Treuhandanstalt

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Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus , between 1991 and 1994 headquarters of the Treuhandanstalt (2010)

The Treuhandanstalt ( THA short Trust ) was in the late phase of the DDR was founded public institution in Germany with the task of the state-owned enterprises of the GDR on the principles of social market economy to privatize and "to ensure efficiency and competitiveness of enterprises" the (§ 8 Treuhandgesetz ) or, if that was not possible, shut down. In the context of privatization there were cases of misappropriation of funds and white-collar crime . On January 1, 1995, the Treuhandanstalt was renamed the Federal Agency for Unification-Related Special Tasks (BvS) .

founding

As part of the turnaround and peaceful revolution in the GDR , the new leaders were faced with the question of how to deal with the state- owned enterprises (VEB). In addition to the possibility of converting it into a corporate legal form that is customary in the West , the establishment of an umbrella company - a "state holding company " as it were - for the entire state-owned assets of the GDR was discussed.

On February 12, 1990, the opposition group Demokratie Jetzt (DJ) submitted a template for the round table meeting with the "Proposal for the immediate formation of a 'trust company' (holding company) to safeguard the rights of citizens with GDR citizenship in the public property of the GDR" in front. This template was developed by a group called the Free Research College Self-Organization for Knowledge Catalysis at Nodes around the theologian Wolfgang Ullmann , the engineer Matthias Artzt and the physicist Gerd Gebhardt. The draft provided for a system of share certificates to be issued to GDR citizens (cf. coupon privatization ); this was only listed as an optional provision in the State Treaty on Monetary, Economic and Social Union and ultimately not implemented.

On March 1, 1990, the Council of Ministers of the GDR ( Modrow government ) decided to found the "Establishment for the fiduciary administration of public property". It should protect public property and administer it in the interests of the general public. The main activity of this first "trust" consisted in the unbundling of combines and the conversion of the successor companies into corporations. Its first president was briefly the former deputy prime minister in the Modrow government Peter Moreth ( LDPD ).

The work of the Treuhandanstalt beyond reunification was based on the law on the privatization and reorganization of the state's own assets ( Treuhandgesetz ) passed by the People's Chamber of the GDR on June 17, 1990 in conjunction with the Unification Treaty and the State Treaty of May 18, 1990 In July 1990, about 8500 companies were subordinate to the trust, in which more than four million people worked. With reunification, it became a federal institution under public law under the technical supervision of the Federal Ministry of Finance .

Detlev Karsten Rohwedder (1990)

At the time of reunification on October 3, 1990, the personnel and material resources of the THA were so inadequate that the authority was only able to work to a limited extent. The federal government decided that in July 1990 the top management would be filled with (West German) personalities experienced in the market economy. Detlev Karsten Rohwedder , until then CEO of Hoesch AG , became chairman of the administrative board. Reiner Maria Gohlke , previously chairman of the board of the Deutsche Bundesbahn , became president . Gohlke resigned after a few months in the competence dispute with the Board of Directors, so that Rohwedder took over the office of President of the THA. The previous chairman of the Board of Management of Kaufhof AG, Jens Odewald , then became chairman of the board of directors .

After the trustee Rohwedder was murdered by RAF terrorists on April 1, 1991 , the CDU politician Birgit Breuel was elected by the Board of Directors as the new president of the Treuhandanstalt on April 13, 1991. After the murder, it was difficult to find a suitable successor. Many candidates turned it down because of the endangerment. Various managers and politicians worked as consultants for the Treuhandanstalt, including Klaus von Dohnanyi and Klaus Schucht .

Legal basis of the Treuhandanstalt

The Treuhandanstalt acted on the basis of the Unification Treaty and the Trust Act, as well as - in agreement with the Independent Commission for the Review of the Assets of Parties and Mass Organizations of the GDR (UKPV) - on the basis of the Party Act of the GDR.

  • Resolution on the establishment of the establishment for the fiduciary administration of public property (Treuhandanstalt) of March 1, 1990
  • Ordinance on the conversion of state-owned combines, businesses and institutions into corporations of March 1, 1990
  • Treuhandgesetz (TreuhG, Act on the Privatization and Reorganization of Nationally Owned Assets) of July 1, 1990
  • Municipal Assets Act - KVG (of July 6, 1990 on the assets of municipalities, towns and districts)
  • Asset Allocation Act (Act on the determination of the allocation of formerly nationally owned assets)
  • EALG (Compensation and Compensation Act)

Later came:

activity

House of the electrical industry , from 1994 headquarters of the Federal Agency for special tasks related to unification at Berlin's Alexanderplatz (2005)

The Treuhandanstalt based in Berlin “began its activity immediately, very soon in the premises of the former Ministry for Foreign Trade Unter den Linden…. On July 1st, 1990 the 133 employees of the headquarters moved to the house of the electrical industry on Alexanderplatz. ”“ On March 10, 1991, the relocation of the Treuhandzentrale from Alexanderplatz to the building of the former Reich Aviation Ministry and later the house of the ministries of the GDR in Leipziger Strasse . “In 1992 the building was renamed Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus . In addition, there were 15 branches in the former district towns .

All state-owned companies and their independent business units entered in the register of the nationally owned economy (HRC) on July 1, 1990, were converted into corporations (AG or GmbH i. A. - under construction) of the Treuhandanstalt as of the reporting date on the basis of the Trust Act entered in the commercial register - a total of 8,500 companies with around four million employees in around 45,000 locations. The total portfolio later amounted to 14,600 companies. Detlev Rohwedder estimated their total value in an interview with the GDR Minister for Economic Affairs, Christa Luft , at around DM 600 billion. The billion-dollar fortune resulted from a conversion of a dubious estimate from Modrow times about the operating assets of the trust: 750 billion East Marks, converted at the rate of 1: 3 resulted in 250 billion D-Marks. The rest are the plots. The opening balance on July 1, 1990 from 1992 forecast a deficit of DM 210 billion.

The Treuhandanstalt took over around 2.4 million hectares of agricultural and forestry land, the assets of the former Ministry of State Security , substantial parts of the properties of the former National People's Army , extensive property holdings and the assets of the state pharmacies.

On October 3, 1990, the fiduciary management of the property of the parties and mass organizations was transferred to the Treuhandanstalt, which it had to exercise in agreement with the Independent Commission for the Review of the Property of the Parties and Mass Organizations of the GDR.

The Treuhand President promotes investments in East Germany at an international conference (1991)

In accordance with its mandate from the Treuhandgesetz, the Treuhand acted according to the following principles:

“Privatize quickly because we believe that privatization is the best form of redevelopment. The second motto is: resolutely renovate. Where the future is possible, renovation should be carried out in order to give people more courage and hope here too. And the third motto is: shut down carefully. "

- Birgit Breuel

The Treuhandanstalt was supposed to achieve the highest possible privatization proceeds in a profit-oriented way as well as preserve as many jobs as possible for the common good, which required an extremely complex contract design.

The work was made more difficult by the fact that even flagship combines were barely state-of-the-art and thus there was a great need for investment in order to turn the companies into economically profitable companies. The productivity of the GDR industry was at a low level, the gross domestic product (GDP) per inhabitant was only 27.1% of the West German value. In the state-owned companies there was a staff surplus of around 15%, which was due on the one hand to an overstaffing of the workforce caused by poor organization and planning , and on the other hand due to social and political tasks (including kindergartens, clinics, holiday homes, libraries). After the state-controlled planned economy was abolished, many companies were on the verge of collapse. In addition, there was a collapse in demand for GDR products and an enormous appreciation of the currency due to the wage conversion in the ratio of 1: 1 associated with the monetary union (see also the section Problems with privatization ).

