Partners with the Big Ones ? Relations between Carmakers and Subcontractors and their Spatial Consequences in Germany since 1945

The subcontracting industry constitutes, within the car-making industry, an important sub-sector which has long been ignored by historians. This paper investigates its position in the whole car manufacturing industry. Through the study of several significant examples, this paper analyses the factors that have an influence of the relations between carmakers and subcontractors in the nineteen-sixties and nineteen-seventies. On the occasion of the choice made by carmakers between manufacturing components themselves or concluding delivery contracts with independent sub-contracting companies, this paper shows that, during this period, most subcontractors were dominated by the carmakers they supplied. Yet, the degree of dependence varied according to the degree of technological sophistication of the subcontractors, as well as according to the general organization of the economy, while the issues of location had not yet assumed a decisive character.