What is bad is the money. The people producing it are the separatists. Their aim is to turn the French-occupied Rhineland into a separate republic. So, a Rhenish currency is printed. But people don’t want the republic. Nor do they want the separatist money. At times, the works management has to obtain Reichsmark from British-occupied Cologne in order to pay its workers money with the necessary buying power.

Although the Rhenish republic is proclaimed in 1923, it fails due to popular resistance. One dollar at that time costs 40 billion Reichsmark. These are conditions that cause businessfolk huge headaches. They must keep production going, develop new products, defend market share and – where possible – expand it.

The nascent Federal Republic of Germany creates its own economic-policy roadmap in the 1950s. Economics minister Prof Ludwig Erhard manages an economic miracle and, with confident steps and impressive eloquence, creates a social market economy that will last. Politically and economically, the world starts to recognize and accept a new Germany. Foreign trade takes off and soon yields surpluses. The paper industry adapts elastically to changing markets and dares to float ventures that pay off.

In 1973, a renewed switch in the production of corrugated board base paper became necessary, since the corrugated-board industry is moving from 2.20-m-wide processing machines to 2.45- or even 2.65-m-wide machines. Simply dispensing with the packaging industry as customer, or only retaining those customers who still work in old widths, is no option for SCHOELLERSHAMMER. So: the new paper machine V has a working width of 5.00 m and an output of more than 300 t per day.
Whereas it was necessary between 1950 and 1973 to adapt the mill’s capacity to rising demand, the problems are now the other way around: there is more capacity than the demand can use. What’s more, the initial catch-up demand of a destroyed country is now covered. Owing to the raw-material situation, manufacturing, too, is becoming expensive. Sales are stagnating. All of a sudden, saving is back on the agenda. Not altogther a bad idea. Ludwig Erhard called for it a lot earlier. But like many people who give warnings in good time, all he earned was a laugh or two.