Betriebsführer

English translation: works leader

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)
German term or phrase:Betriebsführer
English translation:works leader
Entered by: Norbert Hohl

09:49 Feb 22, 2011
German to English translations [PRO]
Bus/Financial - Manufacturing
German term or phrase: Betriebsführer
Good morning,

I've an old photo of a guy standing outside a factory, and the caption is "Arbeitsjubiläum unseres Betriebsführers XY im März 1938".

XY is also the founder of the company.

What would be the most suitable term in English?

Wikipedia says: ( http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betriebsführer )

Nach der Definition durch das Gesetz zur Ordnung der nationalen Arbeit vom 20. Januar 1934 war ein Betriebsführer ein Unternehmer, Inhaber oder Geschäftsführer eines Industrie- und Handwerksbetriebs oder auch ein Bauer mit eigenem Betrieb.
Der Begriff „Betriebsführer“ war entsprechend Cornelia Schmitz-Berning in ihrem Standardwerk über das Vokabular im Nationalsozialismus ideologisch folgendermaßen begründet worden: Es sollte das alte Kampfverhältnis von Unternehmer und Arbeiter beseitigt werden und es sollte eine Betriebseinheit von Betriebsführer und Gefolgschaft entstehen

Over to you - thanks.
Cilian

(PS: Feel free to move this Q to a different category - I couldn't decide where best to put it)
Cilian O'Tuama
Germany
Local time: 02:59
works leader
Explanation:
I found a number of sources that use the literal translation works leader.

‘Works Leader’ (Betriebsführer) in:
‘Aryanisation’ in Hamburg: the economic exclusion of Jews and the confiscation of their property in Nazi Germany, Frank Bajohr, English translation published 2002, p. 109:
http://books.google.de/books?id=JNJ8dULOZlEC&pg=PA109&lpg=PA...

works leader in:
The Nazi dictatorship and the Deutsche Bank, Harold James, 2004, p. 261
http://books.google.de/books?id=gArOx8n77JIC&pg=PA261&lpg=PA...

See also
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/chap16_part13.asp
http://library.fes.de/fulltext/isk/gs-01.htm
Selected response from:

Norbert Hohl
Australia
Local time: 12:29
Grading comment
I must admit I had a natural aversion to "leader", but my arm has been twisted. Thanks everyone.
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer



Summary of answers provided
3 +3works leader
Norbert Hohl
3 +2Our founding father
Michele Johnson
3 +2Plant Manager
SCarlson
5General manager
Gabriele Hanselmann
3Industrial administrator
Juliana Mraz
2works manager
Jonathan MacKerron
Summary of reference entries provided
Betriebsführer
Helen Shiner

Discussion entries: 3





  

Answers


10 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5 peer agreement (net): +2
Our founding father


Explanation:
Would a familial reference like this signify the unity of the workers and management without having to get into the Nazi stuff?

Michele Johnson
Germany
Local time: 02:59
Works in field
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
Notes to answerer
Asker: Thanks M, though not sure anything with father is suitable, too emotional/sentimental, or what do others think?


Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Dr. Mara Huber
6 mins

neutral  Jonathan MacKerron: a tad too maudlin perhaps
12 mins
  -> That's my problem with works manager - tad too dry perhaps

agree  Michael Harris
4 hrs

neutral  Helen Shiner: but the Nazi reference is key here./Hmm, I don't think anyone is suggesting that Cilian do that. Please see the refs provided by Norbert and me for a deeper understanding of the issues.
5 hrs
  -> Hence my thought father - fatherland, family - socialism. You can't very well call him "The Führer" here, can you?

neutral  784512 (X): Agree with Helen. Plus, I think "founding father" has too many positive political connotations in the US, exact the opposite to the Nazi link here.
7 hrs
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14 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5 peer agreement (net): +2
Plant Manager


Explanation:
A plant manager sounds most appropriate in this context, the owner and operator of a factory.

SCarlson
Local time: 04:59
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Horst Huber (X): It might be better to stay neutral and to leave the Nazi context to speak for itself. If something more "authoritarian" is being sought, would something similar to "head of the factory" do? I can't claim familiarity with UK tastes ...
8 hrs

agree  milinad
19 hrs
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5 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 2/5Answerer confidence 2/5
works manager


Explanation:
according to the 1990 Muret-Sanders

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 9 mins (2011-02-22 09:59:15 GMT)
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the 1897 edition of the M-S claims = 'working manager'

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Note added at 24 mins (2011-02-22 10:14:35 GMT)
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founder and working manager

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 27 mins (2011-02-22 10:16:44 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

"founder and foreman" also garners some interesting googles

Jonathan MacKerron
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 43
Notes to answerer
Asker: plant/factory/works manager all being considered too, thanks

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1 hr   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5 peer agreement (net): +3
works leader


Explanation:
I found a number of sources that use the literal translation works leader.

‘Works Leader’ (Betriebsführer) in:
‘Aryanisation’ in Hamburg: the economic exclusion of Jews and the confiscation of their property in Nazi Germany, Frank Bajohr, English translation published 2002, p. 109:
http://books.google.de/books?id=JNJ8dULOZlEC&pg=PA109&lpg=PA...

works leader in:
The Nazi dictatorship and the Deutsche Bank, Harold James, 2004, p. 261
http://books.google.de/books?id=gArOx8n77JIC&pg=PA261&lpg=PA...

