61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

independently. They backed this up by invoking communication difficulties,
inadequate information, and consequently the impossibility of maintaining
proper control over their subsidiaries. This was, however, far from the truth in
most cases. In reality, the firms gambled on the time factor, some more skilfully
than others. They intended to be ready to play their role in the post-war
economy centred around the reconstruction of a Europe that had been devastated,
that was hungry, and that lacked most consumer goods. And they were
largely successful.
A third concern shaped the policy adopted by the firms: their position in the
face of competitors. This problem was not equally serious for every company.
Those such as AIAG and Lonza, whose production was particularly indispensable,
were included in cartels which eliminated the effects of competition.
Nestlé and the pharmaceutical companies supplied specialised products for
which competition was negligible. The dye manufacturers in Basel had to
compete with IG Farben, but they managed to take advantage of the fact that
the upper echelons of the Party distrusted the strong Frankfurt firm. Brown
Boveri in Mannheim did not have a similar advantage. Despite its industrial
prestige, it still lagged behind Siemens and AEG, which not only enjoyed larger
market shares in the electro-technology sector (Brown Boveri held only 19% of
the market in 1939) but also held most of the key positions in professional
organisations which had been set up by the state and which were responsible for
allotting markets and resources (Brown Boveri was given only 5 of those
positions out of 244). Of all companies we investigated it was Maggi (renamed
Alimentana SA in 1934) in Kemptthal which suffered most. The subsidiary it
had set up in Singen in 1897 (with a sales office and an administrative office in
Berlin) came under tremendous pressure from competitors who were more or
less just as large: Knorr in Heilbronn, Liebig & Co. in Cologne and Gräbener
in Karlsruhe. From the end of the 19 th century on, these companies fought a
fierce battle, making every effort to obtain the others’ manufacturing secrets.
The 1930s depression had a considerable effect on the food industry, which only
aggravated the atmosphere of hostile competition. Maggi-Singen was accused
of being run by foreigners; for a long time it had been the victim of defamation
campaigns and calls for boycotts, as was the pharmaceutical Hoffmann-La
Roche. This attitude was not to change when the Nazis, with their fanatically
nationalist programme, came to power; but at least the change promised an
economic revival. It was for this reason that Maggi-Singen (as opposed to
Hoffmann-La Roche in this respect) gave every sign of enthusiastically even
obsequiously complying with the new regime and in addition never missed an
opportunity to emphasise its German, «Aryan» character. The firm complied
fully with the new ideology with all the consequences this entailed (discipline,
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