Completed research projects

Political Promotion of "Future Industries" - LDPD – Erfurt - Corporate History and National Socialism - The History of the Leibniz Association - Structural Policies in West Germany, The Süßmuth Glassworks, Alternative economies, Oil and Sovereignty - left-journals Das Argument and PROKLA - Nuclear Energy and Society in Denmark - Wirtschaftlicher Strukturwandel - Family in Germany During the Twentieth Century - Digitisation of the banking industry, LIP, Besançon

Forschung

Projekte

Sceenshot - Website der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft v. 29.11.2018 mit der Geschäftsstelle der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft in Berlin-Mitte

Elaboration of the History of the Leibniz Association

Ariane Brill
Completed associated project

This research project addresses the almost twenty-year history of the Leibniz Association, which has not yet been systematically told.
In making pertinent records available and analysing them, it pursues the question as to how the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Scientific Community (WGL) succeeded during the course of its existence so far in establishing itself in competition with the other major research organisations at national level.

Moral Economy? Social and Cultural History of Collectivist Economics in Western Europe after 1945

Anne Sudrow
Completed research project

Forms of collectivist economics and cooperative corporate constitutions have a long tradition in Europe. Various legal forms of participatory or supportive economics have survived within the economic systems of Western Europe, which are now largely aligned with the private sector and the market economy, and have even developed further during the course of the twentieth century.

Signature of the Agreement Establishing the IEA, 18 November 1974. Left to right: Ulf Lantzke, Special Counsellor for Energy to the OECD Secretary-General; Etienne Davignon, Belgian Foreign Ministry, Chairman of the IEA-OECD Governing Board; Emile Van Lennep, OECD Secretary-General; Charles Wootton, OECD Deputy Secretary-General, (Photograph: OECD)

The International Organisation of National Energy Policy
Great Britain and Western Germany in the International Energy Agency (IEA), 1974–1993

Henning Türk
Completed research project

This DFG-funded research project scrutinised the relevance of international organisations for national policy-making since the 1970s, using the example of energy policy. At the heart of the project is the International Energy Agency (IEA), which was founded in 1974 as a reaction of the Western industrialised countries to the oil crisis.

Source: © OOA Fonden - smilingsun.org

 

„Atomkraft – Nej Tak“. A transnational perspective on Nuclear Energy and Society in Denmark

 Jan-Henrik Meyer

Completed associated research project

This research was part of the cooperative interdisciplinary Horizon 2020 project HoNESt – History of Nuclear Energy and Society. The ZZF hosted HoNESt researchers for their authors’ workshop in November 2018.

Logo of the LIP. Image: Jamin, Lip 0451, CC BY-SA 3.0

'Self-Management' in the Factory. The Watchmaking Enterprise LIP of Besançon, France, in the 1970s and 1980s

Jens Beckmann
Completed PhD project

This project analysed the changes in production, products and communication and negotiating patterns at LIP between 1973 and 1983.

Logo of the Liberal-Demokratische Partei Deutschlands (LDPD). Image: WorldlyVoice, LDPD logo transparent, CC BY-SA 4.0

Regional Party Activities and Room for Manoeuvre of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPD) in the District of Erfurt in the German Democratic Republic between the Construction and Fall of the Wall

Marlene Heihsel
Completed associated PhD project

This discrepancy between the public reputation as an economic party and the economic programme of the LDPD, which corresponds to the ideologised SED economic policy, was the starting point for the thesis. The focus is on the GDR district of Erfurt, a traditional business location for medium-sized businesses.

Bookcover

Bookcover: Oil and Sovereignty. Petro-Knowledge and Energy Policy in the United States and Western Europe in the 1970s

Oil and Sovereignty. Petro-Knowledge and Energy Policy in the United States and Western Europe in the 1970s

 Rüdiger Graf

Completed research project

The project analyzed the national and international strategies that American and European governments formulated to restructure the world of oil and deal with the era’s disruptions. It showed how a variety of different actors combined diplomacy, knowledge creation, economic restructuring, and public relations in their attempts to impose stability and reassert national sovereignty.