Through privatizations, spin-offs and redundancies for operational reasons , trust companies reduced the number of their employees from 4.1 million in mid-1990 to 1.24 million on April 1, 1992. A very large part of this was due to spin-offs and the sale of sub-companies, so that the decline in the number of employees in trust companies between 1990 and 1992 does not in every case say anything about the actual loss of jobs.

But staff were also cut in the spin-off companies. On April 1, 1992, 553,000 people were employed in the privatized former trust company, which had 773,000 jobs when the trust administration was terminated. H. they have been reduced by more than 200,000 and thus by 28% during this time. Often the new owners have given employment commitments for only part of the workforce, so staff reductions were planned when the company was taken over. Often, staff reductions were also the prerequisite for West German or foreign companies to be willing to take over and invest in trust companies. In many cases, the difficult order situation has certainly forced layoffs. Last but not least, the reduction of the technological backlog through the use of modern technology has led to redundancies in the workforce.

Thus, at least in the short term, the original expectation that privatization would halt the decline in employment or even create additional jobs has hardly been fulfilled. Overall, it became apparent that in the early privatizations the job cuts were mainly carried out by the new owner, whereas in the later privatizations the staff cuts were mainly under the direction of the Treuhandanstalt.

The journalist Tim Rahmann accuses the authority that West German companies used the liquidation of the East German GmbHs (referred to by Rahmann as VEB-Betriebe) to cannibalize potential competitors. In this context, the protests of the potash miners in Bischofferode , Thuringia , achieved nationwide notoriety , who in the summer of 1993 defended themselves in vain against the closure of their mine with occupations and hunger strikes.

The head of the Rohwedder Treuhandanstalt commented on this point of view:

“For its part, the Treuhand-Anstalt is helpless in the face of this tornado of criticism and the multitude of allegations, which were predominantly justified. Everything that we see here in the former GDR in terms of need, hopelessness, bitterness and also the existential threat to individual employees is associated with this institution. "

- Rohwedder at a meeting with works councils in March 1991

Nevertheless, it was possible to privatize the "fillet pieces", such as Jenoptik in Jena, the largest East German steelworks EKO in Eisenhüttenstadt or most of the Baltic Sea shipyards. Some of them are still successful companies today. Despite the massive structural change and the discontinuation of entire industries, production grew by an average of eight percent between 1992 and 2001 (compared to previous federal territory since 1993: 2.4 percent). However, the unplanned and rapid privatization also shattered numerous industrial networks, so that the Industrialization in the area of ​​the former GDR decreased rapidly.

Structure of the Treuhandanstalt

Birgit Breuel, President of the Treuhandanstalt from 1991 (1991)

The operational business of the Treuhandanstalt was divided according to company size classes between the Treuhand headquarters in Berlin and 15 Treuhand branch offices (later: "Branches"). The Treuhand branches were responsible for all companies with up to 1500 employees, the Treuhandzentrale for all other companies. The fiduciary center was divided into board areas, which in turn were divided into branch-centered directorates. With its branch-based subdivision and the rights of intervention vis-à-vis the companies, the headquarters of the Treuhandanstalt corresponded to the former GDR industrial ministries (see Council of Ministers of the GDR ). The branches were the immediate successors of the district economic councils at the councils of the districts. Hence the number of branches (15), which corresponded to the number of GDR districts (14) plus East Berlin.

The organs of the Treuhandanstalt were the board of the Treuhandanstalt and the administrative board. The original trust was headed by a board of directors.

Members of the Board of Directors

On March 15, 1990 , the Council of Ministers appointed the following persons to the first directorate of the Treuhandanstalt :

  • Peter Moreth : Chairman of the Board of Directors (March 15, 1990 - July 15, 1990)
  • Wolfram Krause: Deputy Chairman (March 15, 1990 - July 15, 1990)
  • Paul Liehmann: Director (March 15, 1990 - July 15, 1990)
  • Siegfried Zeißig: Director (March 15, 1990 - July 15, 1990)

Board of the Treuhandanstalt

According to § 3 of the Treuhandgesetz the Treuhandanstalt was managed by a board of directors and represented by the members of the board in legal dealings. The board consisted of the president of the Treuhandanstalt and at least four other board members. The president and the members of the board of directors were appointed and dismissed by the board of directors.

President of the Treuhandanstalt or the BvS

Board members

  • Rudolf Bohn (February 1, 1995 - December 31, 1998)
  • Hero Brahms (June 1, 1991 - October 31, 1994)
  • Peter Breitenstein (January 13, 1995 - December 31, 1997)
  • Birgit Breuel (September 18, 1990 - April 13, 1991), then President
  • Horst Föhr (May 1, 1992 - December 31, 1994), Human Resources
  • Gunter Halm (August 9, 1990 - May 31, 1991)
  • Heinrich Hornef (June 1, 1992 - December 31, 1994), Finance, (Vice President from June 1, 1992)
  • Wolf Klinz (November 1, 1990 - October 31, 1994)
  • Alexander Koch (Personnel) (October 1, 1990 - May 31, 1992)
  • Hans Krämer (November 15, 1990 - December 31, 1994)
  • Wolfram Krause (July 15, 1990 - June 26, 1992), Finance
  • Günter Rexrodt (September 1, 1991 - January 20, 1993), privatization of agriculture and construction as well as of GDR foreign trade companies
  • Klaus Schucht (May 6, 1991 - December 31, 1994), responsible for energy, mining and chemistry
  • Klaus-Peter Wild (August 9, 1990 - December 31, 1994)

The appointment was made by the Board of Directors of the Treuhandanstalt.

Liability of the board of trustees and the trustee employees

In the opinion of the Federal Government, given the complexity and uniqueness of the tasks of the THA, the exemption of the management level from liability for negligent behavior was objectively necessary. The exemption from liability for gross negligence was limited in time to the exceptional situation after the restoration of German unity and was linked to the requirement to set up an effective internal audit of the THA as quickly as possible. The exemption from liability for slight negligence was extended to the end of 1994. This corresponds to the regulations applicable in public service law.

The opposition parties at the time criticized this decision. They saw it as a negligent supervision of the Federal Ministry of Finance and the possibility that individual trustee employees could understand this as a kind of clean bill of health . It remained unclear who assumed the liability.

Board of Directors of the Treuhandanstalt

According to § 4 of the Treuhandsgesetz the administrative board had to supervise and support the business activities of the board. The president of the board of directors had to inform the chairman of the board of directors about all important business matters. The board of directors advised the board of directors of the Treuhandanstalt on all basic issues, in particular the privatization and exploitation of nationally owned assets according to the principles of the social market economy, as well as on all other tasks in accordance with Section 2 of the Treuhandgesetz. The statutes of the Treuhandanstalt determined which transactions required the approval of the Board of Directors.

In addition to the executive board, the administrative board was the second main body of the Treuhandanstalt. He appointed the President of the Treuhandanstalt and the other members of the Board of Directors and, if necessary, dismissed them. His task was to monitor and support the business activities of the board. The board of directors regularly received reports from the board of directors and was able to check or have documents checked. He had the right to advise the board of directors on all basic issues, in particular the privatization and exploitation of nationally owned assets according to the principles of the social market economy, as well as in all tasks according to § 2 TreuhG. The business of the board of directors of particular importance was dependent on the approval of the board of directors. The board of directors was granted information and auditing rights. The board of directors was also obliged to report regularly to the board of directors upon request. The board of directors consisted of 21 members. These were appointed by the federal government.

The states named in Art. 1 of the Unification Treaty - these are the new federal states - each received a seat on the administrative board of the Treuhandanstalt. The representatives of the new federal states had the functions of expert participation in advising the Treuhandanstalt and representing specific state interests .

Chair of the Board of Directors

Further members of the Board of Directors

In relation to the board of directors, the board of directors assumed the more decisive role vis-à-vis the board of directors due to the trusteeship act, the unification agreement and the corresponding additional regulations.

