Steelworks Association
The German Steelworks Association was a syndicate cartel founded in 1904 , i. H. a sophisticated cartel with centralized sales. The German steelworks association AG was the sales company founded in the form of a stock corporation of this cartel.
history
Under the pressure of increasingly powerful American competition, which had formed the US Steel Trust by 1900 , negotiations began in 1898 between German steel producers to establish an all-German association for river iron production. As a result of protracted disputes, the steelworks association was founded in 1904. For the time being, however, this was limited to the most important steel producers in the Rhenish-Westphalian mining region. In 1909 the Upper Silesian steel producers also joined, which gave the steelworks association the desired national, imperial German dimension.
The steelworks association existed in its originally agreed form until 1917, after which, after a few changes to the contract, the Ironworks Association was temporarily founded in 1919. In the following years the German Steelworks Association (or part of it) became a partner in the international steel cartels of 1926/29 and 1933/39. In 1942, the German steel cartels were absorbed by the organs of the National Socialist steering industry : the Reichsverband Eisen took over the former syndicate tasks in a larger and optimized context of a central administration economy.
Purpose and function
The aim of founding the steelworks association was to merge the heterogeneous production of the iron processing industry in a business cartel or syndicate , as has long been a successful practice in the iron-producing plants or the Rheinisch-Westfälischen Kohlen-Syndikat . Founding members of the steelworks association were among others the coal and steel industrialists Ernst Poensgen and Adolph Kirdorf . The companies involved saw the cartel as an alternative solution to a regular trust . Trusts were tightly organized group companies aiming for horizontal concentration , i.e. a monopoly position within one and the same industry. Cartels, on the other hand, gave their participants some freedom in all areas outside of sales. Last but not least, the quality of a number of member companies as family businesses or resistance from shareholders prevented a more solid merger into a large corporation.
Number of members and economic importance
The number of members of the syndicate fluctuated in many cases due to entries and exits or company takeovers. By the mid-1920s, an average of about 30 steel companies were syndicated.
When it was founded in 1904, the association comprised 27 large steelworks in the Ruhr area . These came to a production share of 80 percent in West Germany. As a result of the merger, first three, then four more companies in the region joined in the same year. In 1907 the so far only Rhenish-Westphalian steelworks association merged with the Upper Silesian one, so that it now again belonged to 31 large combined steelworks. Together they came to a capital of 1.75 billion marks. In the form of a cartel, Stahlwerk AG was the largest private enterprise in the German Empire . In 1911, the affiliated plants produced 80% of the total production of finished products and 57% of the semi-finished products in Germany. The factories together accounted for 95% of crude steel production.
The steelworks association, which was reorganized in 1925/26, was more successful in terms of cartelization than the merger during the German Empire . For more than two thirds of the production there was now a price fixing.
Internal and external structure
colored postcard from Dr. Trenkler & Co.
Due to the diversity of steel production , the steelworks association was from the start a combined cartel that comprised several product groups, each with a different group of producers. Before the First World War, there was a distinction between product groups A and B. Group A comprised the heavy products of the rolling mills such as beams and rails. Group B comprised the lighter products. The association sought a common price and sales policy for the groups. The products of group A were sold directly by the association and in its name. Group B products continued to be sold by the individual companies. However, this was done within the framework of quota agreements . The association set the prices four times a year. In addition, rules for self-consumption and options for transferring production quotas between the individual companies were laid down. However, the regulations of group B in particular turned out to be problematic. Quotas have not been allocated since 1912.
At the marketing level , the association also appeared as the “Association of German Bridges and Iron”, around 1913 at the International Building Exhibition (see illustration opposite).
After the First World War, the steelworks association grew into the role of a general allotment and umbrella cartel . In 1924, the German Raw Steel Community was founded within its organizational framework . The latter was a subset within the steelworks association, itself again an umbrella cartel and at the same time a member of the respective international steel cartels IRG from 1926 resp. IREG from 1933.
Not affiliated to the steelworks association (in the 1920s) were some more specialized production areas, e.g. B. wheel sets and wheel tires, tubes, large tubes and wire, existed for the own association offices in Essen and Düsseldorf .
Organizational structure
When it was founded, the steelworks association consisted of the following main bodies:
- the "steel mill owners meeting", i.e. the general assembly of the cartel,
- the "Advisory Board" for ongoing control tasks, made up of one representative per 500,000 t of crude steel production,
- the eight-member "commission" for central parameter determinations and
- the joint sales point (Stahlwerkverband AG).
