 RevivalJack Ewing Chapter 2 in Germany’s Economic Renaissance, 2014, pp 15-22 from Palgrave Macmillan Abstract: Abstract There is a famous photograph of Reinhard Mohn, scion of the family that owned the book publisher C. Bertelsmann, taken in 1947. Mohn was a veteran of the Afrika Korps who had returned the year before from an American prisoner of war (POW) camp. The photo shows him addressing the workforce at Bertelsmann in the city of Gütersloh, in northwestern Germany. Mohn is wearing a heavy woolen military-style coat that looks too big for his thin frame, and stands behind a lectern that appears to have been hammered together from plywood. A lamp, little more than a bare light bulb, hangs from a plank nailed to the lectern, illuminating Mohn’s face. Some employees stand behind him, and in their faces you can see something of the grimness of German life in those first years after the war. There was not enough food or fuel, and many sons and fathers were still in Russian prison camps, if not missing or dead. The people’s faces are serious. The atrocities and aggression of the Nazis had left Germany drenched in shame. Were the employees hungry, fearful, traumatized? It is impossible to say, but no one is smiling. Keywords: Deutsche Mark; German Life; American Idol; Family Company; Small Family Business (search for similar items in EconPapers) There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-34054-2_2 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan |
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