Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State (62 page)

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Authors: Götz Aly

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The second document originated in the General Office of the Reich Finance Ministry. The authors presented it on November 6, 1944, as a secret communiqué to the finance minister and his deputy. The report balanced the revenues, expenditures, and state debts of the preceding five years of war. It includes data up to August 31, 1944, and thus goes five months beyond the Ff W study. In contrast to that report, this one does not adjust figures for inflation. The authors classified clearing advances as Reich debts and included contributions to the war made by Germany’s allies—including Spain—under the heading “occupation costs.” That was, in fact, where they belonged. Since the FfW study does not include payments made by Croatia and the Mussolini-led Republic of Saló, which was formally allied with Germany, as contributions from occupied countries, the total figures have been corrected with the help of those from the Finance Ministry. (The document can be found in BA R 2/24250. The file is unbound and unpaginated. I paginated my own copy; the table from the Statistics Office is drawn from pages 152-78.)
 
The third primary source came from the Statistics Office of the Finance Ministry. Entitled “Statistical Overview of Reich Budgetary Calculations, 1938-1943,” it was prepared in November 1944 and was also secret (BA R 2/24250, pp. 179-92 [my pagination]). In contrast to the General Office, which used the fiscal year (September 1 to August 31), the Statistics Office used the calendar year. As there were no dramatic changes in tax revenues in the first six months of 1944, we can apply the figures up to August 31, 1944. After that, the war entered its chaotic final phase and statisticians were only sporadically able to track the Reich’s finances. This document provides a reasonable answer to the question of how the burdens of war were distributed among various social classes.
 
The fourth document was prepared by the economics division of the Reichsbank. It concerns clearing balances on June 30, 1944, and confirms the data from the other three documents. It also explicitly shows the extent to which Holland, the General Government, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia were forced to buy Reich bonds, as well as how many Bulgaria voluntarily purchased. The figures include more than 500 million reichsmarks in clearing debts that Germany owed Switzerland. Surrounded by the Wehrmacht, Switzerland was in no position to consistently refuse German demands or to insist on immediate payment in gold or hard currency. Because all these cases concerned de facto revenues, the relevant figures were entered under the heading “Clearing.” (Economics division [Eicke], July 8, 1944, BA R 2/13502, pp. 175-76; see also Clearingverschul-dung nach der Saldenausweisung der Deutschen Verrechnungskasse [Clearing Debt after the Settlement of Balances by the German Settlement Bank], Sept. 7, 1944, BA R 2/267, p. 59.)
 
5.
As part of their general administrative revenues, the Finance Ministry recorded sums of reichsmarks taken in as a result of soldiers’ exchanging currency abroad. Revenues also arose, as we saw in chapter
5
, when German companies purchased goods or services abroad. They paid the prices they had agreed on with their foreign business partners in reichsmarks to the German Settlement Bank, which transferred the money to the treasury. Foreign creditors were then paid with funds from their respective countries’ occupation-costs budgets or from clearing accounts. Also part of the Reich’s general administrative revenues were profits earned from deliveries of supplies with which the Soviet Union, Italy, and Romania compensated the Reich for ethnic Germans who had been resettled. Similar revenues arose when representatives of German government offices made purchases abroad using foreign currency and sold off the goods within the Reich on behalf of the treasury. Such was the case both with consumer goods available for private citizens to purchase at Christmas and with raw materials, armaments, and food. All sums of money resulting from such transactions were recorded as general administrative revenues, as were all monies generated by the “furniture operation” and the sale of Jewish assets in Germany and the territories it annexed.
6.
Conservative estimates are used to avoid any chance of exaggeration, although the institutions owed the sums in question, a good 4 billion reichsmarks between 1939 and 1945, to increased usage of their services during the war.
7. Estimates for the period between Sept. 1, 1944, and May 8, 1945, have been calculated as 50 percent of the sums for the previous fiscal year.
8.
RFM (Statistics Office), Einkommenbesteuerung [Income Taxes], 1938-43, Nov. 1944, BA R 2/242500, p. 187; Milward, DerZweite Weltkrieg, p. 138.
Chapter 12: Speculative Politics
 
1.
Geh. RL aus der Pressekonferenz der Reichsregierung [Secret Directives from the Press Conference of the Reich Government], Jan. 26, 1940, BA R 8136/3990.
2.
NSDAP, Hamburg (Kaufmann), to Reich Leader Bormann, telex, Feb. 10, 1942, BAR 2/31681.
3.
Donner (FfW), Finanzlage in Ungarn [Financial Status in Hungary], early Oct. 1944, BA R 2/30679; Busch, “Finanzaufgaben.”
 
