Germany

This chapter consists of sections on Introduction, Historical Overview, The Environment for Entrepreneurship and Toward the Future. Introduction, as follows:The Federal Republic of Germany (formerly also known as West Germany) covers 356,978 square kilometres, neighbouring Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, and Switzerland. An important German inventor/entrepreneur was Johannes Gutenberg (circa 1395–1468), the first printer/publisher in Europe to use moveable type. Examples of science-based entrepreneurs include Carl Zeiss (1816–1888), Otto Schott (1851–1935), and Ernst Abbe (1840–1905), who together pioneered modern optics. Other famous German entrepreneurs include Friedrich Engelhorn (1821–1902) founder of BASF, Gottlieb Daimler (1834–1900) who in 1885 patented one of the first successful internal-combustion engines, and Karl Friedrich Benz (1844–1929) who in 1886 received the first patent for a petrol-fuelled car. Adolf Dassler (1900–1978) created Adidas; his brother Rudolf Dassler (1896–1974) launched Puma. More recently, Berlin has become Europe’s most vibrant centre for venture capital. Berlin and Munich both have important clusters with many high-tech start-ups. Germany is a champion at exporting, and many of its producers are SMEs from the Mittelstand — including family enterprises. There is an important interplay, here, between heavy industry and the development of SMEs. The automotive industry, for example, is a platform for supplying and supporting SMEs; simultaneously, this fosters their internationalisation…