The Collapse of the German War Economy, 1944-1945

The Collapse of the German War Economy, 1944-1945
Author: Alfred C. Mierzejewski
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2017-10-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 146963970X

In this book Alfred Mierzejewski describes how the German economy collapsed under Allied bombing in the last year of World War II. He presents a broad-based, original study of German wartime industry and transportation, and of Allied air force planning and intelligence, including the first complete analysis in English of the German National Railway. The German industrial economy was extraordinarily dependent on the timely, adequate distribution of coal by railroad and inland waterway. The German National Railway in particular was the pivot of the finely balanced armaments production and distribution system created by Albert Speer. But Allied strategists did not immediately recognize this. Only in late 1944, when Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Sir Arthur Tedder built a new strategic consensus, was this vital coal/transport nexus severed. The result was the rapid paralysis of the Nazi war economy. Mierzejewski measures the economic consequences of the bombing by considering broad indices such as armaments and coal production, railway performance, and weapons deliveries to the armed forces. In addition, he shows how individual companies in each of Germany's major economic regions fared. By drawing on previously unexamined files of private German manufacturing companies, the Reich Transportation Ministry, and Allied air intelligence agencies, Mierzejewski creates a rare combination of economic analysis and military history that provides new perspectives on the German war economy and Allied air intelligence.

The Wages of Destruction

The Wages of Destruction
Author: Adam Tooze
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 940
Release: 2008-02-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 1101564954

"Masterful . . . [A] painstakingly researched, astonishingly erudite study…Tooze has added his name to the roll call of top-class scholars of Nazism." —Financial Times An extraordinary mythology has grown up around the Third Reich that hovers over political and moral debate even today. Adam Tooze's controversial book challenges the conventional economic interpretations of that period to explore how Hitler's surprisingly prescient vision--ultimately hindered by Germany's limited resources and his own racial ideology--was to create a German super-state to dominate Europe and compete with what he saw as America's overwhelming power in a soon-to- be globalized world. The Wages of Destruction is a chilling work of originality and tremendous scholarship that set off debate in Germany and will fundamentally change the way in which history views the Second World War.

War and Economy in the Third Reich

War and Economy in the Third Reich
Author: R. J. Overy
Publisher: Clarendon Press
Total Pages: 1629
Release: 1995-06-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 0191647373

War and Economy in the Third Reich examines the nature of the German economy in the 1930s and the Second World War. Richard Overy's essays, collected here for the first time with a substantial new introduction, explore the tension between Hitler's vision of an armed economy and the reality of German economic and social life. Often thought-provoking, always informed, War and Economy opens a window on an essential aspect of Hitler's Germany.

The Miracle Years

The Miracle Years
Author: Hanna Schissler
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 510
Release: 2020-12-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 069122255X

Stereotypical descriptions showcase West Germany as an "economic miracle" or cast it in the narrow terms of Cold War politics. Such depictions neglect how material hardship preceded success and how a fascist past and communist sibling complicated the country's image as a bastion of democracy. Even more disappointing, they brush over a rich and variegated cultural history. That history is told here by leading scholars of German history, literature, and film in what is destined to become the volume on postwar West German culture and society. In it, we read about the lives of real people--from German children fathered by black Occupation soldiers to communist activists, from surviving Jews to Turkish "guest" workers, from young hoodlums to middle-class mothers. We learn how they experienced and represented the institutions and social forces that shaped their lives and defined the wider culture. We see how two generations of West Germans came to terms not only with war guilt, division from East Germany, and the Angst of nuclear threat, but also with changing gender relations, the Americanization of popular culture, and the rise of conspicuous consumption. Individually, these essays peer into fascinating, overlooked corners of German life. Together, they tell what it really meant to live in West Germany in the 1950s and 1960s. In addition to the editor, the contributors are Volker R. Berghahn, Frank Biess, Heide Fehrenbach, Michael Geyer, Elizabeth Heineman, Ulrich Herbert, Maria Höhn, Karin Hunn, Kaspar Maase, Richard McCormick, Robert G. Moeller, Lutz Niethammer, Uta G. Poiger, Diethelm Prowe, Frank Stern, Arnold Sywottek, Frank Trommler, Eric D. Weitz, Juliane Wetzel, and Dorothee Wierling.

The Economic Consequences of the War

The Economic Consequences of the War
Author: Tamás Vonyó
Publisher: Cambridge Studies in Economic History: Second Series
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2018-02-22
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1107128439

This exploration of the statistical evidence on Germany's post-war reconstruction