2. ^ Leonhardt, Kartellheorie, p. 223
  3. ↑ Hans Kehrl [in the original abbreviation 'Kl'], cartels in the controlled economy, in: The four-year plan. Journal for National Socialist Economic Policy 7 (1943), pp. 117–118, here p. 117
  4. ^ Leonhardt, Kartellheorie, pp. 247–248

literature

  • Heinz Müllensiefen , On the task and structural change of the cartels in the controlled economy , in: Journal of the Academy for German Law, 9 (1942), pp. 242–244.
  • Liselotte Eckelberg, The Importance of Reich Associations in the Framework of Economic Control for the Commercial Economy, Diss. Univ. Hamburg 1944.
  • Holm A. Leonhardt: Cartel theory and international relations. Theory-historical studies , Hildesheim 2013.