Speech OB 13.09.2010

to the event 20 years of successful companies on 13 September 2010

The spoken word counts!

The world changed at an almost breathtaking speed within 11 months.
Nothing suddenly seemed impossible.
Nothing that had previously seemed eternal could hold its own.
We had wished for freedom, longed for it and finally fought for it.
But what would it really mean?
Here in our city, which was just setting out to be Chemnitz again?

Salutation,
Dear President Lohse, dear entrepreneurs,
You founded your company in the very year that was certainly the most difficult, most uncertain but also the most exciting year in our recent history for such an endeavour.

Founding a company in 1990 required courage above all else. Because it meant either establishing the company under the conditions of the GDR, which everyone knew would come to an end. Or under the new conditions of a reunified Germany, of which no one could yet say how they would be handled in practice.
And sometimes the trick and opportunity of founding a company in 1990 lay precisely in this historically unprecedented process of reunification of two states and economic systems that had been separated for 40 years.
Each and every one of you has their own story. All of them are worth telling. They are a testimony to contemporary history. And they are an important part of our city's history.

The conditions for founding a company in 1990 were as varied as the motives for doing so. There were the potential entrepreneurs who were unable to develop in the GDR and were just waiting to make their own product and business idea a success. Or to finally run the formerly nationalised family business themselves again.

There were the movers and shakers from the second management level of the VEB combines who, at least with some of the employees, wanted and had to assert their products in a changing market environment.
Sometimes it was probably also the courage of desperation. It was simply unacceptable that everything that was conceived, developed and skilfully made in the GDR was no longer worth anything.

So their initiative was also help for self-help. And probably the most decisive reason to remain loyal to Chemnitz.

There were also the medium-sized entrepreneurs from the old federal states who bought companies. They recognised their opportunities and exploited the potential of the well-trained, hard-working skilled workers in Chemnitz.

And finally, there were also company acquisitions for purely speculative reasons, without any intention of building up production and employment. These speculators are no longer with us and that is a good thing.

But not all entrepreneurs who, like you, set out to take responsibility for their own business back in 1990 made it.
The onset of poor payment behaviour, bankruptcies of clients, personal strokes of fate, wrong advisors, excessive demands, insensitive banks: there were many reasons to fail after 1990 despite great personal commitment. To survive for twenty years during this time is a great achievement that not everyone was able to accomplish.

Salutation,
When you founded your craft business, your planning office, your service companies, your industrial enterprise, the mood in Chemnitz fluctuated between euphoria, pragmatism and uncertainty.

Courage, independence or even entrepreneurship were not part of the training programme in the socialist planned economy. I was ten years old when my grandfather's textile company was nationalised in 1972 - like all companies of this type that had survived until then. Family life basically revolved around this little island of independence. And yet there was no longer any room for it in the GDR. It is therefore all the more remarkable how the craftsmen, retailers and small businesses that were not forcibly nationalised continued to survive.

There are also entrepreneurs in our city who are running their family business in the 2nd, 3rd or 4th generation. They can look back on 25 or more than 50 years of company history. Next year, we will be celebrating 100 years of the New Town Hall. I will take this as an opportunity to honour these entrepreneurs - their achievements.
Many stories will also remind us of a piece of the city's history. Entrepreneurship under the conditions of a planned economy.

The planned economy of the GDR also promoted - often involuntarily to the point of curiosity - talents and qualities that later proved to be helpful and sometimes essential for survival on the difficult path to becoming an entrepreneur in the market economy.

Without improvisation skills, employee cohesion, sacrifice, organisational talent and relationships - today called networks - many things would not have been possible after 1990.

Salutation,
You saw opportunities - and your courage to seize these opportunities was greater than your fear of risk.

Medium-sized companies, large and small, are the backbone of our city today. Chemnitz-based companies are once again taking on a leading technological role worldwide in many fields.

It is remarkable how your skills, the good training of your employees and the ability to learn quickly and think ahead have enabled you to build on the great tradition of our home town.

In the slight exuberance that we Chemnitz residents are rarely prone to, one might think that there really is an inventor and entrepreneurial gene in this region of Chemnitz that will break through if only it is allowed to.

Salutation,
Without being exhaustive, I would like to mention a few large corporations, such as VW and Siemens, which developed GDR companies such as Barkas or VEB Numerik into successful components of their corporate structure.

All of the companies that were successfully founded in 1990 also provided a good example for companies that emerged in the following years.
In very different ways, a medium-sized corporate culture made in Chemnitz emerged.

More than two decades lie between their daring beginnings and the present day. The transformation from a state-planned economy to a market economy was a process without precedent. In Chemnitz, around 1,100 companies had to be privatised by the Treuhandanstalt. These included several large combines.

The force of change that swept over the tradition-steeped industrial city unleashed great power.
Destructive and full of opportunity at the same time.

Address,
Anyone analysing the labour market figures these days will notice that a drop in the unemployment rate below 10 % seems possible for the first time in 20 years. There are two things behind the figures: firstly, a massive reduction in employment following reunification.
In many cases, companies were forced to lay off a considerable number of their employees in order to maintain their position on the market. The scale of this upheaval becomes clear when you realise that almost 80,000 jobs were lost in the manufacturing industry in Chemnitz and in the public sector alone.

