V. I.   Lenin

NOTEBOOK “θ”

(“THETA”)

Dr. Riesser, German Big Banks and Their Concentration in Connection with Germany’s Economic Development, 3rd edition, Jena, 1910.

(Some figures, but not all, added from the fourth edition, 1912.)

The German electrical industry prior to 1900 (before the 1900 crisis, caused largely by over-production in the electrical industry) (Riesser, 3rd edition, p. 542 et seq.)^[1] :

Seven groups (with 27 (sic!!) individual companies):

[Total companies = 28, and not 27 as given by Riesser, p. 542 (p. 582, 4th edition). On p. 568 he, too, says: 28 companies)

Results of concentration process (p. 568 et seq.).

Increase in the number of common-interest associations between big and provincial banks (p. 505).

(Riesser, p. 547 et seq.)

German chemical industry =

(concentration)^[2]

p. 560 et seq.: “Mining industry.”

Two names: August Thyssen and Hugo Stinnes. Their gigantic and growing role (in the coal and iron industries).^[19]

| ...“The common-interest agreement concluded on January 1, 1905 between the Gelsenkirchen Bergwerks, the Aachen H\"utten-Verein Rote Erde and Thyssen’s Schalker Gruben und H\"utten-Verein united in a joint enterprise a number of competing banks, viz. the Discontogesellschaft, the Deutsche Bank, the Dresdner Bank and the Schaaffhausenscher Bankverein, but, at the same time, further increased the power of Hugo Stinnes and August Thyssen, who became members of the ‘joint committee’ of the new association” (p. 563) (p. 603 in the fourth edition).

“I estimate the number of bank officials in the six big Berlin banks at 18,000 at the end of 1910” (p. 625, fourth edition).

Riesser’s book ends with a polemic against the socialists, upholds the official view and preaches harmony (in general, Riesser is like that):

{{ ha-ha!! }} Even the predicted socialisation “has not materialised” (p. 585).

p. 582 (p. 629, fourth edition):

“Banks and the Stock Exchange” (Riesser’s italics):

“As regards the effect of the process of concentration on the functions and structure of the Stock Exchange, it is a fact that, with the influx of commissions to the big banks the latter to a certain extent take over the functions of the Stock exchange by counter-balancing purchase and sale commissions, handing over to the Stock Exchange only commissions that do not counter-balance one another. This applies equally to trade in securities, i.e., to the capital market, and discounting operations, i.e., to the money market.

“As a result, the Stock Exchange, already greatly disorganised by the Stock-Exchange laws, is increasingly deprived of the materials indispensable for correctly fixing current prices. It is thus further weakened, and this can have very dangerous consequences, especially at critical times, as bad examples have proved (note: in the recent period one can point to the day of the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war).

“It follows also that the Stock Exchange is steadily losing the feature which is absolutely essential for national economy as a whole and for the circulation of securities in particular—that of being not only a most exact measuring-rod, but also an ‘almost automatic regulator of the economic movements which converge on it’”^[3] (Note. Quotations from Riesser: The Need for Revision of the Stock-Exchange Law, Berlin,   1901), and that it is proving less and less able, N.B. || to express, and control, “through price fluctuations, general public opinion on the credit-worthiness and administration of the majority of states, municipalities, joint-stock companies and corporations.

|| “In this way, Stock-Exchange establishment and quotation of current prices, which previously gave, as far as this is attainable, a faithful picture of ‘economic processes nowhere else summed so reliably, and nowhere else so recognisable in their totality’, consequently, a picture of supply and demand, must now lose both in accuracy and in stability and reliability, which is extremely regrettable in the public interest.

“In addition, it is to be feared that this tendency, || which increasingly leads to exclusion of intermediaries (brokers, etc.), may produce an ever sharper contradiction between the banks and the Stock Exchange, and this may be very serious. This contradiction, moreover, would be expressed not only in a certain tension, already noticeable between the banks and other circles interested in the Stock Exchange, but also in the latter’s most fundamental field of activity, namely, the establishment of current prices.

|| “Actually, today even among experts the concepts bank and Stock Exchange, which some consider, quite wrongly, to be completely equivalent, [note: that is the view of Eschenbach in the Transactions of the Union for Social Politics of September 16, 1903: || Schriften des Vereins f\"ur Sozialpolitik, Vol. CXIII] are in many cases termed direct opposites, which is also quite wrong” (note: cf. Ernst Loeb in the Nationalzeitung of April 18, 1904, No. 244) (p. 583) (p. 630, fourth edition).

