The Foreign-Exchange Dimension of Corporate Control in the Third Reich: the Case of Schering AG

Abstract

This article argues that foreign-exchange transactions were one of the most effective forms of leverage that the Nazi regime had for controlling German business. Using the example of Schering AG, the article traces some of the mechanisms of control and shows how important these transactions were to international firms such as Schering. It further argues that corporate resistance to Nazi efforts to control international German firms was hardly an option because of the vulnerability of those firms to the foreign-exchange decisions of the state. Many of the financial decisions taken by businesses in the 1920s and 30s – coupled with businessmen's own predilection to mix national with private interests – left them highly dependent on the state and quasi-governmental solutions to private commercial problems even before the Machtergreifung.