Low, Dishonest Decade: The Great Powers, Eastern Europe and the Economic Origins of World War II [Paperback]

Paul N. Hehn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 26, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0826417612 | ISBN-13: 978-0826417619

Almost all written histories of the period leading up to World War II stress political, diplomatic, and ideological conflicts. Arguing that previous historians have confused effect for cause and have considered these conflicts without reference to the systemic problems that provoked them. Paul Hehn focuses on the fierce rivalries among the Great Powers in the relentless search for markets during the world depression of the 1930s. These rivalries were exacerbated particularly in southeastern Europe where Germany dominated the economies and trade arenas of its neighbors in a semi-colonial manner. In A Low Dishonest Decade, Hehn surveys the five Major Powers and all the Eastern European countries from the Baltic to Turkey. But he primarily canvases the economic situations in strategic locations like Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia. >

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The worldwide depression at the end of the 1920s exacerbated commercial and diplomatic rivalries as nations attempted to rehabilitate their balances of trade. Fixing on unstable eastern Europe as the focus of the fierce contest for markets, Hehn (The German Struggles Against Yugoslav Guerrillas in World War II) sees economic factors as at least as crucial in the post-Versailles world as military, political and ideological ones. Although this focus downplays the obsession with racist ideology that drove Hitler, Hehn's imperialist theme is compelling. Without other countries' resources, such as oil, iron and copper, the burgeoning German war machine could not function. Further, Hitler had to buy the fealty of the middle classes and the industrial barons. To maintain as much as was possible of the interwar status quo, according to Hehn, the weakened and timid Western powers bargained with, brokered for and bailed out the insatiable Nazi regime, hoping to contain it. If German hegemony to the east created Armageddon with communism, that would postpone the confrontation for predominance elsewhere, and the West could live on the fiction that both the Hitler and Stalin regimes might collapse. Besides, war had its positive side, stimulating depressed economies. Hehn's quotes, sometimes private ones, from shapers of policy, are withering. His analysis targets not only the usual villains but the failures, hypocrisies, greed and venality of England, France and the United States, and powerfully argues for their role in bringing on WWII.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

“A richly detailed study of the trade conflicts sparked by Eastern Europe, particularly the Balkans, in the decade preceding the Second World War.”—German Studies Review

“Written by ‘a child of the era,’ this book is announced as a correction to the two major diplomatic interpretations of the origins of WW II: Gerhard Weinberg’s two-volume Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany, which stresses Nazi ideology and Hitler’s primary responsibility for the outbreak of WW II, and A.J.P. Taylor’s The Origins of the Second World War, which places Hitler and Nazi Germany within a malfunctioning international system. Using earlier studies by Dietmar Petzina, Hans-Jürgen Schroeder, and Timothy W. Mason and his own extensive research in unpublished British, French, German, Italian, Polish, US, and Yugoslav diplomatic records as well as in a wealth of published primary and secondary sources, Hehn argues that the political, ideological, and diplomatic maneuvers that took place during Auden’s ‘low, dishonest decade’ masked a fundamental Anglo-German ‘imperialist’ struggle for raw materials, markets, and military, and economic hegemony in Eastern Europe….The overall result is an ambitious, sprawling study, laced with opinions and statistics that provide a materialist explanation for Hitler’s aggressiveness and Western appeasement in the 1930s.”—Choice (Choice )

“Fixing on Eastern Europe as the focus of the fierce contest for markets, Hehn sees economic factors as at least as crucial in the post-Versailles world as military, political and ideological ones. Although this focus downplays the obsession with racist ideology that drove Hitler, Hehn’s imperialist theme is compelling….Hehn’s quotes, sometimes private ones, are withering. His analysis targets not only the usual villains but the failures, hypocrisies, greed and venality of England, France and the United States, and powerfully argues for their role in bringing on WW II.”—Publishers Weekly (Publishers Weekly )