Riesser, 3rd edition, p. 693 (Supplement VIII) (p. 745, 4th edition):

[N.B. The 3rd edition deals with eight banks, the 4th edition with six.]

# Figures from the 4thedition, p. 745 (for six banks: Darmst\"adter Bank; Berliner Handelsgesellschaft; Deutsche Bank; Discontogesellschaft; Dresdner Bank and Schaaffhausenscher Bankverein).

(in brackets, figures for
the Deutsche Bank)

These eight banks include, firstly, five banks which form “groups”: Darmst\"adter Bank (Bank f\"ur Handel und Industrie), Deutsche Bank, Discontogesellschaft, Dresdner Bank and Schaaffhausenscher Bankverein,—and then the three following banks: Berliner Handelsgesellschaft, Commerz- und Disconto-Bank, National Bank f\"ur Deutschland.

Here are these “groups” [common-interest associations] of the (five) banks and their “capital strength” (p. 484 et seq.).

In Great Britain in 1899 there were 12 banks with 100 or more branches; altogether there were 2,304 branches (“Niederlassung”).

In 1901 there were 21 banks with 100 or more branches; altogether there were 6,672 branches (p. 521) (p. 558).

||| N.B. “At the beginning of 1905, a single bank, the London City and Midland Bank, had 447 branches, i.e., 257 more than the big Berlin banks and 52 provincial banks affiliated with them at the end of 1904; on December 31, 1907 (#), according to The Economist, the British Joint-stock banks, then numbering only 74 (exclusive of colonial and foreign banks), of which 35 had the right to issue banknotes, had not less than 6,809 branches and sub-branches” (522).

Riesser continued

(#) Fourth edition (p. 558): “On December 31, 1908, deposit banks in Great Britain and Ireland, numbering then 63, had not less than 6,801 branches and sub-branches. Towards the end of 1910 the number of branches was 7,151. At this time, four banks in England and Wales had more than 400 branches each, viz.:

“Four other banks had more than 200 branches each and eleven (20, including Scottish and Irish) had more than 100 each”^[8] (p. 559).

In France, the number of agencies and branches (p. 522) (p. 559) was:

As regards colonial banks (nearly all founded by the Berlin big banks), Riesser’s summary is as follows (additions for 1910 from the fourth edition, p. 375^[9] :

N.B. || “At the end of the nineties there were only four German overseas banks; in 1903 there were six with 32 branches, and at the beginning of 1906 there were already 13, with not less than 100,000,000 marks and more than 70 branches.

“This, however, is relatively insignificant in comparison with the successes of other countries in this field: already in 1904, Great Britain, for example, had 32 (1910: 36) colonial banks with headquarters in London and 2,104 (1910: 3,358) with headquarters in the colonies, and also 18 (1907: 30) (1910: 36) other British banks abroad with 175 (2,091) branches. Already in 1904–05, France had 18 colonial and foreign banks with 104 branches; Holland had 16 overseas banks with 68 branches” (p. 346).

The first figure shows the number of colonial and foreign banks in general, the second—the number of their branches (or of individual banks in the colonies).

||| income from banking opera-
tions
450 million francs. !!!
“According to Board of Trade estimates for 1898, Great Britain’s total income from bank and other operations amounted during that year to £18 million (i.e., about 432 million kronen)” (p. 399) (p. 431).... “‘Allegedly’ more than 6,000 million marks of European annual overseas trade payments go through Great Britain”.... [p. 431, 4th edition]

Britain’s annual income from shipping is 1,800 million marks; Germany’s is 200–300 million marks (p. 400) (p. 432 idem).

1907 poll on bank employees in Germany: replies from 1,247 firms with 24,146 employees (p. 579) (p. 626)

“The number of clearing accounts increased from 3,245 in 1876 to 24,821 (24,982) in 1908 (1910), but, apart from state bank offices,
|| N.B.
they are mainly handled by big commercial and industrial houses, so that clearing operations by the State Bank have retained a somewhat plutocratic character” (122) (p. 131).

In 1907, the average amount of each account (State Bank) = 24,116 marks. Turnover = 260,600 million marks, 354,100 million in 1910 (p. 132). The postal cheque turnover (1909) = 23,847 owners of accounts and 49,853 in 1910, and their property = 94 million marks (p. 132).