4.
Federau, Weltkrieg, p. 19.
5.
Chmela Report, p.89, NID-14615.
6.
MBiF, economics division (Rinke), Jan. 20, 1944, BA R 2/14552, pp. 317ff.; status report (Rinke), July 5, 1943, BA R 2/30123.
7.
RGBl. I, p. 963.
8.
Währung und Wirtschaft, p. 405.
9.
Benning, “Kriegsfinanzierung,” 1944, BA R 8136/3809.
10.
Benning, “Expansion und Kontraktion der Geldmenge,” March 25, 1943, BAR 8136/3810, p. 18.
11.
Ibid.
12.
Boelcke, “Kriegsfinanzierung,” pp. 34, 36.
13.
BA R 2501/7007, pp. 330ff.; Oertel, “Reichsbank,” p. 191.
14.
RKK administrative council, Dec. 21, 1942, BA R 2/13502, p. 102. In 1944, Ludwig Erhard spoke of the need for a “retroactive consolidation of heretofore nontransparent processes and movements on the capital market” (Kriegsfinanzierung, pp. 1 Iff., 44); see also Boelcke’s apologist account, Kosten, p. 94.
 
15.
Federau, Weltkrieg, p. 16; Erhard, Kriegsfinanzierung, pp. 13, 212.
16.
Status report of general agent of the German Wehrmacht in Italy, July 16-Aug. 15, 1944, BA R 2/30598, pp. 128-29.
17.
BA R2/24250.
18.
For 1940: “Die Sparleistung des Jahres 1940,” Sparkasse 61 (1941), pp. 109-11 (“a total of almost 11 billion reichsmarks”); for 1941-42: Reinhardt, Geld, pp. 48-49; RFM, General Office, Dec. 9, 1943, BA R 2/24250. Growth rates were particularly impressive at the post office’s savings division. 1939: 100 million reichsmarks; 1941: 1.3 billion reichsmarks; 1942: 2.8 billion reichsmarks, Dr. B[enning], “Das Zinsproblem in der Kriegsfinanzierung,” June 10, 1943, p. 3, BA R 8136/3809.
19.
Benning, “Expansion,” p. 214.
20.
“Der Sparinhalt der Lebensversicherung,” Sparkasse 63 (1943), pp. 4-6.
21.
Rath, “Aufgaben,” p. 514; Bark, “Kriegsfinanzierung,” p. 109.
22.
Reinhardt, Geld, p. 49.
23.
“Zum 30. Januar 1943,” Sparkasse 63 (1943), vol. 2, p. 15.
24.
Die Bank 33 (1940), pp. 17-18.
25
. Dr. F, “Die Deutsche Girozentrale berichtet,” Sparkasse 61 (1941), pp. 68-69; on the problem of interest, ibid., p. 87.
26.
RFM, General Office, Dec. 9, 1943, BA R 2/24250.
27.
Security Service report on domestic economic questions (“Auf Anforderung des [ungenannten] Empfangers”), Dec. 13, 1943, BA R 2/24250; emphasis in original.
 
28.
“Tilgung der Kriegsschulden,” Bankwirtschaft, 1944, pp. 135-36.
29.
Reichsbank disclosure statement, Sept. 15, 1944, BA R 2/13480, p. 213.
30.
RWM, War Finances (presentation for Ohlendorf), Jan. 3, 1945, BA R 26/36, p. 19.
31.
Keiser, “Das fünfte Kriegsjahr”; presentation, Jan. 3, 1945, BA R 25/36, pp. 27-28.
32.
Schwerin von Krosigk to K. H. Frank, Nov. 30, 1944, NA RG 238/case XI/microfiche 33.
33.
Seminar, “Die Finanzierung des Zweiten Weltkriegs” (G. Aly, University of Salzburg, 2002-03); Walter Pichler, Zur Rolle der Sparkassen.
34.
Reichsbank disclosure statement, Aug. 31, 1944, BA R 2/13480, p. 210.
 
