Board of Trade: German Division: Files

BT 211

1944-1953

Files of the German Division of the Board of Trade.

The records in this series deal mainly with the:

• Board of Trade contribution to Government policy on reparations and the economic control of Germany
• UK bids for reparation plant, reparations disposal policy, arrangements for disposal to industry of reparations plant; liaison with the Allied Control Authority for Germany and other UK Departments on dismantling, packing and shipping of reparations; responsibility for the UK Reparations Mission in Germany
• The procurement and dissemination to British industry of industrial and scientific knowledge obtained from Germany and the procurement of key scientists and technicians from Germany to assist British industry

Public Record(s)

English

546 file(s)

Topics

Trade and commerce

Europe and Russia

A German Division (later German and Japanese Division) was set up by the Board of Trade in October 1945. It took over from the Priorities Department and the Commercial Relations and Treaties Department all questions of government policy relating to Germany and Austria, especially concerning reparations, that were within the board's responsibilities but not covered by the Trading with the Enemy Department. On 1 April 1946 the Central Briefing Unit of the Control Office for Germany and Austria (815) was transferred to the division. On 1 May 1946 the Foreign Documents Unit, which had been part of the German Economic Department of the Control Office, became the German Division Documents (subsequently Foreign Documents) Unit of the board.

In July 1946 a new branch of the division was formed to deal with the transfer to this country of capital plant allocated as reparations from Germany and its disposal to industry. The division also ran the Technical Intelligence Service, which provided British industry with scientific and industrial information from Germany and Japan. This service was amalgamated with the Foreign Documents Unit in 1947 to become the Technical Information and Documents Unit, which was transferred to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research on 1 April 1951.