Tax Evasion in Post-Imperial Silesia: the Pless Administration vs the Polish Government

Abstract

In 1931, the von Hochberg family, one of the wealthiest aristocratic families in Europe, filed a discrimination complaint against the Polish government at the League of Nations. At the heart of their petition was the accusation that tax authorities unfairly calculated monies owed in a bid to take over and ‘Polonise’ the von Hochberg-owned businesses, collectively called ‘the Pless administration’. However, these ventures operated both in Poland and in Germany. The Pless administration became a multinational enterprise under postwar border settlements and new convoluted domestic and international legal environments. This article shows that the Polish government, far from trying to force a takeover, was trying hard to keep the von Hochberg businesses functioning and productive during the depths of the Great Depression. Polish government officials understood the economic value of supporting the Pless administration and ensuring that von Hochberg would continue to pay his thousands of employees. This tax evasion scandal reveals a new understanding of interwar Poland’s complex relationship to foreign capital investment and – in a broader contribution to business history – adds a revealing corrective to the history of international tax governance. Moreover, I argue that multinational enterprises – because of their fractured nature – possess advantages over the states that attempt to benefit from their commercial activities.