Acta Oeconomica Pragensia 2008, 16(1):53-65 | DOI: 10.18267/j.aop.20

Methods of the Germanisation of Czech Economic during the German Occupation on Exapmle of Mining and Metallurgical Company Prague

Drahomír Jančík

Doc. PhDr. Drahomír Jančík, CSc.; Ústav hospodářských a sociálních dějin Filozofické fakulty Univerzity Karlovy v Praze; Katedra mikroekonomie Fakulty podnikohospodářské Vysoké školy ekonomické v Praze (jancik_d@vse.cz).

In the inter-war Czechoslovakia, the Báňská a hutní společnost Praha (Mining and Metallurgical Compagny Prague) represented one of the three most important metallurgical companies. Thanks to its close connection to the armament industry it had an extreme strategic importance. Shortly after the foundation of Czechoslovakia, in the year 1920, the French L'Union Européenne Industrielle et Financière belonging to Schneider's group secured a major share in it. The organization structure of the Báňská a hutní společnost was affected by political changes - after the München Conference Poland annexed the region of Karviná and Třinec, where its sister societies were situated (coal mines, blast furnaces, steel plant, rolling mill, wire mill). After the split of Czecho-Slovakia it became an independent company, which was after the beginning of the war and after the fall of Poland taken over by the German Haupttreuhandstelle-Ost because the major owner of the company was French, therefore the "alien" capital. A number of German Reich concerns, e.g. Hermann Göring Reichwerke, were striving furiously to control it, as well as to control the Báňská a hutní společnost within the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. After the beginning of the war the control over a part of shares of the Báňská a hutní společnost of the French major owner, situated in Prague, was delegated to the Reich German Walter Pohle, an exponent of the Deutsche Bank and the director of the affiliation of the Deutsche Bank in the Protectorate, the Böhmische-Union Bank. Pohle played a key role during the Germanization of the Báňská a hutní společnost, when he negotiated the repurchase of its shares owned by L'Union Européenne and stored in the Banque de France for a bargain price. Pohle followed a plan of the Reich Ministry of Economy to concentrate the mining and metallurgical base in Silesia. Its aim was to renew the former unity of the Báňská a hutní společnost and to ensure the influence of the German Reich in it by the elimination of its Jewish and Czech share-holders. The Germanization of the Báňská a hutní společnost was carried out by the transfer of its headquarters from Prague to Těšín and by the changes in the ownership of its shares by an organized repurchase (especially within the framework of the so-called aryanization of Jewish bonds) and therefore by the increase of its share capital and the exchange of the "old" shares for the "new" ones, with the value in German Marks. By this measure, the "Czech influence" was disabled, as the transferees of the "new" shares could be only Germans.

Keywords: Czechoslovak economic history 1939-45, aryanization of the Jewish property, germanisation of the Czech Lands

Published: February 1, 2008  Show citation