German Private Insurers and the Politics of the Four Year Plan.

8 S. Einband leicht berieben. - The insurance industry could boast one of the great Champions in the Byzantine business politics of the Third Reich in the person of Director Eduard Hilgard, a member of the board of directors of Allianz and a close friend of Kurt Schmitt's. Hilgard had replaced Schmitt as President of the Reichsverband der Privaten Versicherung in June 1933 and then assumed the post of Leader of the newly-established Reichsgruppe Versicherung in November 1934, which was created as part of the reorganization of the economy along corporatist lines and installation of the Führerprinzip. Here, as in so many other spheres, the Nazi regime provided "continuity with a difference". Hiigard and Schmitt were long practiced in battling against the competition and Claims of the publicly-owned insurance companies (öffentlich-rechtliche) and proponents of the socialization of the industry who claimed that the private industry's profits and executive pay structures were excessive and that it was inadequately monitored and controlled.