Nazi Big Business

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer notes that the relatively easy accessibility of sources from the archives of former Nazi organizations or the state bureaucracy has inevitably resulted in a large number of analyses from the perspective of the German government, as long as material from company archives remained difficult to come by. Although a good deal of compromising primary material came to light in connection with the Nuremberg trials, the writer points out that it was only in the 1960s that the archives of some of the major companies involved in the use of forced and slave labor became available, making possible a serious testing of the various studies that had been written on the subject. As important data became more accessible, scholars have been able to approach the problem from the perspective of Germany's industrial elites. In this essay, the writer provides an extensive comparative analysis of several of these works.

From the Paper:

"Published in 1942, Neumann's Behemoth was, arguably the most significant attempt of its day at a scholarly and painstaking analysis of the background, working principles and practices, and state of Nazi Germany. His research led him to reject many of the accepted explanations of both the origin and character of the Nazi ideology and practice. Neumann, a former member of the Berlin bar who was for a time counsel to the German trade unions, came to the conclusion that there was not one ruling class in Germany, but four- the Nazi party, the army, the bureaucracy, and the industrial leaders. The industrial leaders arose with the growth of German capitalism and did not acquire real importance until after the aims of a greater Prussia found fulfillment in the German Empire created by Bismarck."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Aly, Gotz. Final Solution: Nazi Population Policy and the Murder of the European Jews, Edward Arnold Publisher, 1999.
• Borkin, Joseph. The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben, Macmillan, 1979.
• Browning, Christopher. Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers, Cambridge University Press, 2000.
• Burawoy, Michael. The Politics of Production: Factory Regimes Under Capitalism and Socialism, Verso Press, 1985.
• Ferencz, Benjamin B. Less Than Slaves: Jewish Forced Labor and the Quest for Compensation, Harvard University Press, 1979.

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