ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates the complexity of relationships between the State and state-owned enterprises with two examples: Vereinigte Industrieunternehmungen AG (VIAG), a state-owned holding company, which was among Germany's 25 largest companies in 1938, and Deutsche Rentenbank-Kreditanstalt (RKA), a public institution created to promote agriculture. It presents the economic circumstances, the political background and the reactive scope of these enterprises just prior to and after the Machtergreifung. It argues that the decision-making processes became more and more dominated by men rather than by systems and institutions, it is appropriate to say something of the post-war histories of some of the individuals involved. VIAG focused on four sectors: electricity, aluminium, nitrogen and banking. Though the nitrogen and aluminium subsidiaries suffered heavy fluctuations in the 1920s, systematic inter-group co-operation helped smooth out earnings and increase profitability. RKA was founded in the 1920s to provide agriculture with necessary medium- and long-term financing.
