Von der Fremdbesatzung zur kommunistischen Diktatur. Die personellen Umbrüche in der tschechoslowakischen Wirtschaft nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg

In: Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte: Economic history yearbook, Band 51, Heft 2, S. 71-94

Abstract

Abstract
During the post-war period Czechoslovakia experienced a radical change in business and economic elites, which took place in three stages. The first phase commenced immediately after the end of World War II, when factory counsels conducted a personal purge within their enterprises. While German directors had fled or had been expelled, many of their Czech colleagues retained their positions, because the new regime seemed in need these experts' 'know-how'. In 1948, the Communists triggered a second wave of purges mainly directed against members of other political parties or managers supposed to be opponents of the new regime. When the Communist Party started to search for enemies within their own ranks, the remainder of the country's economic elites familiar with the interwar period's market economy was eliminated during the show trials of the early 1950s.