Abstract
The fundaments of the corporatist model of labor relations in Germany were laid at the end of First World War. The chapter studies the important shift in the capital’s attitude toward the labor movement that was necessary to make this development possible. By the example of Carl Duisberg, one of the most famous entrepreneurs in Germany before First World War, the chapter shows that the particular institutional framework of the chemical industries must be considered a clear commitment of the entrepreneurs to the political and economic system of Weimar. Thus, the corporatist model of the chemical industry and especially Carl Duisberg’s activities can be regarded as model for the solution of social conflicts in Weimar.
First Publication: Werner Plumpe, ‘Carl Duisberg, the end of World War I, and the birth of social partnership from the spirit of defeat’, in: Hartmut Berghoff/Jürgen Kocka/Dieter Ziegler (eds), Business in the Age of Extremes, Cambridge University Press (2013), 40–58.
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Notes
- 1.
The ’patricide’ idea enjoyed extraordinary popularity in the immediate post-war years. Broad sections of the Weimar intelligentsia saw the outcome of the war as the logical consequence of a thoroughly putrid pre-war society. The charge of social decay was often leveled by younger Germans against their parents’ generation—by sons against fathers. For an overview, see Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Die Kultur der Niederlage. Der amerikanische Süden 1865, Frankreich 1871, Deutschland 1918, Berlin 2001. The extent to which this was a generational question is made clear by Friedrich Meineke [1862–1954], Drei Generationen deutscher Gelehrtenpolitik, in: Historische Zeitschrift 125 (1922), 248–83, esp. 268.
- 2.
This may throw further light on the whole complex of Germany’s wartime and transitional economy—an area that was long the focus of Gerald Feldman’s work. See in particular his Army, Industry and Labor in Germany, 1914–1918, Princeton 1966. See also Gerald D. Feldman/Irmgard Steinisch, Industrie und Gewerkschaften 1918–1924. Die überforderte Zentralarbeitsgemeinschaft, Stuttgart 1985.
- 3.
There is no recent biography of Carl Duisberg. The standard work is still Hans-Joachim Flechtner, Carl Duisberg. Vom Chemiker zum Wirtschaftsführer, Düsseldorf 1959, which traces Duisberg’s life quite reliably, albeit with major omissions. Duisberg’s autobiography—Meine Lebenserinnerungen (Leipzig, 1933), edited by Jesco von Puttkamer—is unreliable as well as incomplete for political reasons. Despite the lack of a fully satisfactory biography Duisberg’s achievements—his important contributions to the chemical industry, to Germany’s war effort in the First World War, to the economic policy of interest-group associations, and to promoting science and helping students—have been the subject of scholarly research. On his activities during the First World War, see Thomas Portz, Großindustrie, Kriegszielbewegung und OHL, Siegfrieden und Kanzlersturz: Carl Duisberg und die deutsche Außenpolitik im Ersten Weltkrieg, Lauf an der Pegnitz 2000. On the compulsory recruitment of Belgian labor, see Jens Thiel’s recent ’Menschenbassin Belgien‘. Anwerbung, Deportation und Zwangsarbeit im Ersten Weltkrieg, Essen 2007, esp. 109–22. See also the commendable unpublished doctoral dissertation by Hans Klose, Carl Duisberg. Politische und soziale Aspekte seines Lebens, University of Cologne 1991. This essay draws upon the scholarly literature on Duisberg and his times as well as Duisberg’s extensive literary remains preserved in the Corporate Archives of Bayer AG in Leverkusen.
- 4.
On industrial social policy in Leverkusen, see especially Anne Nieberding, Unternehmenskultur im Kaiserreich. J. M. Voith und die Farbenfabriken vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co., Munich 2003. See also Stefan Blaschke, Unternehmen und Gemeinde. Das Bayerwerk im Raum Leverkusen 1891–1914, Cologne 1999.
- 5.
For a detailed treatment of this subject, see Werner Plumpe, Betriebliche Mitbestimmung in der Weimarer Republik. Fallstudien zum Ruhrbergbau und zur chemischen Industrie, Munich 1999.
- 6.
That assessment has to be weighed carefully: Duisberg usually assumed that he was the master of the situation. Still, other sources, such as the minutes of the workers’ council meetings, also point into the direction of cooperation between labor and management.
- 7.
As described in a letter from Carl Duisberg to Emil Fischer, 18 Dec. 1918, Bayer Corporate Archives, Leverkusen (hereafter BAL) AS.
