The Total War Economy of the Third Reich
My Chicago Boyz fellow blogger, Dan from Madison, posted up on an important book – an economic history of Nazi Germany during WWII by Adam Tooze entitled The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy
“Book Review – The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy”
….I have just finished up a book by Adam Tooze called The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy
This book is simply outstanding. The beginning portions in particular are very dense and will require a basic understanding of economics to comprehend. I had to re-read several portions, especially in the first two hundred pages. Carl, who recommended the book to me, is an expert in economics and admitted to me that he even had to re-
Too many times students of WW2 like myself tend to think of things happening in a vacuum. As an example, I knew that the Germans stormed across Europe in 1939 and 1940, but gave very little thought that this massive army didn’t just “appear”. The German economy had to be managed very effectively for them to be competitive on the world stage.
It was fascinating how the German economic minds managed their production in the thirties, all the while trying to escape from under their war reparations. In detail it is discussed how these minds bashed each other on how to manage their currency, trade, and raw materials.
Also interesting are many predictions by those close in Hitler’s circle of people that once the US got into the war on the side of the Allies all was lost. Germany simply could not produce enough of everything for long enough. After reading this book I can say with relative certainty that even if D-Day had failed, eventually the Allies would have prevailed, simply from the numbers involved. Not to mention Berlin would have been nuked, but that is certainly grist for another post.
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