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
Sources and Possibilities of Research on Slovak-Austrian Economic Relations was engaged in foreign trade. The foreign exchange of goods was monitored and registered by so-called regional industry managements. In the monitored period these controlled and managed the nationalized companies in separate industrial sectors worldwide. Foreign financial transactions were monitored by the Czechoslovak National Bank’s Regional Institute for Slovakia residing in Bratislava. From 1948 the Regional Institute had some attributes of a separate national bank. The financing of exports and imports and as well as many bank services in foreign trade were carried out by all larger commercial banks of Slovakia. After 1945 a greater part of public and private foreign trade companies, which had come into existence in the Slovak Republic during the war years, continued to exist. It will be possible to map the trade contacts of the said economic authorities, institutions and businesses with foreign countries and particularly with Austria through materials placed in the Slovak National Archive (SNA) and in the Archive of the National Bank of Slovakia (ANBS) in Bratislava. In SNA the information will be taken mainly from the files of the Department of Industry and Trade, as well as other resort departments, from the Slovak National Council chairmanship and from the Tatra Banka, the biggest commercial bank of Slovakia until 1948. In ANBS there are archive materials of other commercial banks, the Regional Institute of the National Bank and foreign trade businesses. A turning point in the character of foreign-trade relationships of Slovakia and the whole of Czechoslovakia was brought about by the regime of the Communist Party in February 1948 and the introduction of the planned economy. By the law No. 119/1948 foreign trade became a state monopoly. The highest authority of the state monopoly in the monitored economic section became the Ministry of Foreign Trade. The regime assigned foreign trade to privileged companies. They were investment companies and their number gradually grew nationwide to 23 representing separate economic sectors. Financial transactions and control of these privileged companies was provided by the foreign department of the Trading Bank in Prague which in 1948 became the only central commercial bank of Czechoslovakia. These conditions uncompromisingly resisted attempts at independent economic life in Slovakia including those of Slovak communists. Ten privileged companies for Slovakia were created, financed and controlled by the Slovak Tatra Bank,6 which was established in the spring of 1948 by concentration of the whole commercial banking industry in Slovakia into one financial institution. The privileged companies for Slovakia mediated foreign trade in key sectors of the Slovak economy. However, their activity was limited to one year, namely 1950, when on the background of another phase of centralization of the Slovak economy in Czechoslovakia the Slovak Tatra Bank became part of the statewide financial institution, the State Bank of Czechoslovakia. At the liquidation of the Slovak Tatra 6 Privileged companies for Slovakia were: Metalimex, Ligna, Exico, Chemapol, Koospol, Metrans, Centrotex, Ceskoslovenskà celulôza, Kovo, Slovenské magnezitové zâvody. 295