Although new jobs were also created in other sectors, particularly in the service industry, this meant that people had to completely change their professional environment and acquire completely new knowledge and skills within a short space of time.

The reduction in employment - this is the second aspect - led to a problem that is now hitting us with its echo, so to speak.
With emigration, the city lost many active people in the 1990s who started families elsewhere. Today, their children do not attend school, study or work in Chemnitz, but elsewhere in Germany.

Salutation,
And that is precisely why it is so important that the robust economic development of companies in our city over the past five years has halted emigration. In 2005, employment in Chemnitz had reached its lowest point since reunification.
Since then, things have been on a steady upward trend.

The successful development of our companies and the good jobs that have been created as a result are the most important prerequisite for the fact that it has been and can be possible to stop the exodus and turn it into an influx of new residents. Last year, 400 more people came to Chemnitz than left and this trend is also stabilising this year.

Salutation,
This positive development, despite the economic crisis, is also thanks to you. You have made this success possible with your initiative, your courage and your perseverance.
This is all the more remarkable because the economic development of Chemnitz and our region - to put it mildly - was not exactly the focus of the Free State of Saxony's economic strategy for a long time.

It is only in the past two to three years that the question of why development in Chemnitz has been more positive in some cases than in the two target areas of the state government's lighthouse strategy has been raised more and more frequently in public.
Or as the weekly magazine "Die Zeit" wrote in 2010: "Chemnitz has overtaken Dresden and Leipzig in many areas of economic development." The President of the Halle Institute for Economic Research, Prof Ulrich Blum, put it this way in the ZEIT: "If I had to buy shares in an East German city today, it would be shares in Chemnitz."

Salutation,
Your entrepreneurial commitment in Chemnitz goes hand in hand with a great sense of responsibility and solidarity with your city and its development.
You are not only committed to your company, but also to Chemnitz. Many achievements in the fields of culture, sport and social life would be inconceivable without private commitment.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you most sincerely for this. Here, too, you are building on a rich tradition in Chemnitz.

With your many networks, which have long since grown beyond the region and national borders, you are also important ambassadors for the city. Many of you want to be such ambassadors and are happy to actively take on this role.

I would also like to thank you for this. We need these ambassadors to give Chemnitz the reputation in Saxony, Germany and beyond that it deserves and has earned.

Address,
After a period of great difficulties and upheaval, it is not only the development of companies that has taken a remarkable and in some cases unprecedented turn. In less than 15 years, a short period for the development of cities, Chemnitz has succeeded in creating a new, modern and architecturally interesting city centre and filling it with urban life. Here, too, the development is not complete. There is no room for complacency here either. As in your company, development must continue, no matter how big it is.

At the same time, the financial framework conditions - unlike in the 1990s and 2000s - have become noticeably tougher. The solidarity pact funds are falling significantly. The financial crisis has hit local authorities hard.

Nevertheless, things are moving forward, mainly thanks to private investors. In October, we are able to take possession of the "Bürgerhaus am Wall". Around 300 municipal employees return to the city centre and are there for our citizens. The new youth hostel at Getreidemarkt is completed by our new strong company, "eins Energie in Sachsen", and will be finished in 2011. Mr Kellnberger is converting the Rawema Haus, the former Bundesbank and the savings bank building into office, residential and commercial buildings. We are continuing to build the rampart and expand the city centre. The House of Archaeology - the Schocken - is being remodelled and is expected to open in 2013.

The intensive collaboration with our university and the Free State is another decisive initial spark.
The Aktienspinnerei as the new central library will create a lively university square right up to Brühl. Over the next ten years, this will create a link between the city centre, the main railway station - which will be modernised to the present day with around 130 million euros by 2013 and forms the basis for the Chemnitz model - and the university buildings.

Our intellectual powerhouse, our TU, is also becoming the focus of urban development.
Prof. Speer has accompanied us on this path and speaks of the talent that characterises Chemnitz. These are its industry, technology, science and their applications.

Address,
Last weekend, we celebrated the Days of Industrial Culture in Chemnitz with the Long Night of Companies. The event spanned over 200 years of the city's proud industrial history to the cutting-edge technological products of today. Other regions in Germany also have such an industrial history. In many of them, however, this is only an occasion to look back wistfully on past greatness.

In Chemnitz, on the other hand, this tradition is the basis for the development of a modern, dynamic and forward-looking industry. It is no coincidence that Chemnitz was able to celebrate "a late shift" of industry, where companies open the doors of their production facilities to the public.
I hope that many people in Chemnitz will take more pride and self-confidence in the talents of their city, which they themselves are part of.

Salutation,
In a few weeks, we will be celebrating 20 years of German reunification. The fact that we in Chemnitz can draw a positive interim balance in many areas is also thanks to you.
By founding your company in 1990, you helped to lay the foundations on which we continue to build our city today. You have played your own personal part in ensuring that we can tackle our future with confidence and ambition - without any complacency.
You have served the city and rendered outstanding services to Chemnitz.
It is therefore a very personal need and an honour for me to ask you to sign the Golden Book of the City of Chemnitz.