Total turnover of the State Bank in Germany
1908 = 305,250 million marks
1910 = 354,100 ” ”

Number of cartels in Germany
(p. 137) 1896 about 250
(p. 149) 1905 ” 385
[[FROM-385-LINE-TO-THIS-BOX:
involving about 12,000 firms^[13] ]]

[[BOX-ENDS:
||
N.B. “The above data show that, even now, German deposits are not of major importance, compared with those of Great Britain and the U.S.A., and appear equally to lag considerably behind those of France” (164) (idem 177). ]]

“The progress of the preceding period (1848–70),
|| N.B.
which had not been exactly slow, compares with the rapidity with which the whole of Germany’s national economy, and with it German banking, progressed during this period (1870–1905) in about the same way as the speed of the mail coach in the good old days compares with the speed of the present-day automobile... which is whizzing past so fast that it endangers not only innocent pedestrians in its path, but also the occupants of the car”....^[14]

And alongside the above, in the very next sentence, Riesser, this bourgeois vulgarian (essentially an out-and-out philistine) and lackey of the money-bags, sees the guarantee of “public security” and “real progress” in the “greatest virtue” of the leader: moderation!!!

And on the next page (355—p. 385) he admits that banks are ... “enterprises which, by their very functions and development, ‘are not of a purely private-business character’, ¹ ) but are more and more outgrowing the sphere of purely private-business regulation”.^[15]

 ¹ ) From Riesser’s speech as president of the first all-German bankers’ congress in Frankfurt-am-Main, September 19–20, 1902.

But this admission does not prevent this bourgeois idiot from writing:

“The other consequence, too, predicted by the socialists, of the process of concentration, that it is bound to lead finally to the socialisation of the means of production, which the socialists
||| !!ha ha!! “refuta-tion....”
aim at and which is to be realised in the ‘state hail of the future’, has not come true in Germany, and is hardly likely to come true later on”^[16] (p. 585) (p. 633).

(The Deutsche Bank alone has a turnover of 94,500 million marks (p. 361) (112,100 million in 1910, p. 391), has connections with a group of 12 banks, controls a capital of 1,000 million marks—the capital of this group and “affiliated” banks—has swallowed up 52 banks, has 116 branches, bank offices, etc., in Germany—has seats on the Supervisory Boards of 120 trading and industrial companies, etc. And this is not “socialisation”!!)

The number of bank employees in the Deutsche Bank was 4,860 (1908)—p. 578 ((in 1895, there were 7,802 employees in 66 banks with 50 or more employees, ibidem)).

In discussing merchant shipping and its development in Germany on p. 114 et seq., Riesser notes the following:

H.-A.P.A.-G. (Hamburg-America), capital (1908) 125 million marks (+ 76 million in bonds), 162 ships (value 185.9 million marks).

North German Lloyd, capital (1908) 125 million marks (+ 76 million in bonds), 127 ships (value 189.1 million marks). 125 + 76 = 201.

||
“In 1902–03, both these companies concluded essentially identical agreements with the International Mercantile Marine Co., founded by American bankers and shipowners on January 1, 1903, with a capital of 120 million dollars (= 480 million marks), and embracing nine American and British lines” (p. 115). This is the so-called Morgan trust.

[[DITTO: || ]]
Content of the agreement: division of profits and division of the world (German companies would not compete in Anglo-American freight traffic; agreement stipulated which ports were to be used by each, etc., etc.). A joint control committee was set up. The agreement was for twenty years (terminable after a year’s notice).

||
It was to be annulled in the event of war (p. 116, end) (p. 125, 4th edition).^[17] And this is not “socialisation”!!

“As regards the Reichsbank, according to the information given by the Bank Enquiry Commission (p. 179), on September 1, 1906, the number of German firms and individuals generally solvent in their dealings with bills of exchange was 70,480”:
viz.:

(D\"usseldorfer) Stahlwerkverband founded March 30, 1904 (for three years and prolonged on April 30, 1907 for a further five years). Its output in 1904 was 7.9 million tons (p. 141) (p. 153).

|
On November 28, 1904, it concluded an agreement on export of rails between Great Britain 53.5%, Germany 28.83%, France and Belgium 17.67% (+ France 4.8–6.4%. ΣΣ = 104.8, 106.4%) (p. 147) (p. 159).