See also
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/chap16_part13.asp
http://library.fes.de/fulltext/isk/gs-01.htm


Norbert Hohl
Australia
Local time: 12:29
Works in field
Native speaker of: German
PRO pts in category: 4
Grading comment
I must admit I had a natural aversion to "leader", but my arm has been twisted. Thanks everyone.
Notes to answerer
Asker: Really? Thanks. Must look into this further. Why is it always more complicated than it initially seems?


Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Helen Shiner: or 'plant leader' - yes, I have come to the same conclusion - see my ref comments
9 mins
  -> Thanks Helen!

agree  784512 (X): Plant leader I think I would say.
6 hrs
  -> Cheers Rose!

agree  Lancashireman: Stick with 'works leader'. 'Plant' is late-C20 terminology.
1 day 10 hrs
  -> Interesting. Thanks Andrew.
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3 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5
Industrial administrator


Explanation:
I think you can make a compound term that fits with all the suggestions now given.

Juliana Mraz
Slovakia
Local time: 02:59
Native speaker of: German
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1 day 12 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 5/5
General manager


Explanation:
This is the most common term/ title used in companies/plants etc

Betriebsfuehrung = management

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Note added at 1 day14 hrs (2011-02-24 00:15:59 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

You are translating now and not 70 years ago, therefore, the translated term is completely appropriate.

Example sentence(s):
  • see above
Gabriele Hanselmann
Local time: 21:59
Native speaker of: Native in GermanGerman, Native in EnglishEnglish
Notes to answerer
Asker: Thanks for that. It is "a" common term (hard to prove "the most"), but how about 70 years ago?

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Reference comments


1 hr peer agreement (net): +1
Reference: Betriebsführer

Reference information:
The German and the Russian systems of socialism have in com­mon the fact that the government has full control of the means of production. It decides what shall be produced and how. It allots to each individual a share of consumer's goods for his consumption. These systems would not have to be called socialist if it were other­wise.
....
The German pattern differs from the Russian one in that it (seemingly and nominally) maintains private ownership of the means of production and keeps the appearance of ordinary prices, wages, and markets. There are, however, no longer entrepreneurs but only shop managers (Betriebsführer). These shop managers do the buying and selling, pay the workers, contract debts, and pay interest and amortization. There is no labor market; wages and salaries are fixed by the government. The government tells the shop managers what and how to produce, at what prices and from whom to buy, at what prices and to whom to sell. The government decrees to whom and under what terms the capitalists must entrust their funds and where and at what wages laborers must work. Market exchange is only a sham. All the prices, wages, and interest rates are fixed by the central authority. They are prices, wages, and inter­est rates in appearance only; in reality they are merely determina­tions of quantity relations in the government's orders. The gov­ernment, not the consumers, directs production. This is socialism in the outward guise of capitalism. Some labels of capitalistic market economy are retained but they mean something entirely different from what they mean in a genuine market economy." - Omnipotent Government by Ludwig von Mises
...
The whole of Germany was organized in a hierarchy of führers; there was the Highest Führer, Hitler of course, and then there were führers down to the many hierarchies of smaller führers. And the head of an enterprise was the Betriebsführer. And the workers of the enterprise were named by a word that, in the Middle Ages, had signified the retinue of a feudal lord: the Gefolgschaft. And all of these people had to obey the orders issued by an institution which had a terribly long name:Reichsführerwirtschaftsministerium (Führer of the Reich’s, i.e., the empire’s, Ministry of Economics), at the head of which was the well-known fat man, named Goering, adorned with jewelry and medals.
http://visualeconomics.blogspot.com/2004/07/economy-of-nazi-...

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Note added at 1 hr (2011-02-22 11:04:48 GMT)
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In the 1920s, Opel at Rüsselsheim was Europe's largest car factory. General Motors, expecting massive expansion of car sales in Continental Europe, bought it for $33.3m in 1929-31 (Vauxhall was also purchased in 1925 for $2.5m).

There were big problems for an American company continuing production under National Socialism. It was impossible, or unrealistic, to remit dividends to the US; it was expected that a Nazi Betriebsführer ("Company Leader") would be in charge (Opel named a leading worker (not the company boss) as Betriebsführer - on the cover you see him (Rudolf Fleischer) on the right at the 1938 Berlin car show talking to Hitler while the managing director (man in specs) Wilhelm von Opel, son of founder Adam, looks on)

and the company was forever having to do deals with people like Jakob Sprenger, the Gauleiter of Frankfurt, the military, and Goering (who was responsible for the Four Year Plan.)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/0300106343

Chief Executive Officer at Mercedes Benz: http://www.usmbooks.com/mercedes_wiesenthal.html

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Note added at 1 hr (2011-02-22 11:11:38 GMT)
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Most of the sources translate this as shop manager, but that sounds like Chinese whispers to me. I think I would probably go for works or plant leader. From what I understand, it was often the people who were formerly industrialists or entrepreneurs who were so named during the Nazi period.

Helen Shiner
United Kingdom
Native speaker of: English
Note to reference poster
Asker: Thank you, Helen.


Peer comments on this reference comment (and responses from the reference poster)
agree  Norbert Hohl: Helen, I didn't see your second note when I posted my answer. Certainly didn't mean to jump the queue.
56 mins
  -> Not at all - this is only a reference posting.
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