This resulted from the following:

  • Management was expressly reserved for the board of directors. The administrative board had no right to issue instructions to the executive board.
  • The advice given to the executive board by the administrative board was limited to "basic questions" of privatization and exploitation. There was no right to advise on individual questions that are not “basic questions”.
  • The Board of Directors was able to refuse to approve certain legal transactions. However, he could not instruct the board of directors to do business in a different way.

Directorates

  • Directorate of Special Funds

took over the fiduciary administration of the assets of parties and mass organizations of the GDR in coordination with the UKPV (independent commission for the review of the assets of parties and mass organizations of the GDR ).

  • Directorate settlement

Directors of the Treuhandanstalt

  • Heinrich Bonnenberg , responsible for environmental protection and contaminated sites
  • Klaus Klamroth, branch manager in Halle
  • Sven-Thomas Andreas, branch manager in Halle
  • Winfried Glock, branch manager in Halle
  • Karl-Heinz Rüsberg, branch director in Schwerin
  • Hans-Jürgen Meyer, privatization director in the chemical and energy sector from 1991
  • Peter Paulin, first renovation then vehicle construction
  • Detlef Scheunert, only East German director in the glass industry 1991–1994
  • Norman van Scherpenberg, Treuhand Director (1990–1992), later General Manager of the Treuhandanstalt (1992–1994)
  • Klaus-Peter Wild, (from August 9, 1990), Director 1990–1994

Special tasks department

The special tasks department was set up in February 1991. Among other things, this was a reaction to the discovery of several blatant cases of “association crime ” (see #Problems with privatization ), which also caused public displeasure. The task of the staff unit was "to investigate independently and in the best sense of the word self-responsibility all indications of criminally relevant and property-damaging behavior to the detriment of the company and the individual companies". Despite the size of their task, the position was only filled with a public prosecutor and several seconded employees from police authorities. Between 1991 and 2000, the office processed a total of 3661 criminal cases. This resulted in 1426 preliminary investigations at the public prosecutor's office, whereby in the area of ​​privatization only 27% of the cases were actually charged.

Subsidiaries of the Treuhandanstalt

Society for the privatization of trade ltd

At the beginning of October 1990, the Treuhandanstalt founded the GPH Gesellschaft zur Privatisierung des Handels mbH in Berlin. It privatized thousands of the State Trade Organization (HO) premises , from wholesale warehouses to pubs. Only the Centrum department stores were marketed by the Treuhand headquarters due to their size. For the privatization of the more than 17,000 shops and restaurants belonging to the HO successor companies, the Baden-Baden management consultant Wolfgang Bernhardt as the GPH supervisory board and the Swiss-born Peter Neubert as managing director. Both had played a decisive role in the restructuring of the retail group co op .

Society for the custody and utilization of closed mining operations

The GVV, based in Erfurt, was founded in 1992 by the Treuhandanstalt. Their main goal was the closure and safekeeping of mining operations ( shaft custody ) in the new federal states. The company tried to privatize parts of the business and realizable assets. The tasks of the GVV will be continued in the LMBV ( Lausitzer und Mitteldeutsche Bergbau-Verwaltungsgesellschaft ) in the area of ​​potash-spar-ore.

Renaming to BvS

Logo of the Federal Agency

On January 1, 1995, the Treuhandanstalt was renamed and the remaining tasks were distributed among several successor companies (such as the Federal Agency for Unification-Related Special Tasks (BvS), Treuhandliegenschaftsgesellschaft (now TLG Immobilien AG), BVVG Bodenverwertungs- und -verwaltungs GmbH (in accordance with the Trust Company Transfer Ordinance - TreuhUntÜV)).

The initial notion that the privatization would generate revenue that would cover costs was based on erroneous figures supplied by the Modrow government .

The Treuhandanstalt was unable to cover the expenses associated with its tasks (e.g. for the assumption of old loans, investment aid and social plans) with sales proceeds (privatization of companies, sale of other assets), so that its closing balance sheet in 1994 showed considerable liabilities. The proceeds from privatizations up to the end of 1994, including the amounts not yet paid but contractually agreed, amounted to around DM 60 billion  . This was offset by expenses of well over DM 300 billion. The total debt of the Treuhandanstalt was estimated at the end of 1994 at over DM 200 billion.

Of the more than 12,000 companies, 7,853 had passed into private or municipal ownership by this time, around 1,600 of them to previous owners and around 2,700 to managers working in the respective companies via management buyouts . 3713 companies had already been dissolved or were in the process of being wound up. Of 4.1 million jobs that had existed at companies assigned to the Treuhand as of July 1, 1990, 1.5 million were still available at the end of 1994 in companies that were already privatized or still owned by the Treuhand, together with jobs promised by investors. In total, around five percent of the privatized companies were owned by people of East German origin, less than ten percent were taken over by international investors, and more than 85 percent were owned by West German owners.

The debts of the trust and its successor organizations of 204 billion D-Marks were transferred to the Inherited Debt Repayment Fund on January 1, 1995 .

On the day of the renaming, the then boss Birgit Breuel drew a positive balance: “If you remember that an entire economy has been transformed here in four and a half years and is now largely competitive, you will be here in an incredibly short time Market economy has been introduced. "

In their annual report from 1994, the five economic wise men came to the following conclusion:

“It is primarily thanks to the Treuhandanstalt that the image of the economy in the new federal states today is not shaped by distressed state-owned companies that are kept alive only by constant financial injections, but by independent companies that persistently and increasingly with success on the Work towards consolidating your market position "

Other economists, too, saw no alternative to rapid privatization, despite the Treuhand's problems, if one wanted to avoid companies dependent on subsidies in the long term.

Problems and wrong decisions, which often meant financial losses for the state, as well as a few cases of fraud in the context of privatizations, damaged the trust's public image.

Successor companies to the Treuhandanstalt

Due to the “Act on the Final Fulfillment of the Remaining Tasks of the Treuhandanstalt” of August 9, 1994, the Treuhandanstalt was renamed by ordinance to “Federal Agency for Unification-related Special Tasks” (BVS) and continued its remaining tasks. As of January 1, 1995, parts of their remaining tasks were transferred to BMGB Beteiligungs-Management-Gesellschaft Berlin mbH and TLG Treuhand Liegenschaftsgesellschaft mbH (now TLG Immobilien AG).

The Federal Agency for Unification-related Special Tasks (BvS) was mainly concerned with monitoring the privatization contracts concluded and the fulfillment of the numerous conditions contained therein (for example promised jobs and investments) through its contract management. After the BvS had largely completed its tasks, it ceased its operational activities on December 31, 2000. Since then it has only existed as a legal and property holder "in liquidation" and no longer has its own staff.

On January 1, 2004, the end of this organization was initiated with the act of winding up the Federal Agency for Unification-Related Special Tasks (BvSAbwG). Bernd Halstenberg was appointed liquidator by the Federal Ministry of Finance. He summed up the task with the words: "Everyone who worked at Treuhand knew that they were sawing on their own branch". The task consisted of the settlement of legal disputes and the proper completion of the trustee's activities. The BvS had to do with several hundred companies, some of which had not existed for over a decade and had long been liquidated, but could not be deleted from the registers of the local courts for formal reasons. Unfinished business cases such as the disposal of the Greifswald and Rheinsberg nuclear power plants were also part of their tasks.

Legal representative of the BvS has been a liquidator since January 1st, 2004. With effect from July 1, 2008, the Federal Agency for Real Estate Tasks (BImA) in Bonn has been appointed as the processor. The remaining tasks - mainly the areas of contract management and processing - are taken care of by third parties. With effect from January 1, 2014, the BImA took over the tasks of the BvS in the field of ecological contaminated sites.

