Ruhr Coal in Nazi Germany

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Dieter Ziegler
• Subject Area: Economic and Social History
• Term: from 2019 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 418425054

When the national socialists started their war preparation they were eager to avoid the mistakes done during World War I. Primarily, this affected the safeguard of the supply of food and strategic raw material under the threat of a British sea blockade. From early on they emphasized the substitution of not sufficiently available strategic raw materials by domestic surrogates. Despite the experience of World War I, when coal had been a bottleneck of the war economy, the supply of coal as source material for many substitutes war not questioned. However, already before the War it became clear that a sufficient coal supply was not guaranteed. Historical research was, with the exception of the subject area of forced labour, not very much interested in the history of coal mining in the ‘Third Reich’. Almost all Ruhr pits belonged to the big heavy industry concerns, for the history of which their coal mining departments were of minor importance. On the one hand the mines were pegged in the Ruhr Coal Syndicate and on the other hand the state had from World War I on an unusually strong influence on the mining industry in Germany. Therefore, the concerns’ mining departments were to a large extent heteronomous. The major issues of the project therefore are- the importance of hard coal for warfare and autarky, - the sphere of influence for the Ruhr mines’ management in the field of force between the concern management, the Coal Syndicate and the state,- the logic behind the decisions of all actors involved,- the interaction of the private sector regulation by the cartel and the efforts of the state’s war preparation,- the means by which the state attempted to safeguard a sufficient coal supply in case of war (or the lack of such attempts).As the Ruhr Coal Syndicate was of an outstanding importance for the production and distribution of coal in Germany, the project considers its target as the history of an industrial sector which is methodically in line with a business history approach. There are four different levels under examination: Ruhr coal as part of the German armaments and autarky policy, the role of the Syndicate as a private sector regulating authority, the role of the Economics Ministry and the Four Year Plan Office as public sector regulating authorities and the heterogeneous interests of the cartel members and their parent company respectively. To consider all sides of the question and because of the amount of primary source research two research projects are applied for. The first part project focusses on the complex relationship between the Syndicate, the mining companies and the public authorities and the second part project addresses the extension of coal conversion and the setting-up of new plants for coal based substitute material.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants