Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State (77 page)

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Authors: Götz Aly

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–23,

financial preparations for,

–60

financing and,

–35,

–40,

–48,

137

142

–43,

152

–53,

195

240

293

–309,

317

–21

financial experts and political Germans feel well off during,

leadership and,

311

–17

revenues from foreign sources cover costs of,

–84

revenues, 1939–45,

286

–93

surrender in,

tempo of, and scess of Nazi party,

321

–22

Yugoslavia,

190

229

230

Ziegelmayer, Wilhelm,

172

Ziegler, Karl,

102

Zwicker, Julius,

191

About the Author

One of the most respected historians of the Third Reich and the Holocaust, G

öTZ ALY

is the author of Architects of Annihilation, among other books. A winner of Germany’s prestigious history award, the Heinrich-Mann Prize, Aly has been a visiting fellow at the Holocaust Museum in Washington and currently teaches at the University of Frankfurt. He lives in Berlin.

About the Translator

EFFERSON

HASE’S

translations include the Signet edition of Thomas Manns Death in Venice and Other Stories and The Culture of Defeat by Wolfgang Schivelbusch. He lives in Berlin.

One of the most respected historians of the Third Reich and the Holocaust,

GÖTZ ALY

is the author of Architects of Annihilation, among other books.

winner of Germany’s prestigious history award, the Heinrich-Mann Prize, Aly writes frequently for publications around the world. He has been a visiting fellow at the Holocaust Museum in Washington and currently teaches at the University of Frankfurt. He lives in Berlin.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR

HITLERS BENEFICIARIES

“This remarkable book tackles in an entirely original manner one of the greatest paradoxes of the Nazi state: Why did the German people increasingly support Hitler’s rule even after it unleashed a world war that ultimately led to its own destruction? The answer, based on massive evidence and convincingly argued, is that the Nazi regime won the support of middle- and working-class Germans by creating greater social and economic equality at home and ensuring that its own ‘racial comrades’ would be well fed and clothed, all with the proceeds of mass murder and unprecedented continent-wide robbery. This rewriting of history, which dismantles the conventional distinction between fanatical Nazis and sober civil servants, will irreversibly transform our understanding of the Third Reich, revealing it as a consensual dictatorship whose popularity was rooted in grand larceny and the profits of crimes against humanity on an unimaginable scale.”—Omer Bartov, author of

Germany’s War and the Holocaust: Disputed Histories

“A pathbreaking work.”—Amos Elon, author of

The Pity of It Alb A History of the Jews in Germany

“In this book Aly once again brings to bear his formidable research skills, his knack for pursuing original lines of inquiry, and his incredible capacity to uncover neglected and seemingly innocuous documents. While I do not share Aly’s views about the underlying economic causes of the Holocaust, I nonetheless consider this a fascinating and important book about the Nazi ic equalit policies that facilitated the regime’s capacity to implement the Final Solution.”—Christopher R. Browning, author of

Ordinary Mem Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

“Hitler’s Beneficiaries

recalls the nightmare of older classical liberals like Alexis de Tocqueville and Max Weber, who feared that with the coming of mass society people would forsake liberty to enjoy materialism and its ‘petty pleasures.’ Gotz Aly has written a brilliant yet disturbing book that shatters our complacencies.”—John Patrick Diggins, author of

Max Weber: Politics and the Spirit of Tragedy

“Shifting the focus from racist fanaticism as the key factor in the success of Nazism to the economic gains from looting and genocide, Aly provides fresh insights into the kleptocratic calculations behind Hitler’s great popularity. A bestseller in Germany, this important new book will stimulate renewed debate on why millions of ordinary Germans were lured into cheering for Hitler in peacetime and total war, and how we might come to grips with the enormous and still puzzling dynamism of one of the most exploitative and murderous movements of the twentieth century.”—Volker R. Berghahn, author of