“In February 1909 there was formed also the Internationaler Zinkh\"uttenverband (p. 159) at first until December 31, 1910, and afterwards prolonged, evidently for three years. There are three groups (according to the geographical location of the factories). Group A—all German and some Belgian plants, group B—ten Belgian, French and Spanish plants, and group C—British plants. Out of the total European output, about 513,000 tons in 1908, Germany’s share at that time was put at 226.9, Belgium’s—165, France’s and Spain’s together—55.8,
||
N.B. Great Britain’s—54.5. Member plants accounted for about 92 per cent of the total European output.

“Under recent arrangements member companies
N.B. |
can increase production at will, irrespective of fixed production quotas, with the proviso, however, that if stocks at a definite date (March 31, 1911, is the initial date) are 50,000 tons or more, then, under definite conditions, output must be cut by a certain percentage, in accordance with the company’s production quota” (p. 160, 4th edition).

Banks unite into groups (or consortiums) for especially large-scale undertakings:

N.B. |||
“The political patrol clashes are fought on the financial field. But the moment for these financial
||
clashes, the opponents, and the mode of fighting, are determined solely by the country’s responsible foreign policy leadership” (p. 402) (p. 434).
French capital in Tunisia and Morocco
” ” ” Russia

French capital in Italy (the beginning of political rap-
prochement through financial
rapprochement)

German ” ” Persia (struggle against Great Britain)

the struggle of European finance capital groups over
Chinese and Japanese loans

French and British capital in Portugal and Spain, etc. (p. 403).^[18]

{{ First edition of Riesser’s book, preface dated July 4, 1905 }}

Bills of exchange turnover in Germany (computed from the tax on bills) increased from 12,000 million marks in 1885 to 25,500 million marks in 1905, and to 31,500 million in 1907 (p. 228)—and to 33,400 million in 1910 (p. 246).

Germany’s national wealth (Mulhall 1895: 150,000 million) 130,000—216,000 million (Riesser): 200,000 million marks (p. 76) (Steinmann: 350,000).

Germany’s national income 25,000–30,000 million marks (p. 77).

France’s national wealth: Mulhall (1895)—198,000 million marks; Foville (1902)—161,000; Leroy-Beaulieu (1906)—205,000; Théry (1906)—161,000.

National income = 20,000 million marks (Leroy-Beaulieu) (p. 78).

Great Britain: 204,000 million marks (Giffen 1885)—235,000 (Mulhall 1895), 228,000 (Chiozza-Money 1908).

United States: national wealth = 430,000 million marks (1904, Census Bureau).

In Germany, “about 1,200 million marks, i.e., about 1/3 of the yearly savings of the nation, is annually invested in securities” (p. 81)—(p. 86 idem).

(Those especially praised or especially important marked*.)

*Walther Lotz, The Technique of Securities Issues, 1890.

Alfred Lansburgh, German Banking, 1909.

* ” ” “The Control of National Wealth Through the Banks”—in Die Bank, 1908.

Schumacher on concentration of banking, Schmoller’s Jahrbuch, XXXth year, No. 3.

Warschauer, “Supervisory Boards”, Conrad’s Jahrb\"ucher (III; Vol. XXVII).

Theodore E. Burton, Financial Crisis, etc., New York, 1902.

**J. W. Gilbart, The History, etc., of Banking, London, 1901.
Schriften des Vereins f\"ur Sozialpolitik, Vols. CX, CIX and others. (1900 crisis.)
CXIII: “Lessons of the Crisis.”

W. Sombart, The German National Economy in the Nineteenth Century, 2nd edition, 1909.

L. Pohle, The Development of German Economic Life in the Nineteenth Century, 2nd edition, 1908.

A. Saucke, “Has ... Large-Scale Enterprise ... Increased in Industry?” Conrad’s Jahrb\"ucher III, Vol. XXXI.

von Halle, The German National Economy at the Turn of the Century, 1902.

May on distribution of the national income, Schmoller’s Jahrbuch, 1899.

*Glier, “The American Iron Industry”, Schmoller’s Jahrbuch, 27thyear, No. 3; 28thyear.

* ” idem, Conrad’s Jahrb\"ucher, Vol. XXXV (1908).

Ed. Wagon, The Financial Development of German Joint-Stock Companies 1870–1900, Jena, 1903.

Jenks, “The Trusts”, Conrad’s Jahrb\"ucher, 3rd series, Vol. I (1891).

Voelcker, “The German Metallurgical Industry”, Revue économique internationale, III, 4 (1904).

Kollmann, “The Steel Association”, Die Nation, 1905 (22ndyear).

Waldemar M\"uller, “The Organisation of Credit in Germany”, Bank-Archiv, 1909 (8th year).