The site of the former Glashütte Süßmuth. Photo: Axel Hindemith, Glasmuseum Immenhausen Glashütte Süssmuth, CC BY-SA 3.0

Trail of broken pieces. The Self-Management of the Süßmuth Glassworks Between the Grassroots Democratic Awakening around „1968“ and the Decline of the German Mouth Glass Industry

Christiane Mende
Completed PhD project

The dissertation project examined the background of the self-mangement of Süßmuth glassworks and the associated upheavals and changes. It examined as well as the specific factors that made it difficult for democratic practice to become established in a West German industrial enterprise at the time.

Bookcover: Industrial Policy in Western Europe since the 1960s. Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook 58 (2017), Heft 1.

Structural Policy and Subsidies in West Germany. Debates and Decisions after the 'Economic Miracle'

 Ralf Ahrens

Completed research project

The project analysed debates and decisions regarding subsidies as an instrument of coping with economic structural change in West Germany. It focussed on the period from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, during which overall economic growth problems and industrial adjustment crises transformed structural policy into a central field of politics (though one only examined selectively in historical research) with numerous protagonists – alongside the federal government, the individual states and the European Community, also enterprises and trade unions as well as science and the media.

Buchcover: Der Mythos von der postindustriellen Welt. Wirtschaftlicher Strukturwandel in Deutschland 1960 bis 1990

Wirtschaftlicher Strukturwandel im letzten Drittel des 20. Jahrhunderts in Ost und West

 André Steiner

Abgeschlossenes Forschungsprojekt

Im DFG-Verbundprojekt unter der Leitung von André Steiner (ZZF) und Werner Plumpe (Lehrstuhl für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte der Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main) wurden die gängigen Bilder vom Verschwinden der Industrie und dem Aufstieg des Dienstleistungssektors auf den Prüfstand gestellt.

Different computers produced by VEB Robotron. Photo: Stefan Kühn, DDR Museum Zeitreise Radebeul Robotron-Computer, CC BY-SA 3.0

The Digitalisation of the Banking Industry. Information and Communications Technology in the Savings Banks of the FRG and the GDR, 1954–1991

Completed PhD project

The digital transformation changed the banking industry in Germany from the ground up.  The aim of this PhD project was to analyse the interactions between the deployment of computers by savings banks in East and West Germany and socioeconomic developments during the second half of the twentieth century.

Bookcover "Geschichte und Gewinn. Der Umgang deutscher Konzerne mit ihrer NS-Vergangenheit"

Corporate History and National Socialism. Studies on the Handling of their Nazi Past by German Enterprises

Sebastian Brünger
Completed associated PhD project

This PhD project examined continuities and discontinuities in how German enterprises dealt with the past after 1945 and attempts in this way to extend the perspective of the history of memory regarding German commemorational culture to the dimension of corporate history and to conceive of economic enterprises as protagonists of cultural memory.

A family from Siberia in the transit camp for immigrants and refugees Friedland, June 1988. Foto: Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-F079037-0017 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F079037-0017, Lager Friedland, Familie aus Sibirien, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE

Family in Germany During the Twentieth Century. Conflicts of Ideals, Policies, and Praxis

 Christopher Neumaier

Completed research project

This project correlated family ideals with family life and the institutional setting such as legal regulation. It thereby aimed to shed light on the question of how socio-cultural change was initiated and progressed in Germany during the twentieth century.

History of the Max Planck Gesellschaft

 Florian Schmaltz

Completed research project

Two topics were examined with regard to the history of the Max Planck Society: The study prepared within the framework of the research program History of the Max Planck Society examined the question of how the largest West German non-university scientific organization dealt with the legacy and Nazi past of its predecessor organization, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (KWG). The second topic examined dual use problems and military research in the Max Planck Society

Cockpit of an Airbus 319, photo: CC-BY SA 2.5

The Political Promotion of "Future Industries" and Innovation in the Federal Republic of Germany and Great Britain, ca. 1965-1990

 Ralf Ahrens

Completed research project

Historical research on politics confronting economic structural change during the last third of the twentieth century has mainly focused on the crises of ‘old’ industries (coal, steel, shipbuilding, textiles). By contrast, this project analysed the promotion of ‘future industries’ supposed to be especially innovative, and of research and development in general.

