Quote:Railways: In the 1930s The Deutsche Reichsbahn (German Railways) was the largest single public enterprise in the world (Macmahon and Dittmar 1939, p. 484), bringing together most of the railways services operating within Germany. The German Budget for fiscal year 1934/35, the last one published (Pollock, 1938, p. 121), established that Railway preference shares worth Reichsmark (Rm.) 224 million were to be sold.

Steel and mining: In 1932, the German government bought more than 120 million marks of shares in Gelsenkirchen Bergbau (Gelsenkirchen Mining Company), the strongest firm inside the Vereinigte Stahlwerke A.G. (United Steelworks). At that time, the United Steel Trust was the second largest joint-stock company in Germany (the largest was Farben Industrie A.G.). The state took over the shares at 364 percent of their market value (Wengenroth, 2000, p. 115). A range of reasons has been given for the nationalization: a) to have effective control over the United Steel Trust (The Economist, July 8, 1933, 117 (4689), p. 73), b) to socialize costs derived from the 
effects of the Great Depression (Neumann, 1944, p. 297): and c) to prevent foreign capital taking over the firm (Wengenroth, 2000, p. 115). 

Soon after the Nazi party came to power, United Steel was reorganized so that the government majority stake of 52 per cent was converted into a stake of less than 25 per cent, **no longer sufficient in German law to give the government any privileges in company control.**

Fritz Thyssen, who held the leading position in the Trust, had been one of only two big industrialists to give support to the Nazi Party before it won political dominance (Barkai, 1990, p. 10). In 1936, the Government sold its block of shares, amounting to about Rm. 100 million, to the United Steel Association.

The company Vereinigte Oberschlesische Hüttenwerke AG had control of all metal production in the Upper Silesian coal and steel industry. The Seehandlung (Prussian state bank) owned 45 per cent of this firm. The remaining shares were owned by Castellengo-Abwehr, one of the major Upper Silesian coal mines. Castellengo’s capital was owned by Ballestrem. In mid 1937, the state’s Rm. 6.75 million of shares were sold to Castellengo.

Banking: Before the crash of 1929, publicly owned commercial banks accounted for at least 40 per cent of the total assets of all banks (Stolper 1940, p. 207), and one of the five big commercial banks, the Reichs-Kredit-Gesellschaft, was publicly owned. The state was involved in the reorganization of the sector after the bank crash in 1931 with an investment of about Rm. 500 million (Ellis, 1940, p. 22), and most of the big banks came under state control. Estimates made before the Banking Inquiry Committee in 1934 by Hjalmar Schacht, president of the Reichsbank and Minister of Economy, stated that around 70 per cent of all German corporate banks were controlled by the Reich (Sweezy, 1941, p. 31). Through the Reich or the Golddiskontbank, the government owned significant stakes in the largest banks: 38.5 per cent of Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft (Deutsche Bank henceforth), 71 per cent of the Commerz– und Privatbank (Commerz-Bank henceforth) and 97 per cent of the capital of Dresdner-Bank.

The Commerz-Bank was reprivatized through several share sales in 1936-37. These shares 
amounted to Rm. 57 million, and the largest single transaction was a sale of Rm. 22 million in 
October 1936.12 Deutsche Bank was reprivatized in several operations effectively implemented in 
1935-37. The largest was the repurchase in March 1937 of shares still held by the 
Golddiskontbank. These shares amounted to Rm. 35 million and Deutsche Bank placed them 
among its clients. In total, the reprivatization of Deutsche Bank shares amounted to Rm. 50 
million.13 Finally, the Dresdner Bank was also reprivatized in several shares sale in 1936-37. 
These shares amounted to Rm. 141 million, and the largest single sale was of Rm. 120 million in 
September 1937.14