Das Wirtschaftsunternehmen der Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine Kersten & Co, Paramaribo in stürmischer Zeit (1914 bis 1933/34)
The article discusses the fate of the Moravian business enterprise Kersten & Co, Paramaribo, during the First World War and its aftermath from a business historian's point of view. The years between 1914 and 1933/34 held many trials in store for Kersten & Co. These economic challenges -...
| Published in: | Unitas Fratrum |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Print Article |
| Language: | German |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Herrnhuter-Verlag
[2018]
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| In: |
Unitas Fratrum
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| RelBib Classification: | AF Geography of religion KAH Church history 1648-1913; modern history KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history KBR Latin America KDD Protestant Church |
| Further subjects: | B
Moravian Church
B Suriname History 1814-1950 B Kersten Holding NV B World War I Economic aspects B Corporate history 20th century B History of Christian missions |
| Sammlungen: |
| Summary: | The article discusses the fate of the Moravian business enterprise Kersten & Co, Paramaribo, during the First World War and its aftermath from a business historian's point of view. The years between 1914 and 1933/34 held many trials in store for Kersten & Co. These economic challenges -- due to abrupt changes in demand, interruption of communications and war-induced business cycles -- confronted both its local management in Suriname (mainly of German origin), its owners back home in Herrnhut, the Missionsanstalt (Mission Institute), and the Unity of the Moravian Church as a whole as well as its regional sub-units, the four provinces that formed the Unitas Fratrum at that time. World War I and its aftermath was a sort of serious stress test whether the enterprise would endure and would be able to function as before as the Moravians' cash cow to finance their missionary work in Suriname and thus allow them to hold on to it. In order to analyze both the challenges and the efforts of the company's local management and its overseas ownership to keep the business going the article is organized in three sections. The first section outlines the beginnings of the Moravian missionary work in the Dutch colony of Suriname and the colony's economic and demographic development in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The second section presents a short business history of Kersten & Co since its foundation in the year 1768 in the colony's administrative capital Paramaribo by Moravian missionaries. It discusses the company's development since the late 19th century and its new lines of business, as well as its structure (management, owners) and (growth) strategy. The third section shows how and why Kersten & Co accumulated losses in seven of thirteen business years between 1914 and 1927. It then analyzes how the company's ownership, the Unity of the Moravian Church represented by the Missions anstatt (Mission Institute), confronted with the spectre of the firm's bankruptcy, saw its own existence and financial resources and thus all of its missionary work endangered. It therefore tried hard to handle the firm's financial distress, be it by raising church external capital, by selling Kersten & Co as a whole, or at least parts of it, once the restructuring and transformation of the profitable branches into a shareholder company would have been accomplished. However, all these projects of restructuring Kersten & Co failed so that the Unity of the Moravian Church viz. the Missionsanstalt had to stick to it. The Missionsanstalt thus saw itself obliged to collaborate with Kersten's largest creditor, the Dutch Surinaamsche Bank, and to accept the Bank's conditions for the financial facilities it was ready to offer for the firm's survival. When assessing both the reasons for Kersten & Co's insolvency and the Missionsanstalt's failed efforts to restructure and/or to sell the company, it is safe to argue that the Brethren in charge of this business were not primarily interested in forging Kersten & Co into a dynamic business enterprise that would play an important role in the economic development of Suriname in its enduring economic distress; rather, their first and foremost goal was to secure the continuity and the financing of tire Brethren's global missionary work. |
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| ISSN: | 0344-9254 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Evangelische Brüder-Unität, Unitas Fratrum
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