Gertrude Enderle-Burcel, Dieter Stiefel, Alice Teichova (Hrsg.): Sonderband 9. „Zarte Bande” – Österreich und die europäischen planwirtschaftlichen Länder / „Delicate Relationships” – Austria and Europe’s Planned Economies (2006)
L'udovit Hallon - Miroslav Londák: Sources and Possibilities of Research on Slovak-Austrian Economic Relations after the Second World War
Cudovit Hallon - Miroslav Londâk weapons, military material and other necessities for the army, namely from new Slovak munition factories built at the turn of the 1930s and 1940s. Deals on the Slovak side were arranged and financed by public financial institutions, mainly by the Slovak National Bank, as well as the biggest commercial banks. Bratislava institutions representing capital of the two largest German banks played an important role. At the same time product exchange was arranged by many public and commercial institutions of foreign trade, such as the Exporting and Importing Company. The archive files of the banks and institutions placed in the Slovak National Archive and the archive of the Slovak National Bank allow us to see an approximate picture of the starting point of Slovak-Austrian trade relationships after the Second World War. Possibilities of independent development of Slovakia's foreign trade relationships 1945-1950 and archival sources After 1945 Slovakia became part of the renascent Czechoslovak Republic. The authority in the sphere of foreign trade was again passed over to the central government in Prague. However, on the basis of contracts between the Czech and Slovak resistence during the war years which were included in the Koäice Programme of April 1945, Slovakia kept its own political authorities of so-called departments, as well as its own legislative body, the Slovak National Council. The economic departments had a wide authority until the end of the 1940s, which reached the level of resort economic ministries. Among the departments also featured a separate Department of Industry and the Slovak side demanded that this organ should take over part of the authority in managing foreign trade, mainly concerning specific issues of foreign trade relationships of Slovakia. For instance the creation of an organizational sector of the monitored department was contemplated, which would cooperate with the Ministry of Foreign Trade in Prague and would represent trade-political interests of Slovakia related to foreign countries. Research has shown that such an organizational sector of the Department of Industry and Trade was established as early as 1945 under the operational name of Trade-Political Committee. Its task was to observe foreign-trade interests of Slovakia and to undertake statistical research of the development of foreign product exchange. The Trade-Political Committee was at the same time expected to monitor and promote the direct integration of the Slovak economic sphere into the services linked with foreign trade such as banking, insurance, transport and mediating services. In the transitional period of the mixed economy in the years 1946-1947, when nationalized and private companies existed next to each other in Slovakia, separate activities in foreign trade developed - in addition to central Slovak economic authorities - by other economic institutions, corporations and businesses. Also the Department of Nutrition, which separately organized the export of food products, 294
