Poland’s Nationalization Law Targets Large Breweries

On January 3, 1946, Poland adopted a law transferring major branches of the national economy into state ownership. Article 3 explicitly included breweries with an annual production capacity above 15,000 hectoliters. This placed large-scale brewing within the wider reconstruction of Poland’s economy after the Second World War. The law defined categories of enterprises for transfer and provided procedures for individual decisions. It also exempted enterprises owned by local-government bodies and cooperatives from Article 3’s takeover provisions. The Haberbusch and Schiele brewery in Warsaw was among the breweries nationalized under the law, showing how the national measure affected a longstanding private brewing business.