Warschauer, Physiology of German Banks, 1903.

E. Jaffé, British Banks, 1905.

S. Buff, Cheque Turnover in Germany, 1907.

*Ad. Weber, The Rhine-Westphalian Banks and the Crisis, 1903.

” idem. Schriften des Vereins f\"ur Sozialpolitik, Vol. CX.

*Ditto. “Deposit Banks and Speculative Banks.”

**Otto Jeidels, “Relation of the German Big Banks to Industry”, Schmoller’s Jahrbuch (? “Studies” ?), 1905.

**W. Prion, “German Bill Discounting”, 1907, Schmoller’s Forschungen No. 127.

Fr. Leitner, Banking and Its Technique, 1903.

**Br. Buchwald, The Technique of Banking, 5th edition, 1909.

H. Sattler, Investment Banks, 1890. (Riesser does not praise it.)
N.B. [preface by A. Wagner. Riesser is very angry with state socialist Wagner!!]

Fr. Eulenburg, “Supervisory Boards”. Conrad’s Jahrb\"ucher.
3rd series, Vol. XXXII.

” ” “The Present Crisis”... ibidem, 3rd series, Vol. XXIV.

*G. Diouritch, The Expansion of German Banks Abroad, Paris, 1909.

R. Rosendorff, “German Overseas Banks”. Bl\"atter f\"ur vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft, etc., 3rd year, 1908.

A. P. Br\"uning, The Development of Foreign Banking, 1907.

R. Rosendorff, “The German Banks in Overseas Business”, Schmoller’s Jahrbuch, XXVIII, No. 4.

R. Steinbach, “Managerial Costs of the Berlin Big Banks”, Schmoller’s Jahrbuch, 29th year, No. 2.

E. Moll, The Profitability of the Joint-Stock Company, Jena, 1908.

C. Hegemann, The Development of the French Big Banks, M\"unster, 1908.

Ch. J. Bullock, “Concentration of Banking Interests”, The Atlantic Monthly, 1903, August.

H. Voelcker, “Forms of Combination and Interest Sharing in German Big Industry”, Schmoller’s Jahrbuch, Vol. XXXIII.

L. Eschwege, “Revolutionising Tendencies in the German Iron Industry”, Die Bank, 1909, April.

||
J. Cockburn Macdonald, “The Economic Effects of the Concentration of Capital in Few Hands”, The Institute of Bankers, 1900, October. N.B. (?).

N.B. ||
p. 70 et seq. (abbreviated)
Tabular survey of outstanding events affecting the development of German banking in the second epoch:

1871–72: end of the war. Five thousand million. “Stormy” advance....
“The beginning of industrial cartellisation”....

1873. Crisis.

1874–78. Depression.

1879–82. Economic boom. Promotion of bubble companies.

1879. Gold currency. (Union with Austria.)

1883–87. Depression (1887. Union with Italy.)

1888–90. Boom. Promotion of bubble companies. Speculation.

1891–94. Depression.

1891. Failure of many Berlin banks.

1895. Beginning of boom.

1890–97. Boom intensified. Rapid development of electrical industry.

1897. Formation of the Rhine-Westphalian Iron Syndicate.

1898–1900. Favourable business conditions.

1899. Climax of reconstructions, formation of new companies and issues of stock.

1900–01. Crisis. Drop in mining securities, failure of many banks. “Vigorous intervention of the big banks. Intensified concentration”... .

1901–02. “Prolonged and particularly marked demand for money” ... foundation of the United States Steel Corporation.

1902–06. “Revival.”

1904. Foundation of the Stahlwerkverband. Stormy development of concentration.

1907. American crisis. Bank rate increased to 7 1/2 per cent.

1908. End of acute crisis in America. “Revival.” Money liquidity.

1909. Intensified money liquidity, etc.

1910. Progressive improvement... (4th edition, p. 78).

[[BOX-ENDS: N.B. 1895–1900 “for the first time excess of immigration” N.B. (p. 75). ]]
N.B.

New literature

N.B. Dr.Max Augstin, The Development of Agriculture in the United States, Munich, 1914 (4 marks).

W. Wick, The Little Mercury, Zurich, 1914. (416 pp.) (“Commercial handbook”).

In the fourth edition, Riesser has this on foreign investments (capital invested abroad) (p. 426 et seq.):

Germany (1905), at least 24–25 thousand million marks (this now “undoubtedly” “greatly exceeded”, p. 436, end), including 16 thousand million marks in foreign securities....