Completed research projects

Political Promotion of "Future Industries" - LDPD – Erfurt - Corporate History and National Socialism - The History of the Leibniz Association - Structural Policies in West Germany, The Süßmuth Glassworks, Alternative economies, Oil and Sovereignty - left-journals Das Argument and PROKLA - Nuclear Energy and Society in Denmark - Wirtschaftlicher Strukturwandel - Family in Germany During the Twentieth Century - Digitisation of the banking industry, LIP, Besançon

Forschung

Projekte

Sceenshot - Website der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft v. 29.11.2018 mit der Geschäftsstelle der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft in Berlin-Mitte

Elaboration of the History of the Leibniz Association

Ariane Brill
Completed associated project

This research project addresses the almost twenty-year history of the Leibniz Association, which has not yet been systematically told.
In making pertinent records available and analysing them, it pursues the question as to how the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Scientific Community (WGL) succeeded during the course of its existence so far in establishing itself in competition with the other major research organisations at national level.

Moral Economy? Social and Cultural History of Collectivist Economics in Western Europe after 1945

Anne Sudrow
Completed research project

Forms of collectivist economics and cooperative corporate constitutions have a long tradition in Europe. Various legal forms of participatory or supportive economics have survived within the economic systems of Western Europe, which are now largely aligned with the private sector and the market economy, and have even developed further during the course of the twentieth century.

Signature of the Agreement Establishing the IEA, 18 November 1974. Left to right: Ulf Lantzke, Special Counsellor for Energy to the OECD Secretary-General; Etienne Davignon, Belgian Foreign Ministry, Chairman of the IEA-OECD Governing Board; Emile Van Lennep, OECD Secretary-General; Charles Wootton, OECD Deputy Secretary-General, (Photograph: OECD)

The International Organisation of National Energy Policy
Great Britain and Western Germany in the International Energy Agency (IEA), 1974–1993

Henning Türk
Completed research project

This DFG-funded research project scrutinised the relevance of international organisations for national policy-making since the 1970s, using the example of energy policy. At the heart of the project is the International Energy Agency (IEA), which was founded in 1974 as a reaction of the Western industrialised countries to the oil crisis.

Source: © OOA Fonden - smilingsun.org

 

„Atomkraft – Nej Tak“. A transnational perspective on Nuclear Energy and Society in Denmark

 Jan-Henrik Meyer

Completed associated research project

This research was part of the cooperative interdisciplinary Horizon 2020 project HoNESt – History of Nuclear Energy and Society. The ZZF hosted HoNESt researchers for their authors’ workshop in November 2018.

Logo of the LIP. Image: Jamin, Lip 0451, CC BY-SA 3.0

'Self-Management' in the Factory. The Watchmaking Enterprise LIP of Besançon, France, in the 1970s and 1980s

Jens Beckmann
Completed PhD project

This project analysed the changes in production, products and communication and negotiating patterns at LIP between 1973 and 1983.

Logo of the Liberal-Demokratische Partei Deutschlands (LDPD). Image: WorldlyVoice, LDPD logo transparent, CC BY-SA 4.0

Regional Party Activities and Room for Manoeuvre of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPD) in the District of Erfurt in the German Democratic Republic between the Construction and Fall of the Wall

Marlene Heihsel
Completed associated PhD project

This discrepancy between the public reputation as an economic party and the economic programme of the LDPD, which corresponds to the ideologised SED economic policy, was the starting point for the thesis. The focus is on the GDR district of Erfurt, a traditional business location for medium-sized businesses.

Bookcover

Bookcover: Oil and Sovereignty. Petro-Knowledge and Energy Policy in the United States and Western Europe in the 1970s

Oil and Sovereignty. Petro-Knowledge and Energy Policy in the United States and Western Europe in the 1970s

 Rüdiger Graf

Completed research project

The project analyzed the national and international strategies that American and European governments formulated to restructure the world of oil and deal with the era’s disruptions. It showed how a variety of different actors combined diplomacy, knowledge creation, economic restructuring, and public relations in their attempts to impose stability and reassert national sovereignty.

