The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy

I first noticed this book when it was discussed on a WWII military history forum. I bought it and put it on my book shelf to read at some future point in time. Recently, a comment in regards to one of my reviews (on amazon.com) said they'd like to see a review of this book. I was apprehensive to tackle such a scholarly done project, ESPECIALLY since I know next to nothing about economics. I was told to simply begin when the author starts talking about WWII, somewhere past page 400, more than half way through the book. I thought I'd try to read it cover to cover...well, I was fooling myself. A lot of this stuff I will not remember the next day, hell, probably not the next hour. I skimmed through perhaps 10-20% of the book, but as I was skimming the book I kept coming up on small gems and nuggets of information which put things into a better perspective and context.

I cannot do a review of this book in any type of 'traditional' manner, I can only manage a small list of facts, ideas, theories, etc that I found interesting and enlightening. To begin with; the author made an excellent point in the fact that Jewish longing for leaving Germany was being affected by Germany not letting them take much currency with them, this turns out to have been due, to a large degree, to the fact that such a loss for the German currency market would prove a horror for the German economy. This is an aspect of this event I had never thought of, undoubtedly, because I am not an economist but also because no one ever thought of mentioning it. Of course this will not take away from the rampant anti-semitism and perhaps did in fact see an easy way to make money by making Jewish refugees leave practically all of their belongings behind. In either case, this is simply another fact which is worth knowing about.

In regards to WWII; you will regularly hear people mention how the Third Reich was in control of the majority of Europe yet still could not match the production numbers of a Soviet Union, for example, which was down in population, land, and factories after the German invasion of the USSR. Well, it appears that France, for example, depended highly on resources that they were receiving from England and other overseas countries, without it their economy couldn't function to its fullest. Germany, apparently, was hardly being able to keep up to their own needs of raw materials for their highly expanding industry, having another country, or half dozen countries, in need of the same raw materials became more of a hindrance to the German war effort. France and Poland helped by supplying workers when more and more Germans were needed for the armed forces, but many times these foreign workers would not be up to German worker 'quality.'

I greatly appreciate the author going into details regarding Germany's invasion of France. Manstein's plan was nothing out of the ordinary, as the author points out, in concentrating an enormous amount of man and machine power into a section of the front the enemy doesn't consider worth its time is not something that has never been done in the history of warfare. In fact it would not have been done if not for some of the earlier plans falling into enemy hands! The same is true for the attack against the Soviet Union, concentrating the largest invasion force the world has ever seen, and operationally achieving enormous advantages in the breakthrough sectors is what pushed Germany through to her victories in 1941. The Soviets did the same in the latter part of the war, but today they're known as "Red Army hordes" while the Germans are lauded for the military prowess and finesse. As for the war in North Africa it was a sideshow, Rommel's running back and forth with a force he could hardly coordinate or provide logistics for was a thorn in the allies' side and both sides, during the invasion of France and North Africa, used propaganda to highlight Germany's military abilities. The Germans Wehrmacht's military capabilities were played up while the allies could cling to a reason for some of the most spectacular defeats they'd suffer during WWII.

It should also be mentioned that, contrary to popular belief, Germany employed a tremendous amount of females throughout their industries, heavily in agriculture. Thus the idea that if they would have only used more women they would have had an easier time is a myth. Added to this should be the fact that due to Nazi Racial policies MILLIONS of workers, mainly Jews and Russian POWs, were lost to murder, genocide, mass starvation, disease, etc throughout the first few years of the war. It was only when there was a tremendous enough need for more workers did these two groups, as two examples, begin to be used more in the German wartime economy.

General PlanOst is well known, but here it is presented, as well as its history, with excellent detail. It was quite interesting to see how during the war the Wehrmacht was cut off from its food supplies coming in from the Reich and made to live off the land, as if what they were doing there for the past 1-2 years wasn't enough, now they would be taking away whatever food they found from an already poverty ridden and starving population. The General Government was then made to send Germany food supplies, up till then they had relied on food FROM Germany to keep the population on rations. Suffice to say, all of these measures led to massive starvation, not something that concerned the German administration as long as their troops and Germany proper were/was fed.

The 'myth' of Speer was interesting to skim through, I'm not that familiar with this particular 'myth' so I didn't want to go into SO much detail, but according to the author the 'miracle' he was responsible for was a long time coming, he simply arrived at the right time and at the right place. Milch was also a man one should pay attention to as, apparently, he was the one responsible for the Luftwaffe's tremendous numbers, rather than Speer.

These are only a few examples of the information you'll find within the pages of this tremendous work. Definitely a new look at the war, a new context for what you might think you knew is presented, very much worth your time (even if you skim through the first few chapters like I did!).

long-overdue new history of a fascinating topic. (9/11 people found this helpful)

It was Watergate that taught us to Follow The Money. Strangely, few people have done this with the Nazi regime. Although the Third Reich was a major military power by 1939, all the guns, bombs and planes had to be paid for and just because it was a murderous dictatorship, this did not mean that it didn't have to follow a fiscal policy. For instance did you know that Germany stayed on the Gold Standard longer than the USA?

Adam Tooze has authored (I believe) the first major work on the Nazi economy since Alan Millward's of the 1960s/70s. He opposes Millward's thesis of the 'Blitzkreig' economy, geared to fight short continental wars and instead shows an economic policy that lurched from crisis to crisis, that was subverted to one man's wish to dominate the world.

Hitler started rearming Germany from the first day he took office and Tooze shows the remarkable feat that took place in such a short time. Germany, for all its ideology and violence, remained a capitalist economy and apparently the rate at which it rearmed was unprecendented. It is this sheer quantity of armaments that secured victories up to 1941.

