Corporatist Institutions and Economic Collaboration in Occupied Belgium

Dirk Luyten

Chapter 9 in Industrial Collaboration in Nazi-Occupied Europe, 2016, pp 211-241 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Shortly after the invasion in May 1940, the German military administration initiated institutional economic reform in cooperation with the Belgian trade organizations: this interaction gave a corporatist turn to economic institutional reform from the start of the occupation. The aim was to replace economic liberalism with German-style economic dirigisme, in order to facilitate the exploitation of the Belgian economy for the war effort and to prepare its integration in the Grossraumwirtschaft (Greater Economic Area). By 1941, the Belgian economy was covered by a network of corporatist institutions: warencentrales (commodity offices) and groups. These corporatist organizations became key institutions, enabling the actors involved to impact economic policy. These corporatist institutions therefore provide a good vantage point to analyse economic collaboration. Three sectors useful for the German war economy will be compared: coalmining, the metal industry and textiles. These sectors differed as to the size of the companies, political profile and the dependency on the financial sector, and factors impacting the policy regarding production for Germany.

Keywords: Textile Sector; Corporatist Organization; Compensation Fund; Productive Apparatus; Metal Sector (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palscp:978-1-137-53423-1_9

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DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-53423-1_9

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