The Italian State's Active Support for the Aeronautical Industry: The Case of the Caproni Group, 1910–1951

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Francesca Fauri
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Aircraft Industry ◽  
Economic Costs ◽  
World War ◽  
International Assistance ◽  
Industrial Apparatus ◽  
Industrial History ◽  
Aeronautical Industry ◽  
Active Assistance

Based on Italian and foreign archival sources, this study shows how Italy's active assistance to its industrial apparatus soon included the newly born aircraft industry, including the Caproni Group. However, after World War II the Group went bankrupt along with most aircraft manufacturers. The suspension of aircraft development, the preference for importing allied (American and British) aircraft for civil airlines, and the denial of international assistance were the ensuing political and economic costs of defeat. In the end, Italy nationalized what was left of its aviation firms. Also, nationalization was consistent with its industrial history and represented the only way to help this sector survive.

The Palimpsest of Welfarism: Enduring Layers of Paternalism in a New Zealand Industry Town

2021 ◽  
Vol 120 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-168
Author(s):  
Fiona Hurd ◽  
Suzette Dyer
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
World War ◽  
Founding Father ◽  
Primary Industry ◽  
Employment Relation ◽  
Industrial History ◽  
Single Industry ◽  
Community Identification ◽  
Historical Accounts

This paper explores the enduring impression made by industry and its representatives on the workforces, communities and locations in which it resides. This oral history study is based on a New Zealand single industry town developed in the post-World War II era and founded on the principles of industrial welfarism and paternalism. The study reveals that the employment relation practices of the town’s symbolic “founding father” have had an enduring effect on shared community identification long after the withdrawal of these practices, and the subsequent downsizing of the primary industry. Thus, the predominant memory was both shaped by principles of industrial paternalism and entwined with stories of recent events of downsizing and redundancy. Drawing on the metaphor of palimpsest, we consider how present accounts of downsizing and redundancy simultaneously overlay, dismantle and rewrite historical accounts of paternalistic interaction in the community. This paper highlights the enduring politics of industrial history, and the continued legacy of industrial strategies on the way in which we live, work and organise.

Planning and Building the British Bomber Force, 1934–1939

1980 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malcolm Smith
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Aircraft Industry ◽  
Military Aircraft ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Planning ◽  
Aircraft Production

Students of planning may profitably ponder the myriad difficulties faced by the British aircraft industry in the decade before the outbreak of World War II. On a small civilian aircraft industry, provided with hardly any opportunity to gain military aircraft experience between World War I and the early 1930s, the Air Ministry tried to impose a nearly anarchic system of strategic military planning in which the very philosophy of the use of aircraft in war was at issue. Forced to work under conditions that included a “shadow industry” of civilian plant space that was theoretically capable of quick conversion to military aircraft production and that in the meantime turned out automobiles, the aircraft industry somehow ended up with two superb heavy bombers, the Halifax and the Lancaster, and a highly dependable prime contractor, A. V. Roe. Basing his narrative on both government and industry sources, Dr. Smith concludes that this was an outstanding example of British wartime “muddling through.”

“A Vast War Establishment”

2017 ◽  
Vol 99 (4) ◽  
pp. 443-474
Author(s):  
Craig Hendricks ◽  
Julian Delgaudio
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
West Coast ◽  
Rapid Growth ◽  
Aircraft Industry ◽  
Long Beach ◽  
Port City ◽  
World War ◽  
Local Officials ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Insight Into

Records of 1943 Congressional sub-committee hearings in Long Beach, California, provide insight into the impact of World War II on a West Coast port city. Local officials testified to the sudden, overwhelming needs in housing and city services and to the impact of the rapid growth of shipyards, aircraft industry, and naval facilities.

Das Verbot der deutschen Luftfahrtindustrie und die Erfindung ihrer Geschichte, 1945 bis 1953

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-151
Author(s):  
Lutz Budrass
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Technical Progress ◽  
International Market ◽  
Concentration Camp ◽  
Aircraft Industry ◽  
World War ◽  
Allied Occupation ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
War Economy ◽  
The Creation

Abstract:The ban on German aviation and the creation/fabrication of its history The article traces the origins of two central features of the historiography of the German aircraft industry: while its contribution to technical progress by the end of World War II tends to be grossly exaggerated – particularly in the case of the so-called Wunderwaffen, the jet fighters of Messerschmitt and Heinkel – its industrial basis und its role in the German war economy are played down to an impression that, until 1945, the industry consisted of tiny workshops of mere handicraft character. It is shown that this narrative was carefully constructed between 1945 and 1953, highlighted by memoirs of former military leaders of the Luftwaffe like Adolf Galland and Werner Baumbach, but predominantely through the memoirs of Ernst Heinkel, the leading industrialist during the Nazi period. These memioirs appeared at a time when it seemed unlikely – due to a total ban on German aviation under the Allied occupation – that a German aircraft industry would ever rise again. By exaggerating the German technological lead in 1945 they eased the idea that the industry was outdated when the chances grew for its return to the international market in 1953. Meanwhile, the outright denial of the size and importance of the industry during the war indirectly provided a chance to gloss over the participation of the industrialists in the Nazi crimes, highlighted by the use of concentration camp inmates and slave labourers who formed the bulk of the workforce in the production of the Wunderwaffen.

Das Verbot der deutschen Luftfahrtindustrie und die Erfindung ihrer Geschichte, 1945 bis 1953

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-151
Author(s):  
Lutz Budrass
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Technical Progress ◽  
International Market ◽  
Concentration Camp ◽  
Aircraft Industry ◽  
World War ◽  
Allied Occupation ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
War Economy ◽  
The Creation

Abstract: The ban on German aviation and the creation/fabrication of its history The article traces the origins of two central features of the historiography of the German aircraft industry: while its contribution to technical progress by the end of World War II tends to be grossly exaggerated – particularly in the case of the so-called Wunderwaffen, the jet fighters of Messerschmitt and Heinkel – its industrial basis und its role in the German war economy are played down to an impression that, until 1945, the industry consisted of tiny workshops of mere handicraft character. It is shown that this narrative was carefully constructed between 1945 and 1953, highlighted by memoirs of former military leaders of the Luftwaffe like Adolf Galland and Werner Baumbach, but predominantely through the memoirs of Ernst Heinkel, the leading industrialist during the Nazi period. These memioirs appeared at a time when it seemed unlikely – due to a total ban on German aviation under the Allied occupation – that a German aircraft industry would ever rise again. By exaggerating the German technological lead in 1945 they eased the idea that the industry was outdated when the chances grew for its return to the international market in 1953. Meanwhile, the outright denial of the size and importance of the industry during the war indirectly provided a chance to gloss over the participation of the industrialists in the Nazi crimes, highlighted by the use of concentration camp inmates and slave labourers who formed the bulk of the workforce in the production of the Wunderwaffen.

Industrial Concentration and World War II: A Note on the Aircraft Industry

1975 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 498-503
Author(s):  
Otto H. Reichardt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
Aircraft Industry ◽  
Industrial Concentration ◽  
World War

Although some scholars argue that the United States government's procurement policies in World War II resulted in greater industrial concentration, this study indicates that such was not the case in the aircraft industry.

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