The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy [Paperback]

Adam Tooze (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 26, 2008

An extraordinary mythology has grown up around the Third Reich that hovers over political and moral debate even today. Adam Tooze's controversial new book challenges the conventional economic interpretations of that period to explore how Hitler's surprisingly prescient vision- ultimately hindered by Germany's limited resources and his own racial ideology-was to create a German super-state to dominate Europe and compete with what he saw as America's overwhelming power in a soon-to- be globalized world. The Wages of Destruction is a chilling work of originality and tremendous scholarship that is already setting off debate in Germany and will fundamentally change the way in which history views the Second World War.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Tooze's economic history of the Third Reich is, in a word, monumental. Lately, social and ideological analyses of Hitler's strategic choices have prevailed; in part because of the volume and complexity of available data, even the most economically savvy historians of World War II have generally provided only fragmentary glimpses of the myriad ways in which economics influenced German rearmament and aggression. As Tooze argues, however, the choices made by the Nazi war machine were as economically driven as they were Hitler driven. The author challenges a number of commonly held assumptions, among them the notion that successful rearmament was caused by the Nazi state's job-creation efforts and the idea that Hitler did not intend to start a continental war in attacking Czechoslovakia. Tooze also addresses the relationship between economics and ideology at Auschwitz. The net result, emerging from more than 800 pages of genuinely readable macroeconomic analysis, is an original and comprehensive thesis that couches the strategic choices of the Third Reich firmly within an increasingly American twentieth century. Originally released to broad acclaim in the UK in 2006, Tooze's tome sets a high bar for the historians of the twenty-first century. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"One of the most important and original books to be published about the Third Reich in the past twenty years. A tour de force."
-Niall Ferguson

"Tooze has produced the most striking history of German strategy in the Second World War that we possess. This is an extraordinary achievement, and it places Adam Tooze in a very select company of historians indeed ... Tooze has given us a masterpiece which will be read, and admired; and it will stimulate others for a long time to come."
-Nicholas Stargardt, History Today

"It is among Adam Tooze''s many virtues, in "The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy," that he can write about such matters with authority, explaining the technicalities of bombers and battleships. Hovering over his chronicle are two extraordinary questions: how Germany managed to last as long as it did before the collapse of 1945 and why, under Hitler, it thought it could achieve supremacy at all."
-Norman Stone, The Wall Street Journal

"Virtually every page of his book contains something new and thought-provoking, making the whole an impressive achievement, in which original research has been combined with critical scrutiny of a vast literature that seems ripe for such a re-examination."
-Michael Burleigh, The Sunday Times (London)

"A magnificent demonstration of the explanatory power of economic history."
-The Times (London)

"Masterful . . . Tooze has added his name to the roll call of top-class scholars of Nazism."
-Financial Times

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 848 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (February 26, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143113208
• ISBN-13: 978-0143113201
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #66,735 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

127 of 135 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ground breaking, April 16, 2007

By 

Tom Munro "tomfrombrunswick" (Melbourne, Victoria Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (Hardcover)

What does this book say that is different than what has gone before? Heaps. In recent years it has become clear that Germany lost the second world war because the Soviet Union was able to out produce them in the making of armored vehicles. Britain and the United States were able to produce huge numbers more aircraft. The conclusion has been that Hitler's gamble in invading the Soviet Union was the key behind the loss of the war.

What this book suggests is that Germany had lost the war before it invaded the Soviet union and its success up to 1941 had been a lucky break. The author even suggests that Britain alone had some chance of over time developing a preponderance of military force. It also puts paid to what must be now seen as the myth of Munich. Previously it was thought that Britain and France failed to re-arm in time to fight Hitler effectively. What this book shows is that by 1940 Britain and France had armies that were superior in both numbers and equipment. Their navies were vastly superior to Germany's and their air forces at least equal. When France fell, although Britain lost its field army its air force was equivalent to the German in numbers and quality and its Navy vastly superior to anything the Germans and Italians could put to sea. More over the British were able to out produce the Germans in aircraft even prior to the German invasion of the Soviet Union.

The success of the German armies in 1940 was due to the allied command failing to respond to the German strategy. If the allies had been a bit more aggressive they could have fought it out to at least a draw and Germany did not have the resources to fight anything more than a short war. The idea of blitzkrieg was an invention of allied generals seeking to rationalize their defeat rather than a meaningful analysis of what happened. The French never even fully committed their air force to the struggle and most of it was captured on the ground.

The problem was that although Germany had access to the industrial plant of Northern Italy, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands they were not able to use it to match either the Soviets or the British in war production. The reasons are complex but relate to the patterns of European trade and the success of the European blockade. If we take aircraft for example the French production which flowed to Germany was miniscule. France had access to manufacturing plant and supplies of bauxite but it was not able to produce. The reason was that it used to import coal from Britain for its electricity production. With the British blockade the main source of coal became Germany. However Germany was not able to increase its production sufficiently to overcome the short fall. In addition the amount of food produced in Europe fell. Previously the production of meat and dairy products in countries such as Denmark had been dependant on the import of grain and stock feed from South America. That was not available and the amount of food available for the dairy industry collapsed as did food production. In the rest of Europe food production had been based on the widespread use of chemical fertilizer. Apart from the issues of the blockade huge amounts of the chemicals used for fertilizer production was diverted to the making of explosives. In addition to the fact that French workers were moved on to subsistence rations and there was no power available the country had been dependant on motorized transportation. Again most of its oil imports came from abroad. With the outbreak of the war the only available oil products came from Romania or from synthetic oil made in Germany. This was barely enough for the needs of the armed forces (there was in reality not enough to keep the Italian Navy operational) and France reverted to a pre-petroleum transport economy.

