Building the Nazi Economy
Adam Tooze and a Cultural Critique of Hitler’s Plans for War
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Adam Tooze’s Wages of Destruction argues for the fundamental economic reasoning that brought Hitler and the Nazi elite to the conclusion that war and genocide were the twin means of achieving their ends. But what happens if we introduce culture into this equation, a term of clear importance to Hitler and to many of the individuals Tooze has identified as key to understanding the economic developments, not least of whom was Hitler’s favourite architect, Albert Speer? Culture is a field of activity of relatively little interest to Tooze. Conversely, such comprehensive views of Nazi Germany as Tooze’s that emphasise a deep political and economic analysis have equally been of little interest to cultural historians of the period, with few exceptions. How might Tooze’s fundamental arguments about the economic drive of the state help to explain specific kinds of architectural developments and sharpen a critical art-historical analysis? Conversely, how does the profoundly spatial nature of the implementation of policies he isolates demand an architectural or urban analysis from political and economic historians? By bringing Tooze’s argument to bear on culture, and architecture’s function to bear on Tooze, this article affirms his fundamental conclusions and yet complicates their implications for other disciplinary questions. In both cases, a comprehensive approach to Hitler’s Germany is called for, one that makes a critical intervention particularly in fields of cultural study that have avoided such a broad strategy.
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Allen Michael Thad The Business of Genocide: The ss, Slave Labor, and the Concentration Camps 2002 Chapel Hill University of North Carolina Press
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Benz Wolfgang & Distel Barbara Flossenbürg: Das Konzentrationslager Flossenbürg und seine Außenlager 2007 Munich C.H. Beck
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Cohen Jean-Louis Architecture in Uniform: Designing and Building for the Second World War 2011 New Haven Yale University Press
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Eckhart G. Grohmann Collection Man at Work: 400 Years in Paintings and Bronzes 2008 Milwaukee MSOE Press
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Fiss Karen Grand Illusion: The Third Reich, the Paris Exposition, and the Cultural Seduction of France 2009 Chicago University of Chicago Press
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Fuhrmeister Christian Thamer Hans-Ulrich & Erpel Simone ‘Ikonographie der “Volksgemeinschaft” ’ Hitler und die Deutschen. Volksgemeinschaft und Verbrechen 2010 Dresden Sandstein Verlag
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Georg Enno Die wirtschaftlichen Unternehmungen der ss 1963 Stuttgart Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt
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Ghirardo Diane Yvonne Building New Communities: New Deal America and Fascist Italy 1989 Princeton Princeton University Press
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Gutschow Niels Ordnungswahn: Architekten planen im ‘Eingedeutschten Osten’ 1939–1945 2001 Basel Birkhäuser
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Held Jutta Avant-Garde und Politik in Frankreich: Revolution, Krieg und Faschismus im Blickfeld der Künste 2005 Berlin Reimer
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Hinz Berthold Art in the Third Reich 1979 [1974] New York Pantheon
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Hitler Adolf Mein Kampf 1939 New York Stackpole Sons Publishers
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Jaskot Paul B. The Architecture of Oppression: The ss, Forced Labor and the Nazi Monumental Building Economy 2000 London Routledge
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James-Chakraborty Kathleen Rosenfeld Gavriel & Jaskot Paul B. ‘Inventing Industrial Culture in Essen’ Beyond Berlin: Twelve German Cities Confront the Nazi Past 2008 Ann Arbor The University of Michigan Press
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Kershaw Ian Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution 2009 New Haven Yale University Press
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Miller Lane Barbara Architecture and Politics in Germany, 1918–1945 1968 Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press
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Nerdinger Winfried Bauen im Nationalsozialismus: Bayern 1933–1945 1993 Munich Klinkhardt & Biermann
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Schivelbusch Wolfgang Chase Jefferson Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt’s America, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany, 1933–1939 2006 New York Picador
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Schmidt Matthias Neugroschel Joachim Albert Speer: The End of a Myth 1985 London Harrap Books
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Schulte Jan Erik Zwangsarbeit und Vernichtung: Das Wirtschaftsimperium der ss 2001 Paderborn Ferdinand Schöningh
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Speer Albert ‘Stein statt Eisen’ Der Vierjahresplan 1937 1 3 135 137
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Speer Albert Infiltration: How Heinrich Himmler Schemed to Build an ss Industrial Empire 1981 New York Macmillan Publishing Co.
