In the 1950s, a time of pioneers of trade without borders, this was a disturbing and perhaps less than obvious question. The protagonists of that time were first-generation entrepreneurs of small businesses who answered the question by initiating a process of assimilation with the economic achievements of the Free World. “Made in Germany” was their benchmark — a perfect example of how much an economy devastated by war, such as that of Germany, could rise again in the Free World. The work of these first-generation entrepreneurs succeeded because assimilation did not mean passive levelling down to the values of others, but rather the combination of those values with the emerging culture of the small and flexible company.
