VEB (German for "People-owned enterprise") wasn't a single company Nev, VEB's were state-owned workplaces or establishments in the Cold War-era East Germany (DDR). So, many such companies would be referred to as VEB followed by an identifier (often a location), e.g. VEB Schönborn, VEB Döborn, VEB Oberlausitzer, which were all state-owned glassworks during this period. VEB's existed across all industries in the DDR, not just glassmaking.
This from Wikipedia explains it in more detail:
The Publicly Owned Enterprise (German: Volkseigener Betrieb; abbreviated VEB) was the main legal form of industrial enterprise in East Germany. They were all publicly owned and were formed after mass nationalisation between 1945 and the early 1960s, and the handing back in 1954 of some 33 enterprises previously taken by the Soviet Union as reparations.[citation needed]
The managing director of a VEB was called a plant or works manager (German: Werkleiter, Werkdirektor or Betriebsdirektor). He or she was assisted by the first secretary of the factory party organisation (Betriebsparteiorganisation) of the SED, and the chairman of the factory trade union (Betriebsgewerkschaftsleitung). Subordinate to them were roles such as "Chief Accountant" and "Technical Director".
VEBs were initially vertically integrated into units called Associations of Publicly Owned Enterprises (Vereinigung Volkseigener Betriebe, VVBs). A VVB existed in most major industries, to consolidate production and reduce waste. They had all been replaced by 1979 with the VEB Kombinate, or VEB Group, which integrated the VEBs much more closely than the largely administrative VVBs. Under this system, the term 'Kombinate' was frequently dropped and the term "VEB" usually implied the group rather than the individual factory. The organisation of all state enterprises was the responsibility of the State Planning Commission.
VEBs often had company sports teams, and played an important role in the promotion of sports.
In 1989, VEBs employed 79.9% of the East German workforce. After German reunification and the introduction of the market economy in 1990, the ownership of around 8,000 publicly owned enterprises passed to Treuhand, the trust agency which oversaw the privatization of GDR state property.
I'm exploring these production places at the moment for the GTS website, as it seems that some glass patterns may have been made by more than one VEB but marketed centrally - in a similar way as glassmaking in pre-Velvet Revolution Czechoslovakia (Sklounion) was split between different glassworks with a central government marketing unit (Skloexport).
These glassworks were originally private companies with their own product lines, so it is possible to sometimes follow longer-made patterns from the private glassworks catalogues to the state-owned ones, and at other times the info doesn't seem to be available, and it all gives me a serious headache!
Topic: VLG Lausitzer Orion Bowl (Read 3098 times)
