The subject of this project covers the Treuhandanstalt’s personnel, organization, task profile, and internal division of labor (internal regulations). The establishment of the board of directors, administrative board, and executive board are of particular interest within this context. The study will also look into the roles of individual staff members who were involved in making crucial decisions as part of the leadership of the agency. The period in question here stretches from autumn 1989, when the Treuhandanstalt was created during the last year of the GDR, through the restructuring and reorganization phase under the management of Detlev Karsten Rohwedder following the Economic, Monetary, and Social Union, through the end of Birgit Breuel’s tenure as president of the agency in December 1994.

The aim of the project is an empirically based analysis of the formation, workings, and significance of the Treuhandanstalt. It also looks into the expectations and economic-political concepts connected to the formation of the agency with an analytical view of its internal life as an institution tasked with the organization of the privatization process. The study also explores the scope of action and limitations within the political arena of Germany as a whole.