Posted on 05/26/2019 5:02:34 PM PDT by LS
Recently we had a spirited debate here over the strengths and weaknesses of top-down totalitarian systems, such as China and Nazi Germany, when it came to economic growth.
In "Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State," Gotz Aly, a leading German historian of the Holocaust, sheds new light on the Nazi "Economic Miracle." In a nutshell, Aly argues that "The Nazi leadership established a framework for directly sharing the spoils of its military victories with the majority of Germans," and that it was Hitler's ability to---until late 1944---keep the average German family on the home front well fed and supplied.
Yet Nazi Germany was "extremely unstable" economically from the outset and the "mystery is how it managed to stabilize itself . . . [and] surive for twelve spectacularly destructive years." The answer was that aside from its approach to the Jews, the Nazis were "remarkably friendly toward the German lower clases, soaking the wealthy and redistributing the burdens of wartime to the benefit of the underprivileged."
In short, Nazi Germany behaved just as any SOCIALIST country would. Aly points out that "it is necessary to focus on the socialist aspect of National Socialism, if only as a way of advancing beyond the usual projections of blame . . . ." Hitler after all promised . . .
ready for this? "a socially just state." Shades of Occasional Cortex.
While the Nazis fought the most expensive war in world history, "the majority of the Germans bore virtually none of the costs." Quite the contrary, German programs of occupation were designed to plunder, whose "cascade of riches and personal advantages . . . led the majority of the population to feel that the regime had their best interests at heart." Aly shows how everyday people acted on ordinary calculations of self-interest to become cimplicit in the government program of genocide.
Aly also shows that National Socialism was a YOUNG movement (Heydrich 28, Speer 27, Goebbels 35, Eichmann 26, Mengele 21, Himmlier and Frank both 32.) "Nazism was a natural extension of the youth movement," a 'dictatorship of youth" which "developed into the most destructive generational project of the twentieth century." The author also quotes extensively from prominent Nazis and their socialist impulses (Eichmann: "My political sentiments inclined toward the LEFT and emphasized socialist aspects every bit as much as nationalist ones.") Eichmann went on to say that Nazism and Communism were "quasi-siblings." Before Hitler demonized the USSR, prominent Nazis had been praising the industrial achievements of Stalin.
Aly makes the interesting observation that precisely because the German public believed the Reich was working for them, not nearly as much of a police state was needed as often thought. For example, East Germany would later employ 190,000 official spies and an equal number of "unofficial collaborators" to watch over 17 million; the Gestapo in 1937 had about 7,000 employees including staff watching over 60 million.
The "Nazi miracle," Aly notes, was "largely an illusion. Total wages paid dropped from 1928 levels by 9m reichsmarks in 1935. But Hitler spent 45m reichsmarks between 1933 and 1939 on the military, financed almost entirely by borrowing. The Nazi regime required the constant military destabilization of the periphery in order to maintain the illusion of financial stability at the center of the Reich." But by 1938, one of the top financial experts bluntly told Hitler that they would run out of money in a month. Germany's financial situation got worse by the day.
Already a massive confiscation of Jewish wealth was under way through taxes, special taxes, elimination of all Jewish savings in anything except German bonds, confiscation of all Jewish-owned works of art, jewelry, or other assets, all of which were sold immediately with all money going back to the Reich. These and other "atonement" payments increased the German treasury by 6% but Aly's calculations show that ultimately a whopping 9% of ALL Germany's budget came from the Jews. Bank directors acted as illicit intermediaries, "fencing stolen goods by turning them into available cash" for the Reich.
At the same time that the Third Reich began to conquer and shift the burden of paying for the war onto the territories, Hitler resisted all requests to raise taxes at all on ordinary Germans. There were some "soak-the-rich" taxes on the richest Germans---which suited the middle class and poorer Germans just fine and convinced them even more that Hitler was their friend. EVEN TOWARD THE VERY END OF THE WAR HITLER REFUSED TO ALLOW HIGHER TAXES ON THE GERMAN PEOPLE. As Hitler repeatedly said, "the costs of occupying a given area are to be borne by the area itself."
Meanwhile, "Supplemental benefit payments for rent, insurance, coal, potatoes and other daily needs were paid out with minimal bureaucratic delay." The state offered household assistance to families with large numbers of children and added supplements for dental bills and children's education costs.
Aly dedicates more than two chapters to analyzing the lives of ordinary Germans, who were suddenly thriving with "lightbulbs, children's toys, bed and table linens, furniture, and household effects" all seized from the Jews and/or captured peoples. Soldiers were allowed to bring massive amounts of plunder back home with no questions asked. Jews' apartments and houses were immediately made available for occupation by Germans.The Wehrmacht instituted a rotation policy from the East Front to France where soldiers participated in the looting.