“Written by ‘a child of the era,’ this book is announced as a correction to the two major diplomatic interpretations of the origins of WW II: Gerhard Weinberg’s two-volume Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany, which stresses Nazi ideology and Hitler’s primary responsibility for the outbreak of WW II, and A.J.P. Taylor’s The Origins of the Second World War, which places Hitler and Nazi Germany within a malfunctioning international system. Using earlier studies by Dietmar Petzina, Hans-Jürgen Schroeder, and Timothy W. Mason and his own extensive research in unpublished British, French, German, Italian, Polish, US, and Yugoslav diplomatic records as well as in a wealth of published primary and secondary sources, Hehn argues that the political, ideological, and diplomatic maneuvers that took place during Auden’s ‘low, dishonest decade’ masked a fundamental Anglo-German ‘imperialist’ struggle for raw materials, markets, and military, and economic hegemony in Eastern Europe….The overall result is an ambitious, sprawling study, laced with opinions and statistics that provide a materialist explanation for Hitler’s aggressiveness and Western appeasement in the 1930s.”—Choice (Choice )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 536 pages
• Publisher: Continuum (September 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826417612
• ISBN-13: 978-0826417619
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #894,089 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From the commanding heights into the abyss, October 18, 2007

By 

M. A. Krul (London, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Low, Dishonest Decade: The Great Powers, Eastern Europe and the Economic Origins of World War II (Paperback)

Paul Hehn's book "A Low Dishonest Decade", referring to a quotation from W.H. Auden, is one of the best books on the origins of World War II to appear in a long time. A necessary corrective to the overly politics and military strategy-centered analysis of popular writers like Overy, Paul Hehn gives an exceedingly expansive and thorough analysis of the economic interests of the classes and their governments in various countries and how these steered mankind into the most destructive war the world has ever seen.

Of course the main question in these books that interests the common reader is the one of blame: how could WWII and the temporary dominance of fascism have been prevented, and why did this not happen? Hehn's economic and statistical analysis gives some strong answers to these questions, without obviously making us forget that we are speaking from hindsight, and that the way to hell is paved with good intentions.

The German drive for expansionism is shown to have been inevitable, given that Hitler had decided to rearm. Since Germany had a permanent shortage of foodstuffs and raw materials as the result of its strong rearmament programme, and due to Versailles sanctions it also lacked the necessary gold and foreign currency to pay for importing it, it had to look abroad for the necessary materials. On the one hand, this was done by annexing Austria and the Czechs, which provided Germany with necessary boosts in reserves and materials during periods of crisis to allow the rearmament to continue a bit longer, and on the other hand, Germany pursued a program of using subsidized trade to make the various Eastern European states dependent on Germany, forcing them into political vassalage from which they could not escape. The failure of Polish attempts to appease the Germans and the Allies as well consequently led to the invasion of that country by Germany in 1939, with Hitler fully believing that British guarantees would once again be broken.

On the British side, the strong interests in Germany of the British upper class and British finance capital consistently kept the government from exercising a strong anti-German policy, which in turn sabotaged every French attempt at creating a strong alliance in the east to ward off German expansionism. The betrayal of the Czechs by British diplomacy was later followed by betraying Romania and Yugoslavia to the Nazis, all done in the name of protecting British trading interests in Germany as well as to prevent France, the USSR, and the US from gaining a foothold on the continent at the expense of British power. The short-sightedness and treasonous self-interest of the British upper class and of British capital is remarkable, and probably, aside from their German counterparts, the main reason all attempts to restrain Hitler's ambitions failed entirely.

Then of course there is the consideration of Germany's own industrial capital, and their interests. Hehn shows very well how the NSDAP was consistently sponsored and financed by German industrial interests, in particular the large companies of IG Farben and Krupp, which had everything to gain from a programme of increased rearmaments and subsequent war. IG Farben's needs for raw materials such as copper and chrome led it to pressure the Nazi government into further expansionism in Eastern Europe, in order to obtain the valuable stores of raw materials there, particularly in Yugoslavia. The German banks were also highly culpable, collaborating in every criminal Nazi undertaking in order to quickly obtain the benefits of plunder of foreign nations, such as taking over the strong banking establishments of Austria and Czechoslovakia. Of course Hitler's 'Lebensraum' ideals played a significant role on their own, but this was not a new concept, and in many ways the German policy of this time was (as AJP Taylor has stressed) a continuation of Wilhelmian imperialist ideals, now made even more criminal by the racist and genocidal elements contained in them.

Paul Hehn has done a masterful job showing how the fusion of various states' economic interests, in reality the interests of their ruling classes, and their political power play led to a nightmarish descent into war and genocide from which none could escape. He goes into much detail about the neocolonial interests in Eastern Europe of the various Great Powers, but also shows how these nations themselves responded to this and what their own socio-economic structures were, such as those of Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. Overall, the French and the Americans seem to come off as least shameful and treasonous from Hehn's analysis (though each had plenty of cowardly and damaging actions on record), whereas the British, with their inclinations towards Germany in the hope of profit and defeating communism, come off particularly poorly.