Problems with privatization

Protesting steel workers of the Maxhütte Unterwellenborn (1990)
Demonstration against the closure of the potash works in the southern Harz region (1990)

The privatization task of the Treuhandanstalt was unique in terms of its scope and complexity. Between 1980 and 1987, not even 1,000 state-owned privatizations were carried out worldwide, all in a stable market economy. Now thousands of companies have been privatized at once under difficult conditions in the transition from a planned economy to a market economy . Since the organizational structure and the personnel and material resources of the THA were initially not up to this task, problems arose, such as cases of fraud or sales to dubious businessmen or "suboptimal" unbundling of companies.

The exchange rate of the GDR Mark into D-Mark of 1: 1, which was used in the monetary, economic and social union , which corresponded to an appreciation of the currency (see exchange rate ) by around 400%, was and is a major problem had to have dramatic effects on the GDR economy under the conditions of the world market. A more realistic conversion rate based on the difference in labor productivity between East and West would have significantly reduced nominal wages in East Germany and thus the standard of living.

The companies were also burdened by wage increases after monetary union. As a result, unit labor costs rose well above the level of West German industry and reduced competitiveness.

A lowering of the standard of living would have been counterproductive to the political stabilization of the GDR and was therefore not politically wanted. In fact, the conversion rate of 1: 1 made companies in the GDR unprofitable and millions of jobs obsolete. Thus, from one day to the next, the national assets held by the trust were devalued.

Due to the economic situation in East Germany, many companies could not find a buyer despite intensive efforts. Due to the technological backlog, which was due, among other things, to insufficient investment due to the precarious financial situation of the GDR, there was an immense need for renovation in most of the companies. The Treuhand was only able to sell the large combines with substantial subsidies . Numerous small and medium-sized companies have been sold to dubious traders. The low participation of East Germans in company acquisitions due to insufficient wealth is also striking; in relation to the number of privatized jobs, their share is only six percent.

It was a declared principle of the Treuhand to make decisions based on clear rules when selling a company. In many cases the privatization was carried out with a certain degree of randomness. This was felt above all by the East German managing directors who wanted to take over their own companies as part of a management buyout (MBO), but (understandably) had little or no capital. As a result, many of the consistently financially weak MBO companies struggled to survive despite an acceptable order situation.

The political will to break up the overloaded and inefficient large companies and combines was great, so that the large companies were split up into smaller units without thorough structural analyzes. The requirements were not at all to split up. By breaking up the combines, many companies were deprived of their economic basis and existing supply chains in eastern Germany were cut. The remains were therefore often not viable. So the small businesses were then often sold with insufficient capital and insufficient market orientation. In addition, market access was the decisive investment reason for many investors, which is why central company areas such as research and development were usually relocated to the investor's home base. Since there was overcapacity in the “West” at the time of reunification, the East German companies often had primarily distributive tasks. (see also extended workbench )

The Federal Government at the time was convinced that it would be able to transfer the GDR companies from the planned economy to the market economy without any detours. This premise of privatization as the best and fastest renovation tried to get by without renovation investments, which caused the value of the company to drop rapidly. Instead, the Treuhandanstalt granted price reductions and agreed in return, secured by contractual penalties, employment promises. However, these were difficult to enforce. The pace of privatization prevented an orderly structural change, which could have enabled growth centers to emerge through additional measures. East Germany was therefore quickly converted from a planned economy to globalization, while West Germany had a certain grace period in adapting to the changed conditions of the global economy due to the “boom in unification”.

In addition, the federal government at the time misjudged the existing and future economic opportunities. Above all, the end of the great economic ties to the then collapsing Eastern Bloc through the dissolution of the Comecon or the withdrawal of the GDR from the Comecon and the effects of the unbundling (company structure) were not given enough consideration. In some cases, the orientation was wrongly based on West German conditions. The political demands on the trust (preservation of companies and jobs, restructuring suitable for the global market, quick success and profitable sale) turned out to be hardly feasible.

The Treuhand has never been an efficiently working privatization agency in which decisions are made according to transparent criteria. Given the time pressure under which she was acting, she couldn't be either. She passed on to her employees the wide-ranging scope for decision-making that the federal government granted her. This was the only way to privatize an entire economy within four years.

The economic costs of privatization are difficult to quantify from a retrospective point of view.

Contaminated sites

Contaminated sites that are harmful to the environment from industrial use and mining activities ( mining damage ) existed on many of the buildings and properties that had been transferred to trust.

Many of these contaminated sites were unknown. If the federal German contaminated site law had come into effect in full, the exploitation of these land and buildings would have been difficult or impossible. In privatization contracts, the Treuhandanstalt undertook to assume part of the costs for remediation of contaminated sites (especially soil remediation ) and to exempt subsequent owners of the land from liability for remediation costs according to the exemption clause of the GDR's environmental framework law. While so many redevelopment cases have been resolved amicably by the federal and state governments, the question of liability and the assumption of costs repeatedly arises in the case of newly discovered ecological contaminations on former Treuhand sites. In the case of sales to private individuals and small businesses in particular, contaminated sites were often not taken into account in contracts.

Unclear legal relationships

Unclear ownership (see open property issues ) and lengthy court decisions on restitution claims (problem of the so-called old owners) as well as delays in the entry in the land register led to delays in privatization.

Individual privatizations

State bank of the GDR

In 1990 the State Bank of the GDR was wound up by the Treuhandanstalt and transferred to Staatsbank Berlin and Deutsche Kreditbank AG (DKB) through unbundling . The Deutsche Kreditbank was founded as a stock corporation on March 19, 1990 as the first private bank in the GDR after the political change. Co-founder was Edgar Most , the last Vice President of the State Bank of the GDR. The Staatsbank Berlin was incorporated into the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) in 1994 .

On June 21, 1990 the debts of the State Bank of the GDR were transferred to the Deutsche Kreditbank and the shares that the Staatsbank itself had in the Deutsche Kreditbank to the Treuhandanstalt. In the following years, the Treuhandanstalt gradually acquired the remaining shares of the founding shareholders until it became the sole owner of the Deutsche Kreditbank at the beginning of 1993.

After June 1, 1990 ( currency union ), Deutsche Kreditbank AG formed joint ventures with western German commercial banks . Parts of the Deutsche Kreditbank were later taken over by these banks.

With the dissolution of the Treuhandanstalt at the end of December 31, 1994, the Deutsche Kreditbank was initially transferred directly to the assets of the Federal Ministry of Finance for a short time and was sold to the Bayerische Landesbank on January 31, 1995 .

German foreign trade bank

The Deutsche Außenhandelsbank AG (DABA) founded a joint venture institute called “Deutsche Industrie und Handelsbank” based on an agreement made with WestLB (Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale) in May 1990 . On January 9, 1991, the Federal Ministry of Finance, DABA and WestLB concluded an agency agreement, which u. a. The Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale provided for the processing of the "old loans". The agency agreement also stipulated a purchase option on the part of WestLB for the shares in DABA for 1993. WestLB finally acquired DABA from the Treuhandanstalt in December 1994 for a purchase price of DM 430 million. With the sale of DABA to WestLB, the old debt claims of DM 7 billion were also transferred to WestLB.

Deutsche Handelsbank

At the end of 1990 the company should be privatized quickly. First, BHF-Bank was awarded the contract for 2/3 of the shares in Deutsche Handelsbank for 370 million marks, but withdrew. According to the news magazine Focus, “ Circumstances had become known that stood in the way of signing a contract”. Rumors about dark DHB financial transactions of the commercial coordination made the rounds. “On November 13th the Bank für Gemeinwirtschaft (BfG) then acquired the 2/3 share for 225.28 million marks. The Treuhandanstalt held the remaining 30 percent. Today's Deutsche Handelsbank AG is a bank that was only founded in 2009.