Of course all the effort was doomed. Tooze demonstrates that all Hitler did was to start a global arms race. He also shows that Germany was constrained in how much it could rearm by critical shortages of material and workers. Although Germany started first, it would have been overtaken by Britain, France, USA and USSR by the mid-forties. Thus Hitler had no choice but to start his war in 1939. If he had delayed by even a year, then it would have taken less time to defeat him..

Tooze also shows, as have many others, that Albert Speer should have been hanged at Nuremburg. A rising star throughout the existence of the Third Reich, Speer wielded almost supreme economic power towards the end. However this power was build on the broken bodies of millions of slaves. He appears essentially to have been Europe's biggest slavemaster. Although Himmler may have been responsible for the violence and the death, it was to maximise Speer's production figures that it was all done in the first place.

This is a economic history first and foremost, but Tooze also revises the conventional view of the fall of France in 1940. Rather then being a masterstroke of strategic design and the application of the Blitzkreig, he demonstrates that it was a simple application of sheer weight of numbers. The Wehrmacht had no reserves and other sectors of the front were stripped to the bone to make up the numbers.

For me, a curious omission was the 'Bomber B' saga. Although Germany's failure to produce a strategic bomber is touched on with reference to the Heinkel 177, Tooze could have explored in greater detail the Luftwaffe's efforts to build a rival to the Lancaster and how they completely failed to do so during the 12-year life of the Third Reich.

Also it would have been useful to have a comparative study of the economic effort needed to produce the V1 and V2 compared to the Lancaster et al versus the impact these weapons had. Apparently more people died building the V2 than were killed when it landed on its targets.

Tooze does however validate the Area Bombing policy advocated by Harris and shows that if it had not had shifting priorities then it may have ended the war sooner. A demonstration of this is that by 1944/45, the Rhine and Ruhr were the cleanest it had been for decades as there was no industry there to pollute them. Since these still remained behind the lines then credit must be due to the aerial campaign.

A minor critique is that the book takes no prisoners on the economics front. You need to have a basic grounding in capital flows and foreign exchange to be able to follow some of the intricacies. Perhaps Tooze could be persuaded to include a brief guide in the second edition of what is sure to be a very popular book.

Well written and thought-provoking (30/36 people found this helpful)

An excellent read and a salutary reminder for people who, like myself, tend to focus on the political and military aspects of WW II, that there were other powerful forces at work as well. Tooze clearly shows that even absolute dictatorships just can't afford to neglect the balance of payments.
He argues, convincingly, that Speer's "armaments miracle" wasn't much of a miracle after all, but to illustrate the point he seems to overstate the achievements of the German arms producers in the first three years of the war somewhat. For instance, it may be, as he states, that the number of "combat-worthy medium tanks" doubled from May 1940 to June 1941 (page 433), but this was an increase from a very small base (not much more than a thousand). Moreover, many of these tanks were Czech, and rather than being 36- and 38-ton tanks as Tooze states, they were in the 10-ton class, and clearly unsuited for the medium tank function they were expected to fulfill. The fact that the Germans were forced to keep the Czech TNHP tank, which did not have one single part in common with German tanks, in production (as the Pzkpfw. 38t) to make up the numbers already says a lot about the relative impotence of the German tank industry at that time. Medium tank production in June 1941, the month the Soviet Union was invaded, was 38 Mark IVs and 133 Mark IIIs (plus 65 Czech 38ts), decidedly unimpressive compared to US tank production, which starting from scratch reached one thousand per month in little over a year, or compared to Soviet tank production which soon reached comparable levels under unimaginably difficult conditions. Even taking into account reduced steel quotas for the army and other constraints, there still seems to be something of an "armaments mystery" for the first half of the war, even if there was no real "miracle" in the second half.

Wow (52/66 people found this helpful)

Unbelievably good.

A major revision of what we know of the history of Nazi Germany. Tooze shows how Hitler correctly guessed that the USA and the USSR would dominate Europe, and leave Germany (a second tier and second rate economy, well behind Britain) behind - and that Germany had until 1942 at the latest before Allied rearmament would have made grabs for Lebensraum suicidal. To fix its real economic weakneses, Germany had the choice of becoming a liberal capitalist stae, or the totalitarain war machine it in fact became. However, Germany could never win, as its command economy (necessarily - Mises was right) always produced materiel that was inferior to that produced by (essentially) the US (but also the UK - as Ferguson points out in the War of the World, most Soviet materiel was supplied by the US).

Tooze also shows that Speer was a war criminal and slave lord who should have been hanged at Nuremberg (instead of pulling the wool over our eyes), and the murderous intersection between anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism and anti-modernity that culminated in Nazi Germany.

It is rare to find someone who writes sufficiently well to make descriptions of Schacht's manipulation of current account deficits interesting.

If you read one history book this year, this must be it.

The definitive masterpiece book on the Nazi Economy. (54/61 people found this helpful)

Adam Tooze has written the definitive masterpiece book on the Nazi economy. Throughout he demonstrates the inter relationship between ideology,impending events, and how the Nazi economy functioned and reacted to those events. His thought provoking detail on Albert Speer casts new light on the man. His analysis of the Allied bombing campaign both of area bombing and strategic bombing shows how the western allies progressively pulverised Germany to the point of eventual defeat. A fantastic book, highly recommended.

The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy

Adam Tooze

Reader Reviews:

Great account of the Third Reich's economic practices (0/0 people found this helpful)

long-overdue new history of a fascinating topic. (9/11 people found this helpful)

Well written and thought-provoking (30/36 people found this helpful)

Wow (52/66 people found this helpful)

The definitive masterpiece book on the Nazi Economy. (54/61 people found this helpful)

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