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1 – 3 of 3The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the Tausch- or barter-centers that existed in Germany during the 1940s. These small but unique platforms for the exchange of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the Tausch- or barter-centers that existed in Germany during the 1940s. These small but unique platforms for the exchange of consumer durables represent an almost unknown chapter in economic history. This contribution aims to describe the major characteristics of these organizations and to investigate the implications of these findings for community currencies in general.
Design/methodology/approach
An analysis is conducted of primary sources, which bring to light different types of these alternative markets. This is complemented by a comprehensive study of secondary sources.
Findings
Theoretically, these exchange systems are interpreted as operating within boundaries. The results of this research project are not only relevant for our understanding of the war and post-war economy in Germany, at a time when the market mechanism was suppressed, this peculiar case also sheds some light on the functioning of markets. Furthermore, a better knowledge of the structure of the Tausch- or barter-centers is relevant with regard to our understanding of the functioning of community currencies in general.
Originality/value
This paper provides the first survey of these organizations.
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Hartmut Berghoff and Berti Kolbow
The purpose of this paper is to understand how Agfa, a division of IG Farben and Germany's leading producer of photographic equipment, adapted its marketing strategy to the new…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand how Agfa, a division of IG Farben and Germany's leading producer of photographic equipment, adapted its marketing strategy to the new political environment created by the Nazi regime. This was a time when many consumer goods manufacturers suffered from the state‐driven reallocation of resources favoring the armament industry. Agfa, however, expanded its production well into the war.
Design/methodology/approach
This case study is based on archival records of Agfa's sales department.
Findings
This paper shows that Hitler's armament drive left room for non‐essential consumer goods such as cameras, film, and photographic paper as they fitted the regime's consumption policy, as well as its import and foreign exchange policy. A pioneer in marketing, Agfa was able to secure its growth strategy and its room to maneuver by focusing its product and promotion program on the socioeconomic needs of the “Volksgemeinschaft” and the “Four Year Plan”.
Originality/value
This paper sheds new light on the often‐underestimated role of consumption during the “Third Reich.” Furthermore, it supports the evolutionary – rather than revolutionary – nature of the history of marketing practice in Germany, as Agfa's interwar marketing policy features many sophisticated modern elements prior to the “Marketing Revolution” of the 1960s.
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Erin Jade Twyford and Warwick Funnell
This study examines how accounting practices used by Deutsche Bank could conceal its role in the destruction of Jewish financial life (bios) as part of the Nazis' Aryanisation…
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines how accounting practices used by Deutsche Bank could conceal its role in the destruction of Jewish financial life (bios) as part of the Nazis' Aryanisation policy to eliminate Jews from German business as a prelude to their annihilation.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a close-reading method that draws upon a wide range of primary and secondary sources. The study is informed by Giorgio Agamben's theorisations on the state of exception and the duality of the example and exception.
Findings
The successful implementation of the Nazis' corporative economic model necessitated the cooperation of Aryan businesses to instrumentalise the financially exploitative process of Aryanisation. Accounting was part of the Nazi-Deutsch rhetoric used to disguise expropriation of Jewish businesses and other assets and, thereby, facilitate the eradication of the financial bios of Jews who owned German banks. Unknown to the Nazi authorities, Deutsche Bank, while a significant medium for Aryanisation, sought to ameliorate the long-term effects on Jewish owners, thereby recognising that not all those within Nazi Germany were fully committed disciples of Nazism.
Research limitations/implications
The findings of this study identify how accounting practices were part of a Nazi policy designed to eliminate Jews from the German economy. The use of accounting as a form of “Nazi-Deutsch” functioned to disguise Aryanisations. The importance of these contributions of accounting practices calls for further research into the role of business and accounting in the attempted eradication of people.
Originality/value
The paper is the first to consider the process of Aryanisation in Nazi Germany (1933–1945) as a specific historiographical subject. Presented through the examination of the Aryanisation actions of Deutsche Bank, this study demonstrates the tension between Nazi ideology, the capitalist model and the culpability of accounting practices as a means to reinterpret morality to create the exception that allowed the Nazis to effectively remove all legal protections for Jews.
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