Lloyd Bydgoski w latach 1920–1939
Lloyd Bydgoski Inc. in the Period of 1920–1939

Attempts to Bring the Company out of the Crisis

Summary/Abstract: Lloyd Bydgoski Inc. was the largest inland shipping company in Poland during the interwar period. It was established in 1891 on the foundations of a pre-existing German shipping company. After the end of the First World War, the development of the company accelerated through the use of the Bydgoszcz Canal and the timber port in Bydgoszcz. However, the transition from Prussian jurisdiction to the re-established Polish state caused considerable problems for the company. The aim of this article is to analyse and evaluate the management policy of Lloyd Bydgoski Inc. under new conditions, namely in the Second Polish Republic. As it turned out, almost throughout the entire interwar period, the company from Bydgoszcz was in serious financial trouble, which cannot be entirely accounted for by the world economic crisis of 1929–1933. This raises the question about the purpose of the company’s activity in the face of considerable financial losses. To conduct the analysis, various archival documents kept in the Central Archives of Modern Records in Warsaw and in the State Archives in Bydgoszcz, which have not been given sufficient consideration so far, were studied. It has been proven that the management of Lloyd Bydgoski Inc. took the right steps in the years 1926–1929, that is the only period when the company made a profit. The company from Bydgoszcz was forced to face two economic crises: global and internal. The latter was caused by incompetence and wastefulness on the part of the company’s management. The company survived until the outbreak of the Second World War. Unfortunately, the decline in importance of the Bydgoszcz Canal and Bydgoszcz itself in favour of Toruń meant that Lloyd Bydgoski Inc. did not manage to regain its former significance during the interwar period.

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