The Assets of the Schichts. The Fate of Enemy Property in the Netherlands and in Switzerland between 1945 and 1952

Abstract

In the first decade of the 20th century, the company Georg Schicht Works based in Aussig – currently known as Usti nad Labem in the northern part of the Czech Republic – producing soap and related products, flourished as one of the biggest enterprises of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. As a consequence of the decline of the Empire, culminating in World War I, the company of Georg Schicht lost 75% of its market outlet and went through a difficult period. In 1927-1930, the Schicht Company merged with the Anglo-Dutch multinational company Unilever. Members of the Schicht family took up leading positions within the board of Unilever and concentrated their Unilever-assets in a holding company in Zurich, Switzerland, under the name of “Limmat”. A daughter company of Limmat, the trading company “Ampra” was based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and was entrusted with the asset-management on behalf of the Schicht family. The immediate aftermath of World War II was a devastating turning point in the history of the Schichts family; one of the financially most powerful Eastern European families of their time. With the notable exception of George Schicht (1884-1961) who lived in London and was of British nationality, most members of the Schicht family, including his brother Heinrich (1880-1959) and his cousin Franz, were considered to be German “enemy citizens” and removed from all other positions within Unilever in 1945. As Sudeten-Germans, Heinrich and many other Schichts were expelled from Aussig during the year 1945-1946, leaving all possessions behind. Subsequently, the former Schicht – meanwhile Unilever – factories were nationalised by the Czechoslovakian government. The dispossession of the Schichts, however, was not only an Eastern European affair. At the very same time, their substantial assets, concentrated in Limmat and Ampra, were blocked as “enemy property” by the Western Allies, with the reluctant collaboration of the Swiss Government. In 1950, the Netherlands and Switzerland reached an inter-custodial agreement on the liquidation of Ampra and Limmat. The Dutch, considering Sudeten Germans as enemy citizens, even if the international definition of German enemy citizens was much narrower, finally confiscated 24% of the value of the assets of Ampra and Limmat (including 4% on behalf of the Swiss), to the benefit of the Dutch State and without paying compensation to the original stakeholders. This agreement was carried out in concord with the board of Limmat, presided by Heinrich Schicht, who was living in Switzerland in difficult circumstances. However, the partial loss of their assets caused dismay among most other family members and led to a rupture between Heinrich and most of his kin, including his brother George. This paper analyses the decline of the Schichts in more detail, with special reference to the vicissitudes of the enemy property legislation of the Netherlands and Switzerland in their relations with Western Allies in the years 1945-1956. Leading question is to what extent this case can be taken as an insightful example of significant changes in the concept of private ownership and property in this period across Europe. Did the enemy property legislation in the Netherlands and in Switzerland influence notions of trust connected to practices of private ownership of economic elites? Did the post-war vertical relation between state and (enemy) citizen somehow changed the horizontal relationships in which practices of private ownership in (this part of) Europe had been traditionally embedded?