The Reichskuratorium für Wirtschaftlichkeit: Fordism and Organized Capitalism in Germany, 1918–1945

The Reichskuratorium (RKW) was founded in 1921 by Carl Friedrich von Siemens and his subalternate, Carl Köttgen. The organization strove to implement measures of industrial and organizational efficiency in Germany in the interwar era following the American models of Frederick W. Taylor and Henry Ford. This study uses the organization as a vehicle to evaluate varieties of organized capitalism in German business and industrial history since the late nineteenth century. Most recent research has identified forms of organized capitalism that include significant input from organized labor along with state and industry as the most “modern” forms. While these efforts stagnated and eventually failed in Germany's interwar Weimar Republic, they are still seen as the origin of a characteristic and successful postwar model of organized capitalism. Acknowledging that this view is accurate, this study draws attention to the alternate model of the RKW which strove to implement technical and organizational measures of industrial and economic efficiency using state funding but avoiding significant input from organized labor. This variation of German organized capitalism emerged from the more traditional, self-regulating patterns of the late nineteenth century. It persisted through the Weimar Republic, through World War II, and into the postwar era. Less fruitful for understanding the character of the RKW are models from the 1970s Cold War era which elaborated a strongly symbiotic version of organized capitalism between state and big business, which allegedly subordinated efforts of big business to state interests.