The main downside of the book is that it is far too long, and highly repetitive after a while. In the introduction, Hehn gratefully notes the Continuum Press representative's statement of "the longer the book is, the better"; but as a reader, I doubt whether that was a good estimation. If the book had been reduced in size by at least one-third, nothing in content would have been lost, and it would have been a lot more pleasant to read. Furthermore, it must be noted that the book expects from the reader a very high prior level of knowledge of the 1930s, as well as a sizable understanding of the economics of international trade, as many names and concepts are used throughout without explanation. A small index of people in the back is some help, but not nearly enough if one hasn't read some histories of this period already (which I fortunately had). Aside from these remarks though, the book is a must-read, and an essential corrective to the overly Nazism-centered histories of WWII.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fine study of the World Wars' capitalist roots, February 8, 2010

By 

William Podmore (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Low, Dishonest Decade: The Great Powers, Eastern Europe and the Economic Origins of World War II (Paperback)

In this detailed and challenging book, Paul Hehn, Professor Emeritus of the State University of New York at Brockport, examines the origins of World War Two. He also studies the origins of the earlier World War.

He shows that World War One had its root causes in capitalism. He cites the Daily Telegraph, which said on 19 August 1914, "This war provides our businessmen with such an opportunity as has never come their way before ... There is no reason why we should not permanently seize for this country a large proportion of Germany's export trade."

As for World War Two, he points out, "Neville Chamberlain undoubtedly wished the Germans to move east into the Soviet Union." "Undoubtedly British and French naïveté and appeasement of Hitler could be explained by the unspoken hope and expectation that he would ultimately turn east and attack the Soviet Union and destroy Communism."

Hehn writes of the "upper class hatred of the Soviet Union on the part of Chamberlain and his friends. This same hatred led them to place class survival over the interests of the country which in the end led to the debacle of World War II. Chamberlain and his friends in the government desired to give Hitler at Munich a `free hand in the east' - and probably before Munich - well into the opening months of 1939 and beyond, even after it became apparent that Hitler's aggressive policy and ambitions placed Great Britain and France in mortal danger." The Non-Aggression Pact thwarted this British state scheme - no wonder they hate the Pact so much!

Hehn sums up that capitalism was to blame for both World Wars: "If one considers that World War I also occurred as a quarrel within capitalism with the United States coming in later as in World War II, the first Great War having caused an estimated 35 million casualties and the Second World War about 55 million, totalling 90 million, then capitalism may be credited with generating one of the greatest slaughters in history. The 20th century was, in all probability, one of the bloodiest in history."

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Low Dishonest Decade, July 14, 2003

By 

Sean Marche - See all my reviews

This review is from: Low, Dishonest Decade: The Great Powers, Eastern Europe, and the Economic Origins of World War II, 1930-1941 (Hardcover)

July 12, 2003
A Low Dishonest Decade
By: Paul N. Hehn

A Low Dishonest Decade is an account of German economic and financial policy and its design upon the diplomatic and political relations that inexorably leads to World War II.
In reading this book, it is assumed the reader has a fairly sophisticated knowledge of pre-war German trade policy, economics, finance, natural resources and the foreign policy positions of both Europe and the United States. Written in chronological format with business style statistics, the author outlines German Third Reich foreign policy actions in direct historical context to the economic and natural resource issues of the pre-war period. And unlike some written accounts of the Third Reich that chronicle revisionist history and unsubstantiated arguments, A Low Dishonest Decade combines economics, strategy and historical events into a very readable documentary. The reader is continually reminded of the precarious financial and natural resource situation facing Germany and this almost desperate and imperative situation advancing Germany's strategic aims prior to the outbreak of military aggression in 1939. Also included is a survey of European countries, diplomatic agreements and the crucial decisions by leaders in world commodity markets as proactive and reactive agents to the realties facing Germany and its future. Along the 405 pages are photos from the Getty archives of important policy leaders, a boundary line map of Hungary from the Library of Congress, and a glossary of key names and diplomatic agreements, the later of which appears to be missing.
Although the primary focus of this book is on markets, economics and finance also included in the typeface is a limited strategy of the German military forces and the political "Mein Kampf" Liebenstraum ideology affecting this transitional period of economic initiative to offensive warfare.


Sean Marche