- 8.
The ceremony referred to took place on 27 July 1914.
- 9.
Carl Duisberg to Emil Fischer, 12 Aug. 1914, BAL AS.
- 10.
Carl Duisberg to Emil Fischer, 12 Aug. 1914, BAL AS.
- 11.
Carl Duisberg to Emil Fischer, 10 Sept. 1914, BAL AS.
- 12.
Carl Duisberg to Emil Fischer, 10 Sept. 1914, BAL AS.
- 13.
Carl Duisberg to Emil Fraas, 19 Aug. 1914, BAL AS.
- 14.
In the original, ‘krämerhafter Geist’ and ‘gemeine Missgunst’: Carl Duisberg to Emil Fraas, 21 Dec. 1914, BAL AS.
- 15.
Carl Duisberg to Emil Fraas, 19 Aug. 1914, BAL AS.
- 16.
Carl Duisberg to Emil Fischer, 10 Sept. 1914, BAL AS. Duisberg nonetheless advised against retaliatory countermeasures: Duisberg to Oberregierungsrat F. Damme, 23 Oct. 1914, BAL AS. This ‘British fixation’ was not peculiar to Duisberg and found widespread expression in the early months of the war; see Hermann Lübbe, Politische Philosophie in Deutschland. Studien zu ihrer Geschichte, Basle 1963, 171ff., esp. 220f.
- 17.
On Duisberg’s role in the plotting against Bethmann-Hollweg, see Portz, Großindustrie, Kriegszielbewegung und OHL (see above, note 3), 343–405.
- 18.
Carl Duisberg to Theodor Diehl, 18 Feb. 1919, BAL AS.
- 19.
See Gerald D. Feldman, Hugo Stinnes. Biographie eines Industriellen 1870–1924, Munich 1998, 513ff.
- 20.
Carl Duisberg to Emanuel A. Merck, 17 Oct. 1918, BAL AS.
- 21.
Maximilian Harden to Carl Duisberg, 7 Dec. 1918; Carl Duisberg to Maximilian Harden, 18 Dec. 1918, BAL AS. Duisberg considered himself unjustly accused and saw himself as the victim of a rumor that hugely exaggerated his political importance.
- 22.
Emanuel Merck wrote to Duisberg that a prominent gentleman had considered trying to persuade Duisberg to resign shortly after his election ‘because politically, after all, you have shown yourself too much opposed to many people, including those in authority’; Emanuel Merck to Carl Duisberg, 30 Oct. 1918, BAL AS.
- 23.
How exceptional this experience was can be seen from the fact that the assault on Duisberg at this time found repeated reflection in his correspondence. See also his autobiography: Duisberg, Meine Lebenserinnerungen (see above, note 3), 107.
- 24.
Emil Fischer to Carl Duisberg, 10 Dec. 1918, BAL AS.
- 25.
Carl Duisberg to Emil Fischer, 18 Dec. 1918, BAL AS. Nevertheless, he had made prompt arrangements to have his securities moved to the safe at Henry Theodor von Böttinger’s Neumark estate because one could not, at that time, be too sure in an industrial district such as Cologne; Carl Duisberg to Henry Theodor von Böttinger, 21 Nov. 1918, BAL AS.
- 26.
Carl Duisberg to Emil Fischer, 25 Jan. 1919, BAL AS. Duisberg’s friend Henry Theodor Böttinger, a long-serving member of the Reichstag as well as of the Prussian Landtag, voiced his disgust at political developments in the capital in early January, noting resignedly: ‘Of course our hydrocephalus, Berlin, in which the mangiest elements have congregated and where they continue to wreak their mischief and havoc, is now poison’; Böttinger to Duisberg, 4 Jan. 1919, BAL AS.
- 27.
Carl Duisberg to Emanuel A. Merck, 31 Oct. 1918, BAL AS.
- 28.
Carl Duisberg to Henry Theodor von Böttinger, 21 Nov. 1918, BAL AS.
- 29.
Carl Duisberg to Henry Theodor von Böttinger, 21 Nov. 1918, BAL AS.
- 30.
Carl Duisberg to Emanuel A. Merck, 8 Nov. 1918, BAL AS.
- 31.
Carl Duisberg to Emanuel A. Merck, 18 Nov. 1918, BAL AS.
- 32.
Carl Duisberg to Emanuel A. Merck, 18 Nov. 1918, BAL AS.
- 33.
