In 1962, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) faced an uncertain future. The governing party within the Federal Republic of Germany since the state's founding in 1949 (along with its Bavarian partner, the Christian Social Union, known collectively as the CDU/CSU or Union), the CDU had endured a bruising election campaign through the summer of 1961. The combination of a dynamic young Social Democratic challenger, Willy Brandt, and the building of the Berlin Wall had exposed frustration with the leadership style of octogenarian Chancellor and CDU Chair Konrad Adenauer, and cost the Union its absolute majority in the Bundestag. Electoral disappointment was followed by protracted coalition negotiations with the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), which nearly doubled its vote totals by promising voters a coalition “with the Union but without Adenauer.” The coalition negotiations dragged on well into late autumn and exposed internal divisions. Adenauer, the only chancellor the Federal Republic had ever known, had been forced to agree to retire before 1965 to allow his successor to prepare for the next campaign.

Since so much of what distinguishes Germany's social-economic development from that of other advanced capitalist societies derives from the prominence of the handicrafts (Handwerk) and their institutional legacy, it is regrettable that artisan sightings have become so rare in recent central European scholarship.1 It is especially so because disparaging postwar historiographic portrayals of “backward” late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century artisans leave us without a way to understand the emergence of a prosperous Mittelstand of small and medium-sized craft producers in the postwar years. Moreover, inasmuch as the existence of a vibrant, legally distinct class of handicraft firms constitutes one of the most striking features of the modern German political economy, we need an account of how it evolved and why.2 Furthermore, without this, we have no way to explain several other distinctive “peculiarities” of German institutional arrangements: an educational system that directs a majority of young Germans to practically oriented, work-based apprenticeships supplemented by part-time schooling instead of academically oriented, full-time secondary schools; a labor market that effectively professionalized all occupations and limited the creation of mere “jobs”; and a training system that, as it diffused from the craft to the industrial and service sectors, reinforced Germany's historic manufacturing preference for producing diversified, high-quality goods and services.3 In short, no history of modern German economic, social, or political development can afford to dispense with artisans or their institutions.

Hamburg, as any tourist guide will tell you, occupies a unique position within Germany. Now, every city can make this claim, so what constitutes Hamburg's uniqueness? Natives would say it is the harbor (Germany's largest) and the water that flows through the metropolis that claims more bridges than Venice. But ask an outsider, German or not, and he or she will likely say the Reeperbahn, Hamburg's notorious red-light district, known also to music fans as the incubator of The Beatles. Historically speaking, the harbor has been this Hanseatic city's source of trade and prosperity, as well as a major transit point for overseas travelers; the nearby Reeperbahn has long been a magnet for those seeking pleasure and distraction from the cares of life. In the 1950s and 1960s—the years of West Germany's “Economic Miracle” (Wirtschaftswunder)—Hamburg saw greater numbers of visitors than ever before. These guests included Germans from west and east (before the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961); international tourists, particularly from neighboring countries; British NATO troops stationed in the northern Federal Republic; and seamen from around the world. Some chose Hamburg specifically as their destination, others passed through on their way to someplace else.

Between 1946 and 1948, the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) sent four representatives to Germany for extended visits to investigate how it could become involved in reconstructing the country. They were particularly interested in reorganizing the educational and science systems in a democratic manner and in reintegrating the conquered aggressor into the “family of nations.” They held numerous meetings with leading representatives of the Max Planck Gesellschaft (MPG), the successor to the world-famous Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft (KWG), which had received considerable amounts of funding from the RF until the late 1930s, even after the Nazis came to power. As a result of its evaluation, the RF declined to provide the same level of support for the postwar MPG as it had for the prewar KWG. Although an obvious reason for the RF to distance itself from the KWG would be the latter's involvement in the crimes of the Nazi regime, as suggested by Paul Weindling in his analysis of the RF's funding policy for biomedical research in Germany in general, neither the RF interviews nor the evaluation reports mentioned the involvement of KWG scientists in biomedical crimes during the Third Reich. The reports did not even mention the Nuremberg medical trial, which took place between December 1946 and August 1947.