Lausitzer Braunkohle AG

The energy combine lignite Senftenberg was converted by the Treuhandanstalt into Lausitzer Braunkohle AG and sold to a consortium for 2.1 billion DM in 1994.

Kombinat Kali

The Kali Kombinat was taken over by Wintershall , converted into Mitteldeutsche Kali AG and then merged with K + S AG by the Treuhandanstalt . The potash contract was concluded for this purpose.

Bischofferode potash plant

The sale of the potash plant in Bischofferode in Thuringia by the Treuhandanstalt to the West German " Kali und Salz AG ", today "K + S". A few months after the sale by the Treuhand, the plant was wound up and 700 miners lost their jobs. The deposits, which were supposedly no longer accessible at the time, were offered for sale in 2015.

Thuringia's Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow massively criticized the Treuhandanstalt's approach in 2015. The underlying secret agreement between Treuhandanstalt and Kali und Salz AG became public in 2014.

VEB Brown Coal Combine Bitterfeld

The Bitterfeld brown coal combine was converted by the Treuhandanstalt into the United Central German Brown Coal Company and in 1994 large parts of it were sold to a British-American consortium of companies.

Energy combines

The energy combines were converted into joint stock companies by the Treuhandanstalt and privatized under a new company. Initially, under the last GDR government under Prime Minister de Maizière and Energy Minister Steinberg , there were plans to divide the entire East German energy industry among the West German energy companies Preussen Elektra , RWE and Bayernwerk . After protests and the like against such a distribution from various sides. a. of the excluded West German energy supplier, which had given East German municipalities and objections from the Federal Cartel Office , a modified solution was negotiated within the framework of the so-called electricity contract with greater participation of East German municipalities and other West German energy suppliers ( Badenwerk , Bewag , EVS , HEW and VEW ).

Foundation of VEAG

On the basis of the so-called electricity contract of August 22, 1990 between the GDR government, the Treuhandanstalt and the large West German group companies as well as five smaller companies, Vereinigte Energiewerke AG (VEAG) was founded as a new group company on December 12, 1990 . In February 1991, the East German power plants and the network were combined in VEAG. VEAG was managed by Preussen Elektra , RWE and Bayernwerk .

On January 1, 1994, VEAG was sold for six billion DM to a corporate consortium consisting of the seven West German energy suppliers. The companies Preussen-Elektra, Rheinisch-Westfälische Elektrizitätswerke and Bayernwerk had a 75% stake, while Energie-Beteiligungs-Holding (EBH), a holding owned by BEWAG, VEW, Badenwerk, EVS and HEW, got 25%.

Energy combines Erfurt, Gera and Suhl

By the privatization of the Treuhandanstalt originated first

  • Energieversorgung Nordthüringen AG (ENAG),
  • Ostthüringer Energieversorgung AG (OTEV, Jena)
  • the Südthüringer Energieversorgung AG (SEAG, Meiningen).

In 1994 these three merged to form Thüringer Energie AG (TEAG).

Energy supply for East Berlin

The energy supply for East Berlin was taken over by the Treuhandanstalt in 1990 and renamed EBAG, Energieversorgung Berlin AG, and as a result of the electricity comparison merged with West Berlin Bewag (Berlin) .

Chemical combine Otto Grotewohl

The combine "Otto Grotewohl" in Böhlen (Saxony) started oil processing in 1967 and included it

In 1995 the Dow Olefinverbund emerged as one of the last privatizations of the Treuhandanstalt . After the oil refinery in Leuna was taken over by the French oil company Elf Aquitaine , the Mitteldeutsche Erdoel-Raffinerie (MIDER), which went into production in 1997, was created. Today the oil refinery belongs as Total Raffinerie Mitteldeutschland GmbH (TRM) mainly to the Total group .

Construction publishing house

The Berlin construction publishing house was sold by the Treuhand to a group of investors in 1991 and handed over to them, even though they did not own it.

At the time of the fall, the publishing house was owned by the Kulturbund of the GDR , which at that time was under compulsory administration by the Treuhand. However, the publishing house was not publicly owned and could therefore not be converted into a GmbH in the name of the Treuhandanstalt under the Trust Act. Because the shares sold by the Treuhandanstalt did not exist, their assignment to the buyer was objectively impossible, which according to various statements was known to the employees of the Treuhand and the Independent Commission.

The publisher Bernd F. Lunkewitz , who was already involved in the first sale, noticed the mistake and in 1995 bought the Aufbau-Verlag from the Kulturbund for the equivalent of around 450,000 euros. In 2008 the Federal Court of Justice ruled after complaints from the courts (after almost 13 years) that the sale by the Treuhand in 1991 was null and void.

Cases of fraud

Policeman in old GDR uniform in front of the Treuhandanstalt building on Leipziger Strasse (July 1991)

In 1998, the investigative committee of the Bundestag GDR assets estimated the damage caused by embezzlement, fraud and other criminal acts in connection with the privatization of the GDR economy at three to ten billion DM.

In the early years in particular, a lack of organizational structures and the associated lack of effective control mechanisms and measures made the institution more vulnerable to criminal attack. There were frequent cases of balance sheet falsification and under-value sales , especially in the case of non-operational real estate. In many cases, a personal benefit has also been achieved through inside knowledge. Tender fraud in connection with bribery (for example the "Ganoven GmbH Halle") also occurred. This also includes cases of price fixing in connection with the award of contracts by the Treuhandanstalt.

The cases of insufficient verification of the Treuhand's trading partners, especially with regard to their creditworthiness, met with a lack of understanding. The Treuhandanstalt lacked both the personnel capacity and the competence to exercise effective control. It relied on auditing firms for its control.

In the opinion of the Federal Audit Office , the controlling practice of the Treuhandanstalt and its successor institution, the BvS, was inadequate. In its report to the Bundestag, the authority complained that the investment commitments were not being adequately monitored. In general, the entire reporting system of the BvS (and the Treuhandanstalt) is "afflicted with considerable deficiencies". On the basis of random checks - the auditors examined 100 privatization contracts from 1993 and 1994 - the Court of Auditors found:

"Significant investment commitments have already been considered to be complied with and checked if the written or telephone reports from the contractual partners corresponded to the contractual agreements." And further: "Even contractually agreed auditor's certificates about investments made were not always required," the report says.

One of the reasons for some fraud against the THA is certainly based on the fact that the Treuhandanstalt is usually based on the earnings and not the intrinsic value of the companies to be privatized. This, in turn, was often very low because the companies had no chance of surviving the competition if an investor did not undertake significant (cost-intensive) restructuring. Furthermore, cases of fraud can be observed more frequently in the privatization of smaller, medium-sized companies, since the perpetrators apparently assumed that the risk of discovery was lower due to the lower media interest and the only local importance of the company. In addition, the perpetrators benefited from the fact that the investigation of corruption and infidelity , which was difficult under normal conditions, could be made even more difficult during the upheaval, and that the time pressure during privatization made effective control more difficult.

To support the trust, a "staff unit for special tasks" was set up on the board in the spring of 1991, which worked together with the law enforcement authorities. The staff unit was initially manned by only one fully qualified lawyer and three detective officers, so that numerous "incidents" remained undone and the staff unit initially only became active in cases of particular damage or personal enrichment.

The “Special Tasks” department of the Treuhandanstalt had investigated the allegation of criminally relevant behavior in over 1,400 cases since it was founded from February 1991 to September 1993. During this period, 586 investigations by state law enforcement agencies were registered; 188 of these investigations were initiated as a result of criminal charges from the Treuhandanstalt. Of these 586 preliminary investigations, 292 related to privatization transactions; Fifty-six of these investigations have been closed, 64 cases have been judged and charges have been brought in 7 other cases.