It is this economic background that gave rise to Hitler's decision to invade the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had the natural resources that would enable European industry to out produce Britain and America. Rather than rashly starting a two front war Hitler knew that he could never develop the naval might necessary to conquer Britain simply by the occupation of Western Europe. The conquest of the Soviets was a key step in Hitler's strategy and not irrational. Of course none of the German general staff thought that the Soviets could stand up to an invasion of over 3 million men. However the Soviets were able to do so and then they were better able to marshal their resources so that they could outlast the Germans.

This is a very good book which will force everyone to re-think their attitudes to not only the second world war but the historical run up to it. It is unusual to have a book which is of such significance.

72 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good book, April 23, 2007

By 

Philip Sim (SINGAPORE Singapore) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (Hardcover)

Tom Munro's review has an excellent summary of the arguments in the book, so I shan't add to it.

I would encourage students of the Second World War to buy this book. This is a rare book that looks at the war entirely from the economics perspective, resisting the temptation to discuss military matters as many were wont to do. This results in a remarkably clear picture of the homefront picture.

This is important as it helps to address some of the myths of about the Second World War, especially with regards to the German economic performance vis-a-vis the other economies. These myths gave rise to puzzles that were usually not addressed.

For example, if it were true that the Germans lost because they had a smaller economy than the US, the British Empire and the Soviet Union, and the Germans knew this, then why did they launch a war in the first place, not against one, but all of the great economic powers? This was usually explained unsatisfactorily by the 'irrationality' of the Nazis.

As the author demonstrated, there was logic to the madness. The Nazis operated under a flawed assumption about how economics work, and believed that it was only by having a large economy that Germany could compete - and survive as a great power - against the other great powers, especially the United States. Thus, by this logic, Germany had to expand and conquer to build up its economic strength. The more likely war was to become with the US, the more Germany must throw everything into a 'do-or-die' gamble to grab enough economic resources to survive.

This is not a wholly novel argument, but I have never seen it argued so clearly and backed by so much economic and historical data.

The same could be said for the genocide of the Jews and other peoples by the Nazis. On the surface it seemed nothing but insane cruelty and barbarism. Yet again, Tooze demonstrated that there was logic in the madness, that once again, the Nazis, operating from their flawed picture of the world, chose a perfectly rational solution by their light. As food was one of the most critical items in shortage in the Nazi war economy, and enough must be provided for the German people, then the lesser people must be starved or killed outright. The less worthy would be killed off earlier, while the more able would be worked to death as slave labour. It was a perfectly economical solution in Nazi eyes.

Finally, I found Tooze's examination of "Speer's Miracle" to be absolutely enlightening. I was under the impression that Speer's efforts after the death of Todt helped to economise the German war effort and pushed it towards greater productivity, allowing Germany to survive longer. The author showed that this was not the case, that most of the measures attributed to the productivity increase was put in place before Speer's appointment. What happened was Speer repeated the traditional pattern of Nazi war production, where much resources were at first pump into one area, then another, according to perceived needs of the Nazi leadership. Thus, resources were first flooded into tank production, then withdrawn and poured into U-boat production, then finally, pulled again and put into aircraft production. This resulted in short bursts of great productivity in one arm or the other. But Germany never really became stronger overall, and Speer's Miracle was nothing more than a facade.

To add to this, Tooze launched a devastating indictment against Speer's claim that he did not know about the Nazi genocide and slave labour programmes, pointing out that much of the labour used in Speer's armament programmes came from concentration camps or slave labour camps.

In the end, the greatest strength of his book was the straightforward assembly of many facts and events into a single timeline showed clearly the mad logic that drove the Nazi relentlessly towards war, and then equally inevitably towards brutality and genocide.

66 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant!, November 10, 2006

By 

Andreas Mross (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wages of Destruction The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (Hardcover)

I studied this exact topic (Veimar Germany, the rise of Hitler and then WWII) in high school and have since read extensively on WWII. I would have said I knew most of what there was to know about the subject. Very soon into this book, I realised I was mistaken. "Wages of Destruction" is a real eye opener, and makes for a far more coherent story than you may have seen in TV documentaries or been taught in school.

One thing that bothered me in the usual telling of the WWII story is the motivation behind Germany's aggressive actions, which in the traditional telling of the story begins and ends with "because Hitler was insane". This is a great attempt to look at the 20th century from a German perspective and to explain the strategic logic behind many of Germany's actions during the period; the invasion of France, the treaty with the Soviets, Barbarossa, the concentration camps. All take on a different light when viewed through the lense of grand economic strategy.

The writing is absolutely top notch; fluid and imminently readable. And despite the often dry subject matter, I found I truly couldn't put this book down. There are some dull passages on fiscal policy, and on the personal politics of some of the Nazis, but these often lead on to a hard hitting conclusion.

The author seems a bit too keen to "shatter myths", which grates after a while. Sometimes it felt like you were intruding into a private argument between the author and some other history professor. Struggle on through these passages and you will find a thrilling story.

There are few books I would call essential reading on WWII. This book is one of them. "The Forgotten Soldier" is perhaps another.