by Gotz Aly
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Product Description
A “provocative” account of great “intellectual significance,” illuminating the economic workings of the Third Reich—and the reasons ordinary Germans supported the Nazi state (The New York Times Book Review) In this groundbreaking book, historian Götz Aly addresses one of modern history’s greatest conundrums: How did Hitler win the allegiance of ordinary Germans? The answer is as shocking as it is persuasive: by engaging in a campaign of theft on an almost unimaginable scale—and by channeling the proceeds into generous social programs—Hitler literally “bought” his people’s consent.
Drawing on secret files and financial records, Aly shows that while Jews and citizens of occupied lands suffered crippling taxation, mass looting, enslavement, and destruction, most Germans enjoyed an improved standard of living. Buoyed by millions of packages soldiers sent from the front, Germans also benefited from the systematic plunder of Jewish possessions. Any qualms were swept away by waves of tax breaks and government handouts.
Hitler’s Beneficiaries has been hailed as “startling” by Richard Evans, and as “fascinating and important” by Christopher Browning. Above all, as Omer Bartov testifies, this remarkable book “irreversibly transforms our understanding of the Third Reich.”
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Average Customer Review:
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
 The Political Economy of Hitler (and Stalin), 2008-05-18
Two aspects of Nazism are well known: the war and the holocaust. Here we see a third angle: the economic angle. Critics of this book say that it overlooks the racist and ideological components of Nazism. But these are things that we already know about. Part of Nazi popularity among Germans was due to their perceived economic success. Hitler was credited for ending the depression in Germany, and he maintained German consumption during much of the war.
Here we see some of the reasons why Nazi economic success was more smoke and mirrors that reality. The Nazis carried out massive transfers from non Germans to Germans. There is a parallel to be dawn between Hitler and Stalin too. From 1928-1940 Stalin increased the consumption of many urban dwelling Soviet citizens, while Ukrainians starved. Clever dictators will transfer wealth for political purposes.
Hitler's Beneficiaries is a good example of the ruthless nature of politics in dictatorial socialism. Such dictatorships are not evil simply because the wrong men got into power. Such systems are evil out of political necessity. Read this book along with The Wages of Destruction and the Road to Serfdom.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
 Hitler's Beneficiaries, 2008-04-05
I have read hundreds of WWII books but never one like this that showed how Germany financed their war efforts through making the conquered countries pay for Germany's army stationed in their country and with the conquered country's currency so as not to inflate Germany's currency. There was no drain on Germany's finances since each conquered country paid for their own conquest so that the German army in each conquered country was self sufficient. Also, how German troops sent millions of packages home from conquered countries with items short in supply in Germany, increasing the average German's standard of living. Very interesting book--highly recommended. Read this book and you will understand why the average German citizen was totally behind the Nazi government and willing to back Hitler and praise him.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
A Different Perspective on Nazi Germany, 2008-03-24
Recently, several new studies have emerged on Nazi Germany and the second war which disregard the military aspects of the conflict, and instead enrich our understanding by focusing upon the economic dimensions of the Hitler regime. One such book is Adam Tooze's "Wages of Destruction"; this is a second example. The author's thesis is articulated in the book's subtitle: "Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State." What does the author mean by the term "Nazi Welfare State"?; I have not seen that one before.
For Gotz Aly, the Nazis recognized the chaos and near successful Communist/Socialist revolution (Rosa Luxemberg and the Spartakists) that Germany experienced in the final stages of WWI and briefly thereafter, when for example Berlin looked like a scene from "All Quiet on the Western Front." The German civil population had suffered mightily during the war, coming close to starvation due to the allied blockade. As a result, the Nazi leadership determined that it would do everything possible to keep the civilian population happy and contented during the second war: low taxes; plenty of food; replacement of apartments and their contents lost due to allied bombing; and lots of financial goodies. The only problem with this tactic was how to finance it all. The answer was easy for the leadership--steal literally everything of value from Jews in Germany, captured areas, and even those resident in allies like Italy. In addition, force captured nations to subjugate their economies in order to make payments to Germany, as well as willingly allow their own consumer goods to be gobbled up by German soldiers who paid with makeshift currency that only led to inflation and near disaster for these economies, and wreaked privation upon civil populations.
So, in short, for the author the German population was not cowed into submission by fear of the Nazi tyranny--rather it was bribed with the proceeds of what can only be described as plundering theft on an enormous scale, implemented by a well organized bureaucracy dedicated to that purpose. This outstanding study documents this process in minute detail--in fact, it is easy to get lost in hundreds of pages of economic data and explanation, so skimming (unless you are a specialist in this area) becomes essential. The key point is that it is all here, in as much detail as the reader can absorb, and it is not a pretty picture. The book reminds us that it takes more to understand military conflict and the oppression of a segment of the population than to study guns and tanks--as usual, the best advice is to "follow the money."