In 1907 the advisory board was abolished, whereby the commission was upgraded as an executive body.
Internal conditions and politics of interests
The existence of the association was always endangered by internal tensions. Every time after the expiry of the fixed-term contract, there were violent disputes about the increase in the participation figures between the member plants. Mainly under pressure from the big banks and the government, the association remained in existence until after the First World War .
The steelworks association played - in addition to the also heavyweight RWKS - an important role in the Central Association of German Industrialists . Both associations paid by far the highest membership fee of 10,000 Reichsmarks each year.
Rank and reputation
When it was founded in 1904, the steelworks association was regarded as an even more perfect form of cartel than the Rheinisch-Westfälische Kohlensyndikat established in 1893 . He is "the most outstanding figure in the field of cartel law, both in terms of scope and internal development [...]. It can therefore be described as the χατ εξοχην cartel [highest level]. ”In fact, the integration performance (across the diversity of products) of the steelworks association was greater than that of the coal syndicate. As early as 1912, however, the steelworks association lost its position as a role model for the cartel movement , as it increasingly suffered from internal disagreements and functional deficiencies.
Headquarters, building, monument preservation
Seat of the Central d. H. the central sales point of the syndicate, was Düsseldorf . This location was made possible by the courtesy of the city administration when the association was founded. This provided the construction site for a building for at least 400–500 employees free of charge. After a possible relocation of the sales point, the building should become the property of the city. In 1908 the representative building, called Stahlhof , was completed. The establishment of the Stahlwerkverband AG was at the beginning of the development of Düsseldorf into the “ desk of the Ruhr area ”. Until the end of the Second World War , the building was used for mining purposes. From May 1946, the civil governor of the British military government for the province of North Rhine-Westphalia and for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia took his seat there. Today, the Düsseldorf Administrative Court is housed in the Stahlhof. The memorial plaque attached to the building only notes the beginning of "Democracy in North Rhine-Westphalia" in 1946. The original purpose of the building, the sale of steel for the Ruhr area production region and later for the entire Reich, is not mentioned. The steelworks association is also not mentioned as the first, long-term, functional and stylish user.
literature
- Eugen Altmann: About the development and significance of the cartels in the German iron industry. Darmstadt 1909.
- Günther Kiersch: International iron and steel cartels. Essen 1954.
- Holm A. Leonhardt: Cartel theory and international relations. History of theory studies. Hildesheim 2013.
- Alfred Reckendress: The steel trust project. The foundation of the Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG and its corporate development 1926–1933 / 34. Munich 2000.
- Gerald Spindler: Law and Group. Interdependencies of legal and corporate development in Germany and the USA between 1870 and 1933 . Tubingen 1993.
Web links
- Documents and newspaper articles on the steelworks association in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Eugen Altmann: On the development and significance of the cartels in the German iron industry. Darmstadt 1909, p. 42.
- ^ Holm A. Leonhardt: Cartel theory and international relations. History of theory studies. Hildesheim 2013, p. 223.
- ^ Joseph A. Schumpeter : Business cycles. Göttingen 2008, p. 454.
- ↑ Eugen Altmann: About the development and importance of cartels in the German iron industry. Darmstadt 1909, p. 44.
- ^ A b Irmgard Steinisch: Reduction of working hours and social change. The fight for the eight-hour day in the German and American iron and steel industries. Berlin / New York, 1986, p. 39.
- ↑ Alfred Reckendress: The steel trust project. The foundation of the Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG and its corporate development 1926–1933 / 34. Munich 2000, p. 133.
- ↑ Compare this information at europeana .eu
- ^ A b Günther Kiersch: International iron and steel cartels. Essen 1954, p. 85.
- ↑ Eugen Altmann: About the development and importance of cartels in the German iron industry. Darmstadt 1909, pp. 45-47.
- ↑ Hartmut Kaelble : Industrial Interest Policy in the Wilhelminian Society. Central Association of German Industrialists 1895–1914. de Gruyter, 1967, p. 69.
- ↑ Gerald D. Feldman : The Collapse of the Steel Works Association 1912-1919: a case study in the operation of German "Collectivist Capitalism". In: Hans-Ulrich Wehler (Ed.): Social history today, commemorative publication for Hans Rosenberg on his 70th birthday. Göttingen 1974, pp. 575-593.
- ^ History of the building