Europe in the Era of Two World Wars

In The Wages of Destruction, which was published as this book went to press, economic historian Adam Tooze objects that for the fiscal year 1938–39 additional revenues from the dispossession of Jews represented only 5 percent—and not, as I assert, 9 percent—of the total budget. Tooze deems my calculations “obscure” because the billion reichsmarks raised by the atonement payment were paid only gradually (Wages, p. 279, n. 133); as discussed above, the payments were made in four quarterly installments. Yet at the same time, citing my book as his source, Tooze acknowledges that the Reich finance minister borrowed a billion marks from a consortium of large banks as an advance on the atonement payment. The finance minister thus immediately had the total amount at his disposal. This is why I have assigned the sum of one billion reichsmarks to the fiscal year 1938–39 (see Tooze, Wages, pp. 278–79, notes 127,133). For further discussion, see “A Note on Calculations” on page 327.

The author is indebted to Albert Müller for his assistance with these calculations.

Potatoes, for example, were multiplied by a factor of 0.2, legumes by 1, a cow by 5.7, a pig by 4.2, eggs by 4.2, margarine by 3.4. The category of meat in

table 4

has been assigned a value of 5, the median between beef and pork.

This figure has provoked some controversy. For further discussion see “A Note on Calculations” on p. 327.

Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, p. 772, n. 86.

†

As yet unpublished research supports my conclusion regarding the high percentage of German revenues from external sources. See Filippo Occhino, Kim Oosterlinck, and Eugene N. White, “How Occupied France Financed Its Own Exploitation in World War II,” discussion paper, Oct. 2005 (

11_fa05/white.pdf

). I am grateful to Dorothea Hauser for alerting me to this source. The U.S. National Archives has recently provided the Federal German Archive with a series of photocopies of substantial documents from the Reich Finance Ministry, the Reichsbank, the Reich Economics Ministry, and other Nazi institutions responsible for wartime finances, occupation costs, and the dispossession of Jews. I was unable to include this material in the present book, yet the information contained there confirms my conclusions. The relevant catalog codes are: PS-2150, PS-2251, PS-2216, PS-2265, PS-2266, PS-2267, PS-2268, PS-2287, PS-2850, PS-3562, PS-3948, PS-3949, PS-3915.

Richard J. Overy, “’Blitzkriegswirtschaft.’ Finanzpolitik, Lebensstandard und Arbeitseinsatz in Deutschland 1939-1942,” Vierteljahresschrift für Zeitgeschichte 36 (1988), pp. 396-435.

Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, vom Beginn des Ersten Weltkriegs bis zur Grün-dungder beiden deutschen Staaten. 1914-1949, vol. 4, Munich, 2003, p. 927.

For the complete exchange, see Adam Tooze, “Einfach verkalkuliert,” Die Tageszeitung, March 12, 2005; Götz Aly, “Nicht falsch, sondern anders gerechnet. Eine Antwort auf J. Adam Tooze,” Die Tageszeitung, March 15,2005; Tooze, “Doch falsch gerechnet—weil falsch gedacht,” Die Tageszeitung, March 16, 2005; Tooze, Wages of Destruction, p. 647, n. 88.

Siegfried Lenz, Essays 1, 1955-1982 (vol. 19 of Lenz’s complete works), Hamburg, 1997, p. 23. I would like to thank Markus Barth for alerting me to this source.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments and Translator’s Note

Preface

Part I POLITICAL OPPORTUNISTS IN ACTION

1. The Dream of a “People’s Empire”

2. The Accommodating Dictatorship

Part II SUBJUGATION AND EXPLOITATION

3. With Unwavering Efficiency

4. Profits for the People

5. The Mainstay: Western Europe

6. Room for Expansion: Eastern Europe

Part III THE DISPOSSESSION OF THE JEWS

7. Larceny as a State Principle

8. Laundering Money for the Wehrmacht

9. Subsidies to and from Germany’s Allies

10. The Trail of Gold

Part IV CRIMES FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PEOPLE

11. The Fruits of Evil

12. Speculative Politics

13. Nazi Socialism

A Note on Calculations

Currency Exchange Rates

List of Abbreviations

Notes

Bibliography

Index