35.
Friedrich, Brand, pp. 449ff.; Rass, “Menschenmaterial,” pp. 293ff.
36.
Bark, “Kriegsfinanzierung,” pp. 23, 28.
37.
Reinhardt, Geld, p. 38.
38.
Akademie für Deutsches Recht, Oct. 17-18, 1941; Janssen, Nationalokonomie, p. 493.
39.
Moeller, “Grenzprobleme,” p. 116.
40.
Benning, “Expansion,” pp. 227-28. (Benning retracted his previous opposition to policies of debt repayment that were predicated on military victory.)
41.
Benning, “Aufbringung der Kriegskosten, Kapitalfreisetzung und Geldüberfluss,” June 9, 1942, pp. 1, 36, BA R 8136/3809.
42.
Four-Year Plan, Reinhardt presentation for Backe, Riecke, Schlotterer, Meyer, and Hanneken [1942], BA R 2/30675.
43.
RMI (Stuckart), Einziehung reichsfeindlichen Vermögens in Slowenien [Procurement of Enemy Wealth in Slovenia], Sept. 11, 1941, NG-4764; RFM, July 30, 1942, NG-4919.
44.
RFM (Schlüter) to RMI, Apri 9, 1942, NG-4766.
 
45.
Four-Year Plan (Korner) to RFM, June 17, 1941, NG-4912.
46.
Arbeitstagung der Gauwirtschaftsberater [Working Conference of Regional Economic Advisers] (Braun, Kurhessen), Feb. 19, 1942, BA R 2/31681.
47.
Eichholtz, “Richtlinien.”
48.
RFM/NSDAP (Gündel) to Reinhardt, April 17, 1942, BA R 2/31681.
49.
RFM (Breyhan), meeting with Schwerin von Krosigk, Sept. 6, 1941, BA R 2/14586, pp. 23-24; Schwerin von Krosigk to ministerial colleagues, Sept. 4, 1942, R 2/352, pp. 31-40.
50.
Four-Year Plan, Reinhardt presentation for Backe, Riecke, Schlotterer, Meyer, and Hanneken [1942], BA R 2/30675.
51.
RKG (Benning), Jan. 18, 1943, presentation (Deetjen), Jan. 15, 1943, BA R 8136/3734, pp. 2-3; Aly, Rasse, pp. 114-20.
52.
On the significance of the speech, see Gerlach, Krieg, pp. 85-166; Goebbels’s diary, Dec. 13, 1943.
53.
Hitlers Tischgesprache (Bormann), p. 136 (March 25, 1942).
54.
Conference in Rowno (von Engelbrechten), Aug. 26-28, 1942, NA 242/24, p. 13.
55.
RKU, finance division (Höll), to RFM (Eckardt), Feb. 21, 1942, BA R 2/30584.
56.
Goebbels’s diary, Jan. 10, 1943.
Chapter 13: Nazi Socialism
 
1.
Schwerin von Krosigk, “Finanzpolitik,” p. 16 (lecture, Nov. 27, 1935).
2.
For example, see Genschel, Verdröngung.
3.
“Abgabenpolitik im Kriege,” Bankwirtschaft (1944), p. 74.
4.
Verwaltungsbericht der Deutschen Reichsbank für das Jahr 1942, p. 6.
5.
Archiwum Akt Nowych, Warsaw, Emissionsbank/145.
6.
RFM (Schwerin von Krosigk), July 15, 1942, BA R 2/30909; Keitel to chief and Wehrmacht intendants, March 6, 1942, BA-MA RW 7/171 lb, pp. 158-59.
7.
Aug. 6, 1942, IMG, vol. 39, p. 397.
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8.
Goebbels’s diary, Jan. 14 and March 27, 1938.
9.
War log, Economic Defense Staff, Dec. 4 and 6, 1939, BA-MA RW 19/164.
10.
As we can observe in the example of resettlement, the logic of the Nazi system encouraged “projective” solutions to conflicts. The more the Nazi state encountered material difficulties, the more radically its leaders and ideologues, having maneuvered themselves into a position where compromise was impossible, restricted their policies to campaigns of plunder and murder. In 1995, 1 identified the same underlying rationale for the “ethnocrats” responsible for Nazi population policies as obtained for specialists on issues like finances, currency, and food. One of the main characteristics of Nazi politics was that “even when the agents of individual institutions represented opposing, mutually exclusive interests, they were willing to overcome the contradictions that their divergent conceptions (especially concerning the speed of implementation) produced with plunder, slave labor, and annihilation.” This basic conception was linked with the seductively formulated hope that Germany could once and for all overcome its chronic scarcity of resources with the next big victory, freeing itself from all restraint and scruples in developing its national socialism, at the cost of “enemies” and “inferiors.” See Aly, “Endlösung,” pp. 250-55; 394-400.

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