1997 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
A Study of the German Machine Tool Industry in the Weimar and Nazi Area
| Project/Area Number |
07630078
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Economic history
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| Research Institution | Kumamoto Gakuen University (1996-1997)
Osaka University of Economics (1995) |
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Principal Investigator |
KODA Ryoichi Kumamoto Gakuen University, Faculty of Commerce, Professor, 商学部, 教授 (60153475)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1995 – 1997
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| Keywords | machine tool industry / machine building industry / German economic history / German business history / Nazi economy / German rationalization movement / interwar period / munitions industry |
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| Research Abstract |
The German machine tool industry, which swelled up in producing weapons during World War I, was expected to face serious crisis after the war. Actually however it came a boom in the first few years of the 1920s, It was 1924 that changed the situation drastically, when the inflation came to an end and many firms fell into difficulties. Only those firms which tried to lean business resources could survive, Through this nation wide "rationalization movement", in which metal-working sector stood in convergent position, technological standard of the German machine tools improved rapidly.
This improvement led to accept large order of machine tools from Soviet , Russia, which started the 5 years industrialization plan. While in the late 1920s foreign demand took the lead, demand in Germany became stagnant once more. The world crisis of 1929 stroke a great blow on the machine tool industry in Germany. When Hitler came to power in 1933 the machine tools industry was at the depth of the depression and had huge excess production capacity.
Parallel with rearmament policy and motorization policy by the Nazi party the production of machine tools so increased year after year that German inventory of machine tools overwhelmed that of the United States in 1938. It could be said that this might be one of the reason why Hitler decided the war.
Several questions such as expansion of machine tool building capacity, its correlation with munitions production and a gap between production plan and practice during WW2 were left unanswered as next research project.
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