How WW2 was financed by the Nazis

Discussion in 'The Third Reich' started by Lindele, Mar 23, 2018.

  1. Lindele

    Lindele formerly HA96

    There is an in teresting book by Juergen Kilian )historian) on the market. As far a.s I found out today, German only. Title: Krieg auf Kosten anderer
    The author researched thousends of documents from the Ministry of Finance. Most of the ocupied countries "contributed" to the war costs.

    I have contacted the author to see what he is planning about an English version.

    Stefan.
     
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2018
  2. kopite

    kopite Member

    You might also want to check out “The Wages Of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy” by Adam Tooze.
     
  3. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    And this for instance: Edit - I don't think the link (below) will work - unless you use "cut-n-paste" with -

    the text - #The_"People's_Car" after the broken "bit"

    Strength Through Joy - Wikipedia

    i.e. Snapped Link - Strength Through Joy - Wikipedia"People's_Car"

    So to quote...

    The "People's Car"
    The KdF's most ambitious programme for German workers was set up for production of an affordable car, the "KdF-Wagen", which later became the Volkswagen Beetle. ("Volkswagen" being German for "People's Car") This was originally a project undertaken at Hitler's request by the car-maker Ferdinand Porsche. When the German car industry was unable to meet Hitler's demand that the Volkswagen be sold at 1,000 Reichsmarks or less, the project was taken over by the German Labour Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront, DAF). Now working for the DAF, Porsche built a new Volkswagen factory at Fallersleben, at a huge cost which was partly met by raiding the DAF's accumulated assets and misappropriating the dues paid by DAF members. The Volkswagen was sold to German workers on an installment plan where buyers of the car made payments and posted stamps in a stamp-savings book, which when full, would be redeemed for the car. Due to the shift of wartime production, no private citizen ever received a "Kdf-Wagen" (although after the war, Volkswagen did give some customers a 200 DM discount for their stamp-books). The Beetle factory was primarily converted to produce the Kübelwagen (the German equivalent of the jeep). The few Beetles that were produced went to the diplomatic corps and military officials.
     
    Last edited: Mar 24, 2018
  4. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    The other night looking at old documentary on the KdF Peoples Car,it confirms as above.The actual cost was 997 Reichmarks with the saving 1 Reichmark per week required by the German worker....it would have been a long wait for a car.

    Apparently Porsche won a competition to contract for supplying the car....not surprising Porsche was a favourite of Hitler who drew him also into tank design where he was responsible for some of the advanced tank design turrets.

    The financial bedrock of the emerging NSDAP to totalitarian power was provided by German industrialists.Hitler never interfered with business and the sector soon profited from this policy.The conduit for Hitler's financial support from business was Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, an economics expert who paved the way to German rearmament.He was enthralled by Hitler and supported him against the Weimar Republic despite declaring"I'm no National Socialist"

    Schacht was the Minister of Economics 1934 until 1937 and President of the Reichsbank 1933-1937.When he realised that Hitler was on the path to war he resigned from his posts and later turned to resistance but never compromised his being.Hitler used him as a Minister without Portfolio during 1937-1943 and then renamed him as President of the Reichbank in early 1938.

    He fell foul of the regime after the July 1944 plot and was arrested for on suspicion of conspiracy and spent the rest of war in concentration camps.... acquitted at Nuremberg,he was found to have the highest IQ of the defendants before the tribunal.The denazification process resulted in a sentence of 8 years imprisonment as a main offender but after a series of processing and appeals he was freed finally on the fifth time in September 1950.
     
    TriciaF and Ramiles like this.
  5. steelers708

    steelers708 Junior Member

    Harry, Porsche didn't design turrets, they were responsible only for the chassis.
     
  6. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    I'm quite sure where I have read where Hitler invited Porsche to get involved with advanced tank turret design which proved to be a failure.

    I'll have to find a reference by looking through what I have but this reference gives a good insight.As I said Porsche was a favourite of Hitler's and that is why work was put his way.

    PORSCHE AND HENSCHEL TURRETS? - The Tiger Collection

    As an aside, alliances played their part after the war for after release from prison in 1956,the Porsche company soon found employment for the former SS Panzer commander,Jochen Peiper as sales manager.
     
    Last edited: Mar 28, 2018
  7. steelers708

    steelers708 Junior Member

    The so called 'Porsche' turret is the post war model makers curse as it was they who initially started calling it that.. Porsche had nothing whatsover to do with the Tiger II turret, both the 'Initialen-turm' and the 'Serien-turm' were both designed by Krupp and assmbled by Wegmann, Porsche was only responsible for the chassis, as he was with the Tiger I chassis he designed, but wasn't accepted for the contract. Krupp designed most of the turrets for German tanks from the Pzkpfw I onwards, the only exception being the Panther's turret which was designed by Rheinmettal.
     
  8. Tolbooth

    Tolbooth Patron Patron

    Agreed, Tooze's book is excellent. Some other good titles re: relationship of the Nazis and German industry:

    "Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State" Gotz Aly, 2016
    "The Crime and punishment of IG Farben" Jospeh Borking, 1979
    "Industry and politics in the Third Reich" JR Gillingham, 1985
    "Industry and Ideology: IG Farben in the Nazi era" Peter Hayes, 2001
    "Hell's cartel: IG Farben and the making of Hitler's war machine" Diarmuid Jeffreys, 2008
    "Hitler's Secret Bankers: How Switzerland profited from Nazi genocide" Adam LeBor, 1999
    "The Arms of Krupp" William Manchester, 1964
    "Who financed Hitler?: The Secret Funding of Hitler's Rise to Power, 1919-1933" James Pool, 1978

    The IG Farben chemical company is a particular interest of mine - sparked by having read that rather strange but interesting book "Gravity's Rainbow" by Thomas Pynchon. It's set in 1944 Europe and involving (in no particular order) SOE, the V2 rocket, a group of German/African rocket technicians, an octupus called Grigori and an "erotic" plastic called Imipolex G developed by IG Farben
     
    TriciaF likes this.
  9. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

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