By the end of 1996, criminal charges of embezzlement had been brought against 180 people , and 6 were convicted. 1801 cases of white-collar crime in the fiduciary sector and 357 scooping proceedings between 1991 and 1994 were recorded.

In addition to the clearly criminal area of ​​scooping out, fraud and falsification of accounts, there was also a gray area in which corporate consultants, liquidators, lawyers and auditors commissioned by the trust took advantage of the ignorance of their victims or the willingness to cooperate of generous trustees and collected excessive fees or for them Treuhandanstalt or its operations made disadvantageous decisions. The cases of fraud in the activities of the Treuhandanstalt were the subject of several investigative committees of the German Bundestag and also of the federal states concerned.

VEB heat plant construction

The 1200-strong company VEB Wärmeanlagenbau, a GDR monopoly for thermal power stations and district heating pipes, was renamed Warmeanlagen Berlin GmbH (WBB), which Deutsche Babcock AG became interested in at the beginning of 1991 . She therefore sent her then authorized signatory, Michael Rottmann, to Berlin to analyze the WBB's situation. Rottmann allied himself there with the two WBB managing directors and two Swiss citizens and painted the economic situation of the WBB so black that Babcock lost interest. At the same time, he presented an allegedly solvent buyer to the Treuhandanstalt in the form of the Swiss company Chematec, which was probably already heavily in debt at the time and finally acquired WBB for two million DM. This company only served as a front man for Rottmann and his accomplices.

At the time, the actual value of WBB was estimated to be around DM 68 million, with WBB having liquid funds of around DM 150 million and a number of lucrative properties. Immediately after the purchase, Rottmann switched to the management of WBB and, together with his accomplices, began to transfer the assets to other accounts via an opaque corporate network, to sell land and take out mortgages. In this way, Rottmann and accomplices are said to have withdrawn around DM 150 million from the WBB; What remained, however, was a mountain of debt totaling DM 100 million.

After the company went bankrupt, Rottmann fled to the USA in 1995 . In September 2000 he was arrested by British police officers and investigators from the BKA in Hazlemere ( High Wycombe ) near London; for a long time he successfully defended himself against his extradition to the Federal Republic of Germany, where a fraud trial awaits him before the Berlin district court, until he was extradited in July 2009. After a confession, Rottmann was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison in December 2009, according to which he had spent all of the money on his lavish lifestyle. However, Rottmann went on appeal and the Federal Court of Justice ruled in 2010 that the allegations of breach of trust are statute-barred. The proceedings were discontinued and Rottmann released from prison. The civil damages process ended in January 2005 with a settlement with the BvS, in which it was agreed that Rottmann would have to repay 20 million euros. In December 2005, however, he filed for personal bankruptcy. One of Rottmann's accomplices has since been sentenced to three years in prison. Another accomplice received a two-year suspended sentence.

Elbo assembly

The businessman Heinz Krahmer wanted to buy all the housing construction and improvement combines in the north of the new federal states in order to form an East German construction company. At the same time, he concluded consulting contracts with the companies with attractive fees. The consulting firm Krahmers is said to have received a total of DM 41 million in the two years of consulting. Despite lengthy negotiations with possible donors, he was unable to finance the purchase price. Nevertheless, he convinced the board members and managing directors of the companies to deposit money into an escrow account of his notary for activities after the sale. He then had these more than DM 73 million transferred to his own account. He then claimed to the Treuhandanstalt that he could raise the purchase price of DM 170 million. Krahmer died in Singapore before the German authorities could get hold of him. The notary could, however, be held responsible.

Later it turned out that Krahmer had withdrawn even more money from the company under all sorts of pretexts. His companies went bankrupt after his death . Nevertheless, the Treuhandanstalt managed to get 62 million DM back of the paid liquidity aid of 120 million DM. A part of the housing construction and improvement combinations was then sold to the Hegemann Group for 10 million DM after a global tender . After unsuccessful attempts at restructuring, for which the federal and state governments and the owners again invested considerable funds, the companies were wound up.

It is assumed that Krahmer's real interest was in the company's substantial property portfolio valued at several 100 million DM and that the consulting fees were also intended to finance the purchase price.

Shipbuilding Combine

During the privatization of the shipbuilding combine, DM 854 million for the Ostwerften EU funds were illegally used to rehabilitate the parent companies of the Bremer Vulkan .

Putnik deal

The Putnik deal was a well-known attempt by the PDS party leadership to move former SED assets abroad to the Moscow company Putnik in order to prevent the trust institution from accessing them.

Fiduciary Investigation Committee

The German Bundestag had set up several committees of inquiry to investigate the activities of the Treuhandanstalt.

Objects were u. a.

  • "Misappropriated GDR assets"
  • various cases of fraud
  • Leuna affair (refers to bribe payments in the tens of millions to two French Elf managers in connection with the sale of the Leuna refinery to the French Elf Aquitaine group in 1991, which was carried out by the Treuhandanstalt .)

Electricity dispute and electricity comparison

According to the Treuhandgesetz, the Treuhandanstalt not only had the task of privatization, but also of municipalization . With the municipal constitution, the task of energy supply was declared the task of the municipalities. They should also be given the necessary equipment for this. The law governing the transfer of property was the Municipal Property Act of July 1990.

While the Volkskammer was convinced that it had done everything necessary to remunicipalise the public utilities that were nationalized in the 1950s, the GDR government under Prime Minister de Maizière sold the entire East German electricity industry, the lignite power stations, the high-voltage network and the 15 regional supply companies to the the former municipal utilities had been integrated (see Energiekombinat ), to the West German electricity companies RWE , PreussenElektra and Bayernwerk and finally - under pressure from the Federal Cartel Office - to all eight companies, in addition to the three large ones also to EVS , Badenwerk , VEW and Hamburger and Berliner Stadtwerke, HEW and Bewag . The parliamentarians could not change that. In the unification agreement, the municipal assets law was changed in such a way that the municipalities only received shares in the regional suppliers instead of the entitlement to the pension assets. The associations, the German Association of Cities , the Association of Towns and Municipalities and the Association of Municipal Enterprises (VKU) rebelled against this. However, they only managed to reach an "understanding of principle" in February 1991, on the basis of which the large cities were to receive a 50/50 stake in new municipal utilities.

Many municipalities also revolted against this compromise after they had been informed of their rights by the economics ministries of Hesse and Saarland. The ministries recommended that the municipalities turn to the Marburg administrative lawyer Peter Becker to enforce their rights . This tried with urgent proceedings before the East German district courts to get possession of the pension assets, especially the cities of Stendal and Schwerin , but this failed. At the first public utility conference in June 1991, which the lawyer organized together with ministerial officials from the two federal states, the 123 municipalities represented decided to argue for the enforcement of their rights before the Federal Constitutional Court . Becker filed a constitutional complaint on behalf of the municipalities in July 1991 and applied for a temporary injunction to prevent the execution of the electricity contracts by distributing the majority of shares through the Treuhandanstalt to the West German corporations. From one day to the next, the Federal Constitutional Court asked the Federal Ministry of Finance to wait until the court had decided to privatize it. The Treuhandanstalt implemented this by declaring to the lawyer. This initially secured the rights of the municipalities. Only now did the great majority of the municipalities submit powers of attorney; the lawyer had initially represented her without an explicit mandate.

At the hearing on October 18, 1992 in Stendal, in which 164 East German municipalities were finally represented, the Federal Constitutional Court proposed a comparative settlement of the legal dispute. The lawyer had advised the court to meet in the New States because the East German local politicians were neither aware of a functioning constitutional state nor the Federal Constitutional Court. It should be "the rule of law you can touch".