One technique used to plunder France, Holland, and other countries was the introduction of a new money system only in the occupied territories. All exchanges had to be made in new "RKK certificates" which were convertible into francs but not reichsmarks. This eliminated the need for massive amounts of IOUs and requisitions and kept inflation in the occupied country. (In all the occupied countries, inflation soared while it remained under control in Germany itself).
Aly points out one last item, which is ominous given the US's recent difficulty with passing actual budgets: in 1935, Hitler prohibited the publication of the budget---because by then he was borrowing extremely heavily and already was seeing the necessity of conquest to keep the German economy afloat.
This gave rise to a predictable problem: "However vast the amounts of loot and the size of territories annexed, the revenues derived fell short of expectations. The Nazi state could never develop and cultivate what it had conquered." At the same time, slowly Hitler convinced the German people that a change in direction was impossible, and that with all aligned against them, it was literally victory or death.
And this is Aly's final key point: "The Nazi leadership did NOT transform the majority of Germans into ideological fanatics who were convinced they were part of the master race. Instead it succeeded in making them well-fed parasites. Average Germans became "unscrupulous profiteers and passive recipients of bribes . . . . Men from the simplest walks of life suddenly owned things they hadn't known existed a few years previously.
Aly this disagrees with authors such as Daniel Goldhagen, who saw a largely Christian ideological Jew-hatred driving, as he called them, "Hitler's Willing Executioners." Rather, Aly shows that by capturing the "experts" especially in the budgetary and financial areas and forcing them to enact his program, he by extension controlled the ordinary Germans, who saw the Nazis as serving the interests of the people.
Aly's is an eye-opening (if mind-numbingly boring in spots) book that goes further than does Adam Tooze ("The Wages of Destruction") in portraying the German economy as a version of blitzkried itself, always rapidly exporting its failings before they came home to roost in Germany itself. It's a worthwhile read if only for the first 3-4 chapters and the conclusion.
National Socialism was first of all, a SOCIALIST scheme, and every Socialist state, regardless of its genesis, eventually devolves into a military dictatorship and plunders its neighbors to support the cash flow necessary to keep the welfare state afloat. When this plunder is no longer available to them (through military reverses that severely reduces its hegemony), the situation further devolves into civilian chaos and ever-tightening military enforcement upon the populace, until it is utterly defeated.
Exactly what we see in Venezuela today.
Indeed. If you cannot export your problems like Nazi Germany or the USSR could, the socialist country will fold quickly.
What a WAY WAY over the top approach of simplifying the everyday German into a complicit monster.
Anyone here ever starve for LONG periods? Ever now UTTER and DEVASTATING poverty?
The Versailles Treaty is more to blame for WWII than the average German.
Did they turn a blind eye, a LOT of Germans? Likely. And that is horrific.
Would I if I was one day STARVING and not able to FEED MY CHILDREN and then suddenly I could?
I don’t know. I hope to never find out.
Parasites? Sounds like much vitriol with one sides facts and a partial painting of the picture.
The Nazis were MONSTERS, hitler a MONSTER and on down the line.
This article paints a broad brush brush of the average German as parasite and monster
The most simplistic article I have read in a while.
The fruits of Socialism.
“The most simplistic article I have read in a while.”
And it’s pretty much cazzata.
Is Aly Muslim? I’m not familiar with Götz as a first name.
Besides the Socialist connection, the Nazi Party also included the DAP (German Workers Party), which was overwhelmingly blue collar and pro-labor union.
Re: Instead of just railing against his proposition, provide some facts that support your position.
In the first two years after Hitler was elected, he created the first concentration camps and imprisoned about 100,000 regime opponents.
The conditions in those camps were terrifying, and thousands of German citizens died from sickness, brutality, hypothermia, and malnutrition.
Hitler also outright murdered or “legally” executed hundreds more.
Bottom Line - word spread very fast that resisting Hitler meant losing your job, your assets, your health, and possibly your life.
Hitler was considered a laughing stock, a joke and nothing to worry about.
AOC is considered a laughing stock, a joke and nothing to worry about.
Today’s joke is tomorrow’s nightmare!
Hitler was just 25, and still quite immature, when World War One began.
That war, of course, was the most important formative experience of his life.
Interesting that only Goebbels would have met the Founding Fathers’ age requirement to be president...
Well, there is a world of difference between the two. Hitler was a master orator, who had a solid war record and had been awarded an Iron Cross. He had written one published book (didn’t sell very well), and had a second unpublished book.
Dead Eyes is already fading.
Only Goering was pretty old at the time.
No. He is German, perhaps Jewish.
I don’t find the book one bit simplistic. If anything, he over-supports his arguments.
There is no question that the German policies fed the German people at the expense of all others. They willingly took the loot-—for a lot of reasons (feeling they were owed by Versailles, being convinced that the Jewish goods had really been “stolen” from them, etc.)
You might want to read that actual book, since you don’t seem to like my summary of it.
I think this is a gem he mentions, then moves on from.
There is probably a book on this, especially one that would compare these age groups you mention in multiple revolutions.
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