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Spotts Frederic Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics 2002 London Hutchinson
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1
Hitler 1939, p. 260.
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7
See, for example, Held 2005, as well as the classic text, Hinz 1979.
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8
Tooze 2007, pp. 7–12.
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9
Miller Lane 1968; Zeller 2007. See, also, the discussion of public works (albeit with a more general interest in architecture) in Schivelbusch 2006. Schivelbusch is worth comparing to more systematic analyses of the built environment such as Ghirardo 1989. For context, see also the discussion of public works in Spotts 2002 as well as the discussion of a range of building types in the service of the state in Nerdinger (ed.) 1993.
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10
Tooze 2007, pp. 24–5, 38–49, 54–9, 96–8. This section critiques in particular some of the theses of Richard Overy that have long dominated the field. See Overy 1982.
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16
Speer 1937, pp. 135–7. Given that so few art historians attend to a more detailed understanding of the Nazi economy, this is not surprising. I have used the article myself as a key example concerning materials in my book The Architecture of Oppression: The ss, Forced Labor and the Nazi Monumental Building Economy (Jaskot 2000, pp. 86–7). However, that interpretation warrants reconsideration based on Tooze’s more subtle contextualisation of the steel industry and its strategic implications in these years.
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18
Colonel Thomas, as cited in Tooze 2007, p. 239.
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19
Speer 1937, p. 135.
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20
Speer 1937, p. 136. Ironically or not, Speer’s logic implies that Modernist architectural techniques in particular (given their emphasis on experimentation with industrial materials) would be perfectly acceptable in industrial settings. For a compelling discussion of the variable interpretation of Modernism and industrial form before, during, and after the Nazi period, see James-Chakraborty 2008, pp. 116–39.
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21
Tooze 2007, p. 425, and, more generally, pp. 396–425.
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22
Tooze 2007, pp. 445, 473, 481.
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24
Tooze 2007, pp. 602–11.
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25
Tooze 2007, p. 605.
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26
Tooze 2007, p. 536.
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28
See Jaskot 2000. The first systematic analysis of the ss economic administration (wvha [Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt]) was the classic and still-useful Georg 1963. Georg’s attempt to take the ss production of building materials seriously was an important step that few historians have followed.
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29
Jaskot 2000, especially p. 50.
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31
See, for example, Benz and Distel (eds.) 2007, pp. 36–9.
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34
Jaskot 2000, p. 98.
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Building the Nazi Economy
Adam Tooze and a Cultural Critique of Hitler’s Plans for War
In: Historical MaterialismSearch for other papers by Paul B. Jaskot in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Adam Tooze’s Wages of Destruction argues for the fundamental economic reasoning that brought Hitler and the Nazi elite to the conclusion that war and genocide were the twin means of achieving their ends. But what happens if we introduce culture into this equation, a term of clear importance to Hitler and to many of the individuals Tooze has identified as key to understanding the economic developments, not least of whom was Hitler’s favourite architect, Albert Speer? Culture is a field of activity of relatively little interest to Tooze. Conversely, such comprehensive views of Nazi Germany as Tooze’s that emphasise a deep political and economic analysis have equally been of little interest to cultural historians of the period, with few exceptions. How might Tooze’s fundamental arguments about the economic drive of the state help to explain specific kinds of architectural developments and sharpen a critical art-historical analysis? Conversely, how does the profoundly spatial nature of the implementation of policies he isolates demand an architectural or urban analysis from political and economic historians? By bringing Tooze’s argument to bear on culture, and architecture’s function to bear on Tooze, this article affirms his fundamental conclusions and yet complicates their implications for other disciplinary questions. In both cases, a comprehensive approach to Hitler’s Germany is called for, one that makes a critical intervention particularly in fields of cultural study that have avoided such a broad strategy.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 1422 | 198 | 17 |
| Full Text Views | 528 | 29 | 4 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 639 | 70 | 10 |