In the following two months, the municipalities and their lawyers, the corporations and the ministry representatives, chaired by the Stuttgart Mayor Manfred Rommel , President of the German Association of Cities and the Association of Municipal Enterprises, negotiated until the electricity comparison was finally finalized on December 22, 1992. On the basis of this, the municipalities "suitable for municipal utility" had the right to transfer their electricity assets. In January 1993 the gas comparison was added. In the middle of 1993 the last municipality agreed to the settlement. On its basis - after difficult disputes - well over 100 municipal utilities in the new federal states emerged.

literature

Filmography

Web links

Wiktionary: Treuhandanstalt  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Torsten Hampel: A question of wealth. In: Der Tagesspiegel . June 17, 2010.
  2. ↑ Dirk Laabs: The German gold rush. The real story of the trust. Pantheon-Verlag, 2012, ISBN 978-3-570-55164-6 , pp. 30 ff., 73-78, 99.
  3. ↑ Georg Bönisch, Gunther Latsch, Georg Mascolo: Terrorists - traces in the mask . In: Der Spiegel . No. 21 , 2001 ( online - May 21, 2001 , viewed Oct. 2, 2010).
  4. ^ Rohwedder murder: New lead to RAF terrorist Grams , Spiegel, May 16, 2001.
  5. ↑ Anja Maier : "There were protests, strikes, threatening letters". In: The daily newspaper: taz. July 14, 2018, pp. 20–22 , accessed on July 14, 2018 .
  6. ↑ ddr89.de
  7. ↑ Ordinance on the conversion of state-owned combines, businesses and institutions into corporations of March 1, 1990
  8. ↑ Law on Compensation in accordance with the Law on Regulating Open Property Issues and on State Compensation Payments for Expropriations based on Occupation Law or Occupation Authority (Compensation and Compensation Act - EALG) Law on Regulating Open Property Issues
  9. ↑ Law on the regulation of outstanding property issues of September 23, 1990.
  10. ↑ InVorG - Law on the priority for investments in the case of return transfer claims according to the Property Law. In: www.gesetze-im-internet.de. Retrieved April 4, 2016 .
  11. ↑ Federal Agency for Unification-Related Special Tasks (ed.): "Privatize quickly, renovate decisively, shut down carefully". A look back at 13 years of work by the Treuhandanstalt and the Federal Agency for Unification-Related Special Tasks. Wegweiser, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-932661-40-0 , p. 26.
  12. ^ Wolfram Fischer , Herbert Hax , Hans Karl Schneider (ed.): Treuhandanstalt. Dare to do the impossible. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-05-002401-1 , p. 129.
  13. ↑ a b Dieter Fockenbrock: Treuhand - A thing of impossibility. In: Handelsblatt . August 11, 2006, seen October 2, 2010.
  14. ↑ a b c d e Dieter Grosser: Treuhandanstalt. In: Concise dictionary of the political system of the Federal Republic. Federal Agency for Civic Education
  15. ↑ Then the stove is out . In: Der Spiegel . No. 44 , 1990, pp. 147-149 ( online ).
  16. ^ Richard Schröder: Errors about German unity, extended edition 2007, ISBN 978-3-451-29612-3 .
  17. ↑ a b The Treuhandanstalt in the context of German unification. Presentation by Burkhard Berndt on July 2, 2007.
  18. ^ Final report of the Federal Agency for Unification-Related Special Tasks. ISBN 3-932661-40-0 .
  19. ^ Johannes Heß: Company sales of the Treuhandanstalt. Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-428-09175-2 .
  20. ^ Joachim Gürtler, Wolfgang Ruppert, Kurt Vogler-Ludwig: Hidden unemployment in the GDR. Institute for Economic Research, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-88512-115-8 , p. 25 u. 43.
  21. ↑ a b Wolfgang Seibel (Ed.): Managed Illusions: The Privatization of the GDR Economy by the Treuhandanstalt and its successors 1990-2000. Campus Verlag, 2005, p. 64 ff., 479 ff.
  22. ↑ tagesspiegel.de .
  23. ↑ a b c Jürgen Kühl, Reinhard Schaefer, Jürgen Wahse: Employment prospects of trust companies and ex-trust companies in April 1992. MittAB, 25th year, 1992. ( online on iab.de, PDF; 2.10 MB).
  24. ↑ "The authority is to be accused of using West German companies to exploit the VEB operations to cannibalize potential competitors - and fraudsters to cash in.", Tim Rahmann: Review: How the Treuhand failed in the GDR settlement , Wirtschaftswoche , September 26, 2011
  25. ↑ a b Dissolution of the "Treuhand". on: Spiegel online - one day. December 31, 2007.
  26. ^ Rüdiger Pohl : East Germany in the 12th year after unification - a balance sheet of the economic transformation. In: From Politics and Contemporary History . B 37-38 / 2002.
  27. ^ A b c Olav Teichert: The Treuhandanstalt in the political and economic unification process of Germany. (PDF; 3.3 MB) Master's thesis. University of Kassel 2001.
  28. ↑ Treuhandgesetz and Treuhandanstalt The statute passed by the Council of Ministers on March 15, 1990 contained a rough structure of the Treuhandanstalt, which essentially provided for the formation of a directorate and an administrative board.
  29. ↑ German Bundestag printed matter 12/7001 12th electoral term (PDF file; 294 kB) Response of the federal government to the small question from MP Fritz Schumann (Kroppenstedt) and the group of the PDS / Left List.
  30. ↑ Printed matter 12/8404 (PDF file; 556 kB) Motion for a resolution by MP Werner Schulz (Berlin) and the Bündnis90 / Die Grünen group. September 20, 1994.
  31. ↑ a b RECOMMENDED RESOLUTION AND REPORT of the 3rd Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry of the State Parliament of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Printed matter 2/3890 .
  32. ↑ BDI: For the new President Hans-Olaf Henkel, a competitive society is not only based on low wages and taxes: “We need a vision” In: Die Zeit. Ed. 49, 1994, p. 2 f.
  33. ↑ a b BODY EAST: Always below value. In: Der Spiegel. February 9, 1998.
  34. ↑ They need a clear orientation . Mirror online. October 14, 1991. Retrieved December 8, 2019.
  35. ↑ The Man Who Sold the East in Die Welt, November 2, 2019
  36. ^ Joachim Erbe: The special staff unit right. In: "Privatize quickly, renovate with determination, shut down carefully". A look back at 13 years of work by the Treuhandanstalt and the Federal Agency for Unification-Related Special Tasks. Berlin 2003, pp. 367-378, here p. 367.
  37. ↑ Jörg Roesler (Leibniz-Sozietät Berlin) about K. Boers a. a. (Ed.): Economic crime and privatization. (hsozkult.de)
  38. ↑ Barbara Bischoff: The Staff Unit Special Tasks at the Treuhandanstalt: A Functional Concept for Combating White-Collar Crime? Waxmann Verlag, 2016, p. 163.
  39. ↑ A piece of criminal history . In: Der Spiegel . No. 1 , 1991 ( online - 31 December 1990 ).
  40. ↑ gvv-sondershausen.de .
  41. ↑ Trust Company Transfer Ordinance BM for Justice and Consumer Protection, December 20, 1994.
  42. ↑ Inherited Debt Amortization Fund Lexicon of the Social Market Economy of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation
  43. ↑ Olav Teichert: The Treuhandanstalt in the political and economic unification process of Germany. (PDF; 3.3 MB) Master's thesis. Uni-Kassel 2001, p. 90.
  44. ^ Axel Flemming: Critical trust balance sheet in Brandenburg. Contribution to the program Aus Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft on October 1, 2010 on Deutschlandfunk (MP3).
  45. ↑ a b c Michael Jürgs: A country on special offer . In: Der Spiegel . No. 7 , 1997 ( online - Feb. 10, 1997 ).
  46. ↑ From public property to private property. Federal Ministry of Finance, October 3, 2013.
