Ideologiepolizei und Auftragsverwaltung: Über die Ursachen der Expansion der Staatssicherheit in der Planwirtschaft am Beispiel der DDR-Chemieindustrie

Schiefer Mark ()
Additional contact information
Schiefer Mark: Anton-Saefkow-Straße 54, D-10407, Berlin, Germany

Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook, 2019, vol. 60, issue 1, 245-289

Abstract: The Stasi, the secret police in the GDR, was an integral part of the planned economy. Over time, Stasi officers took on tasks related to economic planning and adopted the mentality and behaviour typical of the field. This paper takes a closer look at their aims and the ensuing consequences as illustrated by the GDR chemical industry. It focuses on a contradictory phenomenon: the co-existence of growth and inefficiency. Although the secret police enjoyed growing responsibilities, resources and partners, they were surprisingly inept at achieving their own economic and security targets. This phenomenon can be explained in two ways: Historically, by identifying the Stasi as the profiteer of economic crisis, or in terms of organization theory, by revealing some typical bureaucratic characteristics of the secret service (MfS).

Keywords: Stasi; Ministry for State Security; Secret Police; surveillance of the economic sphere; East Germany; petrochemical industry; buna plant; socialist economy; economic crisis; compensation; distributor; foreign trade; bureaucracy; organization theory; Principal-agent-theory; Niskanen; Staatssicherheit; MfS; Wirtschaftsüberwachung; DDR; Chemieindustrie; Buna-Werke; Planwirtschaft; Wirtschaftskrise; Kompensationsprojekte; Vertretergesellschaft; Außenhandel; Bürokratie; Organisationstheorie; Prinzipal-Agenten-Theorie; Niskanen (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: P (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2019-0010 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:jbwige:v:60:y:2019:i:1:p:245-289:n:10

DOI: 10.1515/jbwg-2019-0010

Access Statistics for this article

Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook is currently edited by Dieter Ziegler

More articles in Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().