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Interesting premise, 2008-02-27
An interesting premise and a provocative approach. More an indictment of socialism and the people than of Hitler and his henchmen - "I was just giving the people what they wanted ..."
I'd love to see this topic debated.
Jim Hoerricks
Author - Forensic Photoshop
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
Hitler's Satisfied Thieves: Actually, the Case for Nazi German Larceny-and-Genocide Policies can be Made Stronger, 2007-08-19
German author Gotz (Goetz) Aly describes National Socialism as a form of populist wealth-redistribution welfare-state socialism. One-third of German taxpayers paid more than two-thirds of the tax burdens of war (p. 293), and businesses were heavily taxed (pp. 60-68). Hitler favored social equality for all Germans (p. 300), and worked to correct social inequities, notably in education (p. 322).
Pointedly, National Socialism massively transferred wealth from non-Germans to Germans: "In terms of wartime revenues, internal and external, low- and middle-income Germans, who together with their families numbered some 60 million, accounted for no more than 10 percent of the total sum. More affluent Germans bore 20 percent of the burden, while foreigners, forced laborers, and Jews were compelled to cover 70 percent of the funds consumed every day by Germany during the war." (p. 292). Consequently: "On average, the vast and not particularly affluent majority of Germans enjoyed more disposable income during the war that they had before it." (p. 293). Nazism also appealed to those opposed to traditional moral conventions, and to those inclined towards anticlericalism and anti-elitism (p. 319).
Not surprisingly, once voted into power by the German people, Hitler never needed draconian methods to maintain power until the end. Nearly 90% of the German dissenters executed lost their lives after 1941 (pp. 303-304). Unlike Communism, Nazism never demanded absolute devotion (pp. 23-24). In 1937, merely 7,000 Gestapo employees sufficed to handle 60 million Germans, while, in later East Germany, 190,000 surveillance experts controlled 17 million people (p. 29).
Jews weren't the only victims of larcenous Nazi policies--far from it: "This land of milk and honey in Eastern Europe was to be conquered not for the benefit of landed Prussian Junkers and powerful industrialists but to provide ordinary people with a real-world utopia." (p. 31).
Aly breaks new ground by showing that virtually ALL sectors of German society were involved in the expropriation of conquered peoples' wealth. German soldiers not only sent a considerable amount of looted goods back home (p. 178), but were encouraged to do so (p. 311). Later-writer Heinrich Boll (Boell) wrote much about this (p. 110, etc.). Not mentioned is the fact that, in German-occupied Poland, any German could enter a Polish or Jewish shop at any time and take anything at will without paying.
Poles targeted by the Germans for deportation, imprisonment, or execution immediately lost all their properties to the Reich (p. 197, 236). The 8-12 million forced laborers in the Reich, most of whom were Eastern Europeans, toiled under inhumane conditions. They were paid a wage in order to forestall resistance back home, but then the earnings were recouped by the Germans in various creative ways (pp. 156-157).
German-occupied Poland actually had to pay Germany for being occupied (pp. 76-77) "...with the result that the local population endured acute shortages of grain, potatoes, meat, and other necessities." (p. 77), leading to famine (p. 170). (This enables the reader understand why some Poles didn't aid fugitive Jews and why Poles sometimes betrayed or killed Jews known or suspected of stealing from them). Polish guerilla resistance eventually forced the Germans to slightly reduce the harshness of their exploitation of Poland (p. 160).
The Wehrmacht invaded Russia under orders to live off the land, placing 21.2 million Soviet citizens in starvation mode (p. 178). Additionally, millions of Soviet POWs were starved to death by the Germans (p. 175). Aly touches on the eventual Nazi extermination plans against Slavs: "...the most extreme proposal envisioned forcibly relocating 50 million Slavs to Siberia. (For years, the German Research Foundation also supported the development of technocratic plans for the slaughter of millions of people. Funds for research in this area were still allocated in the Nazis' final budget for the fiscal year 1945-46)." (p. 30). Yet the term "relocation" had itself already become a euphemism for extermination.
One Holocaust myth would have us believe that the destruction of Jews had been so uniquely irrational that the Germans would rather sacrifice themselves than leave Jews alive. In actuality, the deportation of the Jews from the island of Rhodes never did challenge the Wehrmacht's transport needs (p. 268), and there wasn't even talk of German retreat at the time of the Rhodes Jews' deportation (pp. 269-270). Once it did occur, the Rhodes Jews' deportation was itself governed by economic considerations (p. 273).
The case for Aly's premise that the Holocaust can't be properly understood without the larceny behind it (p. 285) can be strengthened (see: INTO THAT DARKNESS). Treblinka Kommandant Franz Stangl rejected the presumed Nazi obsession with killing all Jews, citing the creation of "honorary Aryans". Stangl asserted that the Holocaust was actually motivated by financial gain. When confronted with the obvious fact that most Jews weren't wealthy, Stangl retorted with the comment that almost every Jew had some worthy possession that could be confiscated--and that the booty added up.
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