“Of the total securities owned by France, estimated by Edmond Théry (Economic Progress in France... p. 307) at the end of 1906 at 100 thousand million francs, and Neymarck in 1906 at 97–100 thousand million francs (with a yield of 4 1/2 thousand million francs), at the end of 1908, according to Théry, about 38 1/2 thousand million wore in foreign securities.

“The estimates vary widely, of course, but an annual increment of at least 1,000 million francs is generally accepted. Henri Germain, former director of the Crédit Lyonnais, estimated this annual increase (in the years immediately preceding 1905) at 1,500 million francs; Paul Leroy-Beaulieu recently even put it at 2,500 million francs.

“The well-known British financial policy expert, Sir Edgar Speyer, in a lecture at the Institute of Bankers (‘Some Aspects of National Finance’) on June 7, 1900, estimated total British investments abroad at £2,500 million, i.e., about 50,000 million marks, with an annual yield of £110 million (&X;); his estimate for the end of   1910, in a lecture in the Liberal Colonial Club, is £3,500 million, or about 70,000 million marks.

“This corresponds approximately to George Paish’s estimate for 1907–08, about £2,700 million, i.e., about 54,000 million marks, nearly equally divided between India and the colonies (£1,312 million), and other foreign countries (£1,381 million). The same author gives the figure of £3,192 million, or about 64,000 million marks, for the end of 1910, and in a lecture to the Royal Statistical Society he estimates the 1911 income from British investments abroad, on the basis of the yearly Reports of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, at approximately £180 million which, however, Sir Felix Schuster in a discussion on Speyer’s lecture of May 27, 1911, regards as too high” (p. 427).

(&X;) “Incidentally, in this lecture he validly
N.B. ||
emphasised that intensified export, increased issues of foreign securities and a big economic boom are only different manifestations of the same phenomenon.
||
One section of the second lecture is headed: Export of British Capital, Chief Cause of the Empire’s Prosperity” (p. 428).

Notes

[1] See present edition, Vol. 22, p. 246.—Ed.

[2] See present edition, Vol. 22, pp. 204–05.—Ed.

[3] See present edition, Vol.,22, p. 219.—Ed.

[4] See present edition, Vol. 22, p. 215.—Ed.

[5] Ibid., p. 214.—Ed.

[6] See present edition vol22, p. 213—Ed.

[7] In the manuscript the total “89 private hank offices” is connected by an arrow with the same figure in the following table (“concern Banks”) (see p. 352 of this volume).—Ed.

[8] See present edition, Vol. 22, p. 212.—Ed.

[9] Round brackets in the text indicate additions made by Lenin from-the fourth edition of the book (p. 375). They were written in between the lines, above or below the figures to which they refer.—Ed.

[10] See present edition, Vol. 22, p. 245.—Ed.

[11] See present edition. Vol. 22, pp. 220–21.—Ed.

[12] So given by Riesser.—Ed.

[13] See present edition, Vol. 22, p. 202.—Ed.

[14] Ibid., p. 300.—Ed.

[15] Ibid., p. 302.—Ed.

[16] Ibid.—Ed.

[17] See present edition, Vol. 22, p. 251.—Ed.

[18] See present edition, Vol. 22, p. 296.—Ed.

[19] By the First World War, the Thyssen Steel Company, founded in 1871, was Europe’s biggest iron and steel complex—it included the entire metallurgical cycle, plus coal and iron mines, general engineering and munition plants, transport and trading enterprises. In 1926, the Thyssen family played a leading part in the formation of the Steel Trust—the largest German war-industry combine and one of the most powerful German monopolies. The Thyssen concern helped bring the nazis to power; it was closely connected with a number of industrial and banking monopolies in nazi Germany and with international monopoly capital. After the Second World War the Steel Trust was split into two large concerns—Thyssen and Rheinstahl. The Thyssen concern holds a leading place in the West German iron and steel industry.

Hugo Stinnes started a steel mill in 1893; after the First World War it grew into a large monopoly concern with more than 1,500 enterprises in different industries. The concern went bankrupt shortly after Stinnes’s death in 1924, but with the help of American banks his heirs managed to keep the concern in business. One of its off shoots, the Rhein-Elbe Union steel combine, became one of the main components of the Steel Trust. Control of the Stinnes concern passed to the Hugo Stinnes Corporation, a U.S. company in which the shares are held by Stinnes’s heirs and American bankers who heavily invested in the concern. p. 346