Carl Duisberg to Emanuel A. Merck, 18 Nov. 1918, BAL AS.
- 34.
Carl Duisberg to Henry Theodor von Böttinger, 31 Dec. 1918, BAL AS.
- 35.
Carl Duisberg to Emanuel A. Merck, 10 April 1919, BAL AS.
- 36.
Carl Duisberg to Henry Theodor von Böttinger, 12 April 1919, BAL AS.
- 37.
Carl Duisberg to Henry Theodor von Böttinger, 31 Dec. 1918, BAL AS.
- 38.
Carl Duisberg to Rudolf Frank, 18 Feb. 1919, BAL 46/16.1.
- 39.
The agreement setting up this organization is reproduced in Feldman/Steinisch, Industrie und Gewerkschaften (see above, note 2). This is still the standard work on the subject. Its arguments influence the present text, even where they are not always explicitly referenced.
- 40.
Gerald D. Feldman, Wirtschafts- und sozialpolitische Probleme der deutschen Demobilmachung 1918–19, in: Hans Mommsen/Dietmar Petzina/Bernd Weisbrod (eds), Industrielles System und politische Entwicklung in der Weimarer Republik, Düsseldorf 1974, 618–36.
- 41.
On the background situation, see Franz Oppenheim to Carl Duisberg, 15 Feb. 1919, BAL 46/16.1. Duisberg was, quite rightly, not alarmed by the widespread rumors of nationalization and social ownership: ‘You see, if an industry is ill-suited or not suited at all to such socialist measures, it really is our own, where everything depends on the small number of chemists who work in it and above all on the good will of those in leading positions. So I feel quite serene in the face of such endeavors and urgently recommend that you too take no action for the moment.’ Nonetheless, Duisberg was ready to fight if need be: ‘In any event, I shall defend my Leverkusen child and our German dye industry to the last drop of my blood.’ Carl Duisberg to Emanuel A. Merck, 22 Nov. 1918, BAL AS.
- 42.
Feldman, Hugo Stinnes (see above, note 19), 566f.
- 43.
See also Friedrich Zunkel, Industrie und Staatssozialismus. Der Kampf um die Wirtschaftsordnung in Deutschland 1914–1918, Düsseldorf 1974.
- 44.
Stephanie Wolff-Rohé, Der Reichsverband der Deutschen Industrie 1919–1924/25, Frankfurt a.M. 2001.
- 45.
For a detailed account, see Feldman/Steinisch, Industrie und Gewerkschaften (see above, note 2).
- 46.
Duisberg stressed several times that there was no danger of nationalization. ‘Socialization of the means of production by the present government is not something that we in the chemical industry need to worry about—at least, so I believe. Our industry is far too finely structured and too dependent on the export trade to be suitable for nationalization.’ Carl Duisberg to Rudolf Frank, 29 Nov. 1918, BAL AS.
- 47.
On Leverkusen’s ‘separatism’, see also Carl Duisberg’s apologetic comments in a letter to Rudolf Frank, 13 Jan. 1929, BAL AS.
- 48.
Carl Duisberg to Rudolf Frank, 13 Jan. 1929, BAL AS.
- 49.
Carl Duisberg to Rudolf Frank, 18 Feb. 1919, BAL AS.
- 50.
Carl Duisberg to Rudolf Frank, 18 Feb. 1919, BAL AS.
- 51.
Carl Duisberg to BASF head Bueb, 22 Feb. 1919, BAL 46/16.1.
- 52.
Carl Duisberg to Rudolf Frank, 4 March 1919, BAL AS.
- 53.
Carl Duisberg to Rudolf Frank, 4 March 1919, BAL AS.
- 54.
Carl Duisberg to Rudolf Frank, 20 March 1919, BAL 46/16.1.
- 55.
Carl Duisberg to Rudolf Frank, 15 April 1919, BAL AS. See also the confidential document that Carl Duisberg addressed to the members of the general committee of the VWICID, 15 April 1919, BAL AS. Rudolf Frank’s salary was paid half by the Verein and half by the firms of the Interessengemeinschaft der deutschen Farbenfabriken—which Duisberg had supported strongly in order to obtain Frank’s services in the first place. In practice, therefore, Frank was now an employee of the Interessengemeinschaft. Rudolf Frank to Carl Duisberg, 8 May 1919, with two handwritten agreements from which it emerges that in addition to Frank’s official salary of 50,000 marks he received a further 50,000 marks from the firms of the Interessengemeinschaft. Certainly, Frank took a great weight off Duisberg’s mind: ‘That I am very pleased no longer to have to visit Berlin before Whitsun you will readily understand. I hope many weeks will pass before I am compelled to travel there again after Whitsuntide. At all events, I am delighted that I now have so excellent a representative in the Society who relieves me of all the burden and effort.’ Carl Duisberg to Rudolf Frank, 2 June 1919, BAL AS.
