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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, FEBRUARY 24, 1984
PAGE 9
pinnacle. The Japanese have built cheaper, lighter, more versa
tile cameras, driving many German producers to the brink of
collapse. Today, the largest camera manufacturer in West Germany
is a subsidiary of Kodak....
But far more worrisome to West German economic planners is the
grow�ng realization that� nation appears� have slept through
crucial new developments 1n the areas of micro-electronics and
b1otechnoI'ogy, industries-that many believe hold the key to
success in the 21st Century.
In the important area of large
scale micro-electronic circuitry, West Germany counts only one
major producer, Siemens, and industry observers believe it to be
roughly a year and a half behind the United States and Japan....
A report submitted not long ago to the Federal Economics Ministry
by the Munich-based Ifo economic research institute noted that
Germany's current export mix is heavily weighted toward goods
that will play a steadily diminishing role in world trade.
Noting that Germany's problems to some extent are symptomatic of
trends elsewhere in Europe, Heinz Riesenhuber, the minister of
research and technology, said recently, "Unless we act to correct
the present course, there � the danger of Euro�becom1ng �
second-class industrial reg1on.-rr-::.
The...decline in profitability has hit German industry especially
hard, because it has few alternative sources of cash. The stock
market, so important in the United States for companies seeking
funds for expansion into new ventures, in Germany tends to avoid
risky issues.••. Conservative West German bankers [also) tend to
avoid risk....
"A young man with an idea in Germany faces mainly skepticism and
reluctance,"" Muni� management consultant Manfred Brede said.
"Steven Jobs ( the inventor of the Apple computer) would never
have gotten off the ground here."
There are other factors inhibiting creativity. For example:
-- The exponential growth of higher education in the postwar
period, coupled with the decision to distribute student and
faculty talent equally between the country's 60 universities, has
effectively ended the long tradition of the German professor
nurturing a select few brilliant students. Although the f olicy
has . given equal opportunity to every . student, it has le t the
nation without any recognizable scientific elite..••
"For the type of work we're doing we need to tap an elite," said
Dr. Heinz Schwaertzel, director of Siemens' Corporate Labora
tories for Information Technologies in Munich. "The problem is
there is not an elite to tap."
-
-- The failure of German universities to provide rich talent has
further weakened a research establishment that many believe has
never recovered from the loss of so many outstanding scientists
in the time of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich••••