Whatever Happened to the Mittelstand?

Based on archival research in company records, local government holdings, and institutional histories, this paper will review the fortunes of some Mittelstand companies in Baden-Wuerttemberg, and contrast them with similar companies in the English West Midlands.In reviewing the histories of individual companies, I hope to be able to draw some conclusions about what the managers of Mittelstand companies actually did to make their companies a success, and the extent to which the external context – political, social, institutional – in which they did it contributed to the Mittelstand’s advancement. I will then review how the performance of their British counterparts compared with the Mittelstand approach, and the ways in which British companies’ performance was affected by the context in which they themselves operated.