- 56.
The original version of the national pay agreement for the chemical industry that remained in force until the end of the Republic and in part beyond was concluded on 19 July 1919. Although the agreement was added to or modified subsequently, the basic framework was never questioned. See Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft Chemie, Der Reichstarifvertrag (Rahmenvertrag) der chemischen Industrie, RAG pamphlet no. 5/21 (Berlin, 1921), BAL 46/16.1. On the industry’s ‘push for an agreement’, see Rudolf Frank to Carl Duisberg, 11 Feb. 1919, BAL AS.
- 57.
See Entschließung des 14. ordentlichen Gewerkschaftstages des Fabrikarbeiterverbands (1921), BAL 46/16.1.
- 58.
Bericht über die konstituierende Sitzung des Vorstands der Gruppe Chemie, 29 April 1919, BAL 46/16.1.
- 59.
Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft Chemie, Die Grundlagen der Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft Chemie, Memorandum no. 8, Berlin, 11 Dec. 1919, BAL 46/16.1, 10f.
- 60.
Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft Chemie, Die Grundlagen der Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft Chemie, Memorandum no. 8, Berlin, 11 Dec. 1919, BAL 46/16.1, 3.
- 61.
Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft Chemie, Die Grundlagen der Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft Chemie, Memorandum no. 8, Berlin, 11 Dec. 1919, BAL 46/16.1.
- 62.
Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft Chemie, Die Grundlagen der Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft Chemie, Memorandum no. 8, Berlin, 11 Dec. 1919, BAL 46/16.1, 3.
- 63.
Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft Chemie, Die Grundlagen der Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft Chemie, Memorandum no. 8, Berlin, 11 Dec. 1919, BAL 46/16.1.
- 64.
Carl Duisberg to Rudolf Frank, 20 March 1919, BAL 46–716.1.
- 65.
See the minutes of executive-committee meetings of the RAG: Protokolle der Vorstandssitzungen der Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft, 1919–1922, BAL 46/16.1.
- 66.
Report of the executive-committee meeting of the German Chemical Industry Employers’ Association held in Berlin on 12 April 1919, reproduced in Feldman/Steinisch, Industrie und Gewerkschaften (see above, note 2), 168–70, esp. 169.
- 67.
On Stinnes’s stance, see Feldman, Hugo Stinnes (see above, note 19), 600–6.
- 68.
Carl Duisberg to Henry Theodor von Böttinger, 15 March 1920, BAL AS.
- 69.
Carl Duisberg to Henry Theodor von Böttinger, 15 March 1920, BAL AS.
- 70.
On Paul Silverberg, see the excellent recent study by Boris Gehlen, Paul Silverberg (1876–1959). Ein Unternehmer, Stuttgart 2007.
- 71.
Carl Duisberg to Paul Silverberg, 12 Jan. 1923, BAL AS.
- 72.
On Frowein, Silverberg, and Kastl, see Reinhard Neebe, Großindustrie, Staat und NSDAP 1930–1933. Paul Silverberg und der Reichsverband der deutschen Industrie in der Krise der Weimarer Republik, Göttingen 1981. On Silverberg, see Gehlen, Paul Silverberg (see above, note 70).
- 73.
On the conflicts within the RDI, see Neebe, Großindustrie (see above, note 72).
- 74.
Conversely, the representatives of the old bourgeois order were particularly unpopular with the right-wing radicals of the Weimar period. ‘In the agitation of the far right, such as by Gregor Strasser, for instance, and Josef Goebbels, denunciation of the “outdated” bourgeoisie became inseparable from polemical ranting against the senescence of the Weimar Republic.’ See Hans Mommsen, Die Auflösung des Bürgertums seit dem späten 19. Jahrhundert, in: Jürgen Kocka (ed.), Bürger und Bügerlichkeit im 19. Jahrhundert, Göttingen 1987, 288–315, here 290.
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Plumpe, W. (2016). Carl Duisberg, the End of World War I, and the Birth of Social Partnership from the Spirit of Defeat. In: German Economic and Business History in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51860-6_12
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