Jg. 66 – 2018 – Heft 1: Bloß Verwaltung? Bürokratien im agrarpolitischen Willensbildungsprozess

Hg.: Johann Kirchinger und Andreas Dornheim

Nach der klassischen Lehre zur horizontalen Gewaltenteilung in parlamentarischen Demokratien schließen sich verwaltendes und entscheidendes Handeln aus, denn Legislative und Exekutive sind getrennt. Die Politikwissenschaft ist sich indes bewusst, dass diese Trennung in der politischen Realität unterlaufen wird. Voneinander getrennt sind tatsächlich inhaltliches Entscheiden und staatsrechtlich wirksame Beschlussfassung. Letzteres findet in den Parlamenten statt, ersteres in den Regierungen (Sternberger 1967; Schütt-Wetschky 2000). Bei der Vorbereitung von Regierungsinitiativen spielen die Ministerialbürokratien dann aufgrund ihrer juristischen und fachlichen Expertise eine ausschlaggebende Rolle. Hinzu kommt die eigenverantwortliche Ausgabe von Rechtsverordnungen und Verwaltungsvorschriften. Deshalb, und nicht zuletzt auch wegen der rechtlichen Privilegien des deutschen Berufsbeamtentums, besitzen die Ministerialbürokratien ein beträchtliches Maß an Unabhängigkeit gegenüber ihrer politischen Leitung (Rudzio 2000: 304-314), weshalb diese zwei Ebenen analytisch zu trennen sind.

Gustavo Corni, Francesco Frizzera
Die Diskussion um die „Zwangswirtschaft“ während des Ersten Weltkrieges und in der Nachkriegszeit
The issue of governed food economy in Germany during World War I has insufficiently been dealt with so far. During the first part of the article the numbers of the agricultural production from 1900 to 1918 will be analyzed and Germany’s dependence on agricultural imports will be pointed out. The second part deals with the highest prices’ policy and the accumulation of food that happened during 1914 and 1916 with no communication between the central and the peripheral authorities. In the third part the dynamics from 1916 to 1918 will be examined, which were a reaction to the incoherent politics between 1914 and 1916 and led to the introduction of a closed and centralized system of economy focused on the supply and distribution of food. At the same time the boundaries of the controlled economy will be looked at. One of them is the inability to fight back the prospering black market, just like the administration’s loss of authority during the enforcement of their enactments. However also the system’s advantages will be taken a look at, especially the renewed attention to the agriculture’s promotion. The last part deals with the debate about the controlled food economy which marked the time of truce up until June in 1920 when it was decided to give up the controlled economy bit by bit.

Johann Kirchinger
Der feine Unterschied. Die schiefe kommunikative Ebene zwischen Bauernverband und staatlicher Landwirtschaftsverwaltung in Bayern
Since their founding towards the end of the 19th century the organized agricultural movements in Bavaria have been struggling for commonly shared means of communication with the governmental administration of agriculture. This struggle for a commonly shared means of communication was comprised of the academic socialization as well as the civil servant’s demeanor (Habitus), whose position was aspired by the associations’ officials. This was of concern for the Bavarian Farmers’ Association (Bayerischer Bauernverband) founded in 1945, too. The academic socialization of the farmers’ association’s officials was the same as the governmental agriculture officials’. But they were denied the legal position of official civil servants. The ministry of agriculture as part of the government was definitely interested in a commonly shared means of communication as a tool to control the Bavarian Farmers’ Association. The ministry however was not interested in giving away the competence to transfer governmental duties, meaning the farmers’ association’s officials were denied the rank of a civil servant. That’s why the farmers‘ association’s officials remained pseudo-civil servants while the Bavarian Farmers‘ Association in turn was put under the government’s supervision within the Bavarian agriculture improvement act (Bayerisches Landwirtschaftsförderungsgesetz). This was also done in order to further strengthen the position of monopoly for the Bavarian Farmers’ Association. The result was not a commonly shared means of communication, but a sloping level of communication with the Bavarian Farmer’s Association at its end. This example of a disproportional relationship between the Bavarian Farmers‘ Association and the ministry of agriculture shows institutional interests of agricultural associations have to be added to the studies of agricultural politics, especially the civil servants at the mininistry of agriculture.

Raphael Gerhardt

Erich Geiersberger und der Landfunk des Bayerischen Rundfunks 1959-1970: Zwischen Journalismus und agrarpolitischer Einflussnahme
The article analyses how the broadcasting journalist Erich Geiersberger (1925-2012) used his position and presence in the public broadcast to spread his vision of an alternative agricultural policy based on the cooperation of full time and part time farmers in machinery rings. Geiersberger had developed the idea of the machinery ring in 1958 right before he started his career in the Bavarian public broadcasting service. During the 1960s he constantly critisized the agricultural policy of the German federal government and the upcoming Common Agricultural Policy as it was – in his eyes – too much focused on the prices of agricultural products and full time farms. Due to his omnipresence in the media and his harsh rhetoric Geiersberger gained an impressive influence in Bavarian and German agricultural politics. Based on his popularity and intensive informal networks including the Bavarian ministry of agriculture, Geiersberger even suceeded in having the funding of machinery rings and the equality of full and part time farms enshrined in the Bavarian agricultural law of 1970. The case of Erich Geiersberger and the Landfunk demonstrates that agricultural politics in Germany and Bavaria after 1945 have not exclusively been dominated by the farmers’ unions, as historical research emphasized so far.

Andreas Würgler: Nachruf auf Peter Blickle (1938-2017)
Peter Blickle selber kondensierte seine historischen Arbeiten zu Oberschwaben, dem Alten Reich und Europa in dem von ihm neu geschaffenen Wissenschaftsbegriff des „Kommunalismus“. Den ersten Grundstein dazu legte der am 26. November 1938 in Berlin Geborene und in Oberschwaben Aufgewachsene nach Studien in München und Wien mit seiner bei Karl Bosl an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München eingereichten Dissertation über Memmingen im Rahmen des „Historischen Atlas von Bayern“ (Blickle 1967).1 Die Spuren dieser intensiven empirischen Beschäftigung mit Herrschaftsformen in der Region finden sich noch in seinem opus magnum, den beiden Bänden „Kommunalismus“ (Blickle 2000), bildeten aber zunächst den Grundstock für seine Saarbrücker Habilitationsschrift von 1971 mit dem Titel „Landschaften im Alten Reich“ (Blickle 1973).