The formation of the DATSCH had given the VDI's managerial segment a major voice in technical education and enhanced its power and prestige. As the Riedler affair and its aftermath showed, however, the price paid for this victory was extraordinarily high. In fact, the divisions and cleavages between the industrialists, the professionalizes, and other disadvantaged elements were indications of the limits of the VDI's effectiveness as a professional association and as an agency for the realization of managerial interests. The engineering association could survive only if it avoided the kind of bruising conflicts that pitted employers against employees and business interests against the concerns of professionalizers. In other words, neutrality – at least an unquestioned perception of neutrality – in all sensitive and controversial questions was essential. In many respects, that had always been the engineering society's policy, but now such tendencies were reinforced, and neutrality had to be observed even more strictly. In consequence, the VDI became increasingly marginal to the burning social and socioeconomic issues of the day. The initiative in these matters passed to other organizations, such as the VDMA for the engineering employers and, depending on their rank, position, and outlook, the Btib and the VDDI for less powerful engineers. The upshot was further fragmentation and more divisiveness in the engineering profession as a whole. The divergent pressures of class and status destroyed any remaining illusions about the existence of a community of professionals.