Description
Book Synopsis German unification evoked ambivalent reactions outside its borders: it revived disquietingmemories of attempts by German big business during the two world wars to build an economic empire in Europe in conjunction with the military and the government bureaucracy. But thereare also high hopes that German finance and industry will serve as the engine of reconstruction in eastern Europe, just as it played this role in the postwar unification of western Europe.
Trade Review "The collection of essays shows that the present drive by Germany to construct an integratedEuropean economy drives from several precedents in German economic thought, including theimperial and Nazi periods." · The Wall Street Journal Europe
"... a stimulating book ... [that] has much more unity than is often the case in collections ... Berghahn shows the way in which the complicated process of combining political, economic and business history with the history of mentalities can lead to interesting insights into the relationship between economic wealth and political power." · Business History
Table of Contents Preface
Introduction: German Big Business and the Quest for a European Economic Empire in the Twentieth Century
Volker R. Berghahn
Chapter 1. Europe in the Strategies of Germany's Electrical Engineering and Chemicals Trusts, 1919-1929
Harm G. Schröter
Chapter 2. The European Strategies of IG Farben, 1925-45
Peter Hayes
Chapter 3. Fascism and the Structure of German Capitalism: The Case of the Automobile Industry
Simon Reich
Chapter 4. German Big Business and the Return to the World Market after World War II
Reinhard Neebe
Chapter 5. "Reconquering Our Old Position": West German Osthandel Strategies of the 1950s
Robert Mark Spaulding, Jr.
Chapter 6. Lowering Soviet Expectations" West German Industry and Osthandel during the Brandt Era
Volker R. Berghahn
Chapter 7. Strategies of German Big Business in their International Setting during the 1980s
Margit Köppen
Chapter 8. German Industry and the European Union in the 1990s
Jeffrey J. Anderson
Tables
List of Contributors