The site of the former Glashütte Süßmuth. Photo: Axel Hindemith, Glasmuseum Immenhausen Glashütte Süssmuth, CC BY-SA 3.0

Trail of broken pieces. The Self-Management of the Süßmuth Glassworks Between the Grassroots Democratic Awakening around „1968“ and the Decline of the German Mouth Glass Industry

Christiane Mende
Completed PhD project

The dissertation project examined the background of the self-mangement of Süßmuth glassworks and the associated upheavals and changes. It examined as well as the specific factors that made it difficult for democratic practice to become established in a West German industrial enterprise at the time.

Bookcover: Industrial Policy in Western Europe since the 1960s. Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook 58 (2017), Heft 1.

Structural Policy and Subsidies in West Germany. Debates and Decisions after the 'Economic Miracle'

 Ralf Ahrens

Completed research project

The project analysed debates and decisions regarding subsidies as an instrument of coping with economic structural change in West Germany. It focussed on the period from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, during which overall economic growth problems and industrial adjustment crises transformed structural policy into a central field of politics (though one only examined selectively in historical research) with numerous protagonists – alongside the federal government, the individual states and the European Community, also enterprises and trade unions as well as science and the media.

Buchcover: Der Mythos von der postindustriellen Welt. Wirtschaftlicher Strukturwandel in Deutschland 1960 bis 1990

Wirtschaftlicher Strukturwandel im letzten Drittel des 20. Jahrhunderts in Ost und West

 André Steiner

Abgeschlossenes Forschungsprojekt

Im DFG-Verbundprojekt unter der Leitung von André Steiner (ZZF) und Werner Plumpe (Lehrstuhl für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte der Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main) wurden die gängigen Bilder vom Verschwinden der Industrie und dem Aufstieg des Dienstleistungssektors auf den Prüfstand gestellt.

Different computers produced by VEB Robotron. Photo: Stefan Kühn, DDR Museum Zeitreise Radebeul Robotron-Computer, CC BY-SA 3.0

The Digitalisation of the Banking Industry. Information and Communications Technology in the Savings Banks of the FRG and the GDR, 1954–1991

Completed PhD project

The digital transformation changed the banking industry in Germany from the ground up.  The aim of this PhD project was to analyse the interactions between the deployment of computers by savings banks in East and West Germany and socioeconomic developments during the second half of the twentieth century.

Bookcover "Geschichte und Gewinn. Der Umgang deutscher Konzerne mit ihrer NS-Vergangenheit"

Corporate History and National Socialism. Studies on the Handling of their Nazi Past by German Enterprises

Sebastian Brünger
Completed associated PhD project

This PhD project examined continuities and discontinuities in how German enterprises dealt with the past after 1945 and attempts in this way to extend the perspective of the history of memory regarding German commemorational culture to the dimension of corporate history and to conceive of economic enterprises as protagonists of cultural memory.

A family from Siberia in the transit camp for immigrants and refugees Friedland, June 1988. Foto: Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-F079037-0017 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F079037-0017, Lager Friedland, Familie aus Sibirien, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE

Family in Germany During the Twentieth Century. Conflicts of Ideals, Policies, and Praxis

 Christopher Neumaier

Completed research project

This project correlated family ideals with family life and the institutional setting such as legal regulation. It thereby aimed to shed light on the question of how socio-cultural change was initiated and progressed in Germany during the twentieth century.

History of the Max Planck Gesellschaft

 Florian Schmaltz

Completed research project

Two topics were examined with regard to the history of the Max Planck Society: The study prepared within the framework of the research program History of the Max Planck Society examined the question of how the largest West German non-university scientific organization dealt with the legacy and Nazi past of its predecessor organization, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (KWG). The second topic examined dual use problems and military research in the Max Planck Society

Cockpit of an Airbus 319, photo: CC-BY SA 2.5

The Political Promotion of "Future Industries" and Innovation in the Federal Republic of Germany and Great Britain, ca. 1965-1990

 Ralf Ahrens

Completed research project

Historical research on politics confronting economic structural change during the last third of the twentieth century has mainly focused on the crises of ‘old’ industries (coal, steel, shipbuilding, textiles). By contrast, this project analysed the promotion of ‘future industries’ supposed to be especially innovative, and of research and development in general.