Denationalizing

Nationalization seems to be the fad from Italy to Indonesia, but not in Ludwig Erhard's free-enterprising West Germany. While it is still highly nationalized, West Germany is getting rid of state-owned industry as quickly as possible. Under Erhard's orders, the Ministry for Federal Property, which oversees nationalized companies, is getting ready to sell off the state-owned Vereinigte Elektrizitaets und Bergwerks (VEBA), a coal, chemicals and electric power giant with annual sales of $875 million.

German nationalization began with Bismarck, continued through the Weimar Republic and reached its climax in the Third Reich, which organized such huge enterprises as Volkswagen and the Salzgitter steelmaking complex to equip the army. Not a single firm has been nationalized since the war under the Christian Democrats. But still left over from the old days is a $2.5 billion government stake in companies that account for 40% of West Germany's iron ore production, 70% of aluminum, 60% of electricity and 80% of soft coal. In 1959 the government finally sold off to 216,000 German buyers an 84% interest in Preussag, a huge mining and oil company. In 1961 another 1,500,000 Germans bought shares representing 60% of Volkswagen. Though it prefers this spreading of share ownership, known as Volksaktien or "peoples' shares," the government has also sold several dozen small companies to private firms.

Even after VEBA is disposed of by a stock sale to the public, the Volksaktien program pushed by Erhard will still have a long way to go. Not including such properties as Lufthansa airlines, the state railways and harbor facilities, in which the government intends to retain an interest, 250 industrial companies remain to be sold. Still, peoples' shares have come quite a way in Germany; only six years ago a survey showed that 40% of the population had no idea what stocks were and 83% had never heard of dividends.

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