A forgotten past: The historical roots of the mandatory affiliation of german cooperatives to auditing federations ‘Anschlusszwang

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The statutory obligation of all cooperatives to be affiliated to an auditing federation is a German speciality and is considered one of the reasons why there are relatively few cooperatives in Germany. Small cooperative companies, in particular, are often established as a registered association (e.V), a rather complex legal form, to avoid the costs entailed by a registered cooperative. Kaltenborn uses a wealth of material to prove that mandatory affiliation to auditing federations (Anschlusszwang), introduced with the amendment to the German Cooperative Societies Act in 1934, did not aim to enhance the economic resilience of cooperatives but was nothing more than the implementation of the National-Socialist Fuhrerprinzip in the cooperative system.