  47. ↑ Treatment of the successor organizations of the Treuhandanstalt ( Memento of August 16, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Bundesbank circular 11/96, 1996.
  48. ↑ Annual report 1994/95 of the Council of Experts on the assessment of macroeconomic development ( Memento of May 7, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) p. 83 ff.
  49. ^ Successor organizations to the Treuhandanstalt , notification from the Federal Ministry of Finance.
  50. ↑ Gabler's economic dictionary
  51. ↑ BGBl. 2003 I p. 2081
  52. ↑ Portrait of the BvS on their homepage .
  53. ↑ Andreas Wassermann: Treuhandanstalt - liquidator of the liquidator. on: Spiegel online. August 9, 2006.
  54. ↑ Internet presence of the BvS .
  55. ↑ Communication from the BMF. Retrieved June 6, 2016.
  56. ↑ Dieter Grosser: The risk of monetary, economic and social union. Political constraints in conflict with economic rules. Stuttgart 1998.
  57. ↑ Gerlinde Sinn, Hans-Werner Sinn : Cold start. Tübingen 1992, ISBN 3-16-145869-9 .
  58. ↑ Wolfgang Seibel (Ed.): Managed Illusions: The Privatization of the GDR Economy by the Treuhandanstalt and its Successors 1990-2000. Campus Verlag, 2005, p. 479 ff.
  59. ↑ Billion blessings . In: The time. 52/1994, p. 23 of December 23, 1994.
  60. ↑ Andreas Baum: On the equalization of living conditions Deutschlandradio Kultur, November 18, 2015.
  61. ^ Rudolf Hickel, Jan Priewe: After the false start. Economic Perspectives of German Unification. Frankfurt am Main 1994, p. 66.
  62. ^ Herbert Brücker: Privatization in East Germany. An institutional economic analysis. Frankfurt am Main / New York 1995, p. 332 ff.
  63. ↑ Roland Czada: Unification Crisis and Location Debate . The contribution of reunification to the crisis of the West German model. In: Leviathan - Berlin journal for social science . Volume 26, issue 1/1998.
  64. ↑ cf. Bernd Lucke : The privatization policy of the Treuhand - an econometric analysis. ( Memento from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (1994/95, PDF, 33 p .; 176 kB).
  65. ^ Siegfried Bierwirth: Ecological renovation and economic growth in the new federal states. In: Federal Agency for Unification-related Special Tasks (Ed.): "Privatize quickly, resolutely renovate, carefully shut down." A review of 13 years of work by the Treuhandanstalt and the Federal Agency for Unification-related Special Tasks. Wegweiser, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-932661-40-0 , pp. 331–346.
  66. ↑ Law on the Staatsbank Berlin Date of issue: June 29, 1990.
  67. ↑ Ordinance on the transfer of the assets of the Staatsbank Berlin to the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KredAnstWiAÜV) Date of issue: September 13, 1994.
  68. ↑ Lorenz Maroldt : Debt without atonement. In: Tagesspiegel. July 1, 2005.
  69. ↑ Handelsbank. Accounts cleared, money gone. In: FOCUS magazine. No. 47, November 21, 1994 , accessed April 14, 2015.
  70. ^ Profile Peter Schüring, Bloomberg Business , accessed April 14, 2015.
  71. ↑ Deutsche Handelsbank starts business ( Memento from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) finanz-anzeiger.de, November 3, 2014, accessed on March 31, 2016.
  72. ^ André Bleicher: The institutionalization of an organizational field - the example of the electricity industry. opus.kobv.de, 2007, p. 220. (PDF; 2.6 MB).
  73. ↑ Potash contract
  74. ↑ Bischofferode The mine would have had a good chance of continuing to exist. ( Memento from June 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) MDR from July 21, 2015.
  75. ↑ Potash in Bischofferode: The deposit is up for sale again today. ( Memento from September 22, 2015 in the web archive archive.today ) MDR, July 2015, page no longer available, March 23, 2018.
  76. ↑ Bischofferode: Ramelow massively criticizes the Treuhand's approach. In: Thuringian General. June 24, 2015, accessed September 13, 2015 .
  77. ↑ Martin Machowecz: Behind the mountain. In: Zeit Online. March 27, 2014, accessed September 16, 2015 .
  78. ^ Fritz Vorholz: GDR power contract. Wrong connection . In: THE TIME . No. 36 , August 31, 1990 ( full text in the ZEIT online archive ).
  79. ↑ Joachim Kahlert: Decentralized Energy Supply in East Germany: State of Development and Perspectives . Conference report on a conference of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung on October 25, 1991 in Brandenburg / Havel (= series of economic and political discourses ; 23). Ed .: Friedrich Ebert Foundation . Electronic ed., Bonn 1991, ISBN 3-86077-046-2 .
  80. ↑ Beginning of electrification in Germany About us> History, 50hertz.com. Last accessed March 23, 2018.
  81. ^ Peter Becker: Rise and Crisis of the German Electricity Corporations - At the same time a contribution to the development of energy law. Verlag Ponte Press, Bochum 2011, Chapter 2: The electricity dispute .
  82. ↑ Hans Leyendecker : I have won and sleep badly. How the Treuhand sold the Berliner Aufbau-Verlag, which should not have been in their possession. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. March 28, 2008, p. 13.
  83. ↑ Michael Jürgs : The Trustees. Munich / Leipzig 1997, p. 366 ff.
  84. ↑ Kari-Maria Karliczek: Structural conditions of white-collar crime. An empirical study using the example of the privatization of selected companies in the former GDR. Münster 2007, p. 83 ff.
  85. ↑ BvS lacks effective controls. on: welt.de February 29, 1996, accessed on March 23, 2018.
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  88. ↑ Bundestag Drucksache 12/6664 Answer of the Federal Government to the request of the MP Dr. Fritz Schumann (PDF; 305 kB).
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  91. ↑ Trustee fraudsters convicted. In: Berliner Zeitung. December 11, 2009.
  92. ↑ Biggest fraudster after the fall of the Wall. In: Berliner Morgenpost. July 8, 2009.
  93. ↑ Last major proceedings for fraud of the Treuhand closed: Federal Court of Justice overturns judgment against WBB manager Rottmann: million dollar damage is statute-barred. on: berliner-zeitung.de , November 4, 2010.
  94. ↑ Manager has to repay 20 million. In: Berliner Zeitung. February 1, 2005.
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  96. ↑ Unification Crime Process. In: Der Tagesspiegel. March 29, 2000; the description there essentially corresponds to the findings of the ZERV in the 1999 annual report, p. 9 ff.
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  102. ↑ Easy access: Ex-Vulkan boss Hennemann gambled away one billion marks more than was previously known. The money comes from the state treasury . In: Der Spiegel . No. 18 , 1996 ( online - 29 April 1996 ).
  103. ↑ The Treasure of the Working Class. In: Spiegel online. December 10, 2001.
  104. ↑ Decision recommendation and report of the 2nd commission of inquiry Treuhandanstalt (PDF, 848 pages)
  105. ↑ Focus: Electricity in the New Lands. In: Focus magazine. No. 41 (1994).
  106. ↑ Energy: Contracts in the semi-darkness. In: Der Spiegel. 26/1991.
  107. ^ Fritz Vorholz: Stage victory for the East. In: The time. 46/1992.
  108. ^ Association of municipal companies December 22, 1992 - 20 years of electricity comparison. ( Memento of October 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Press release 125/12.
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  111. ↑ Horst Königstein directs the docu-drama "Der Treuhänder" Film review on Blickpunkt: Film, July 18, 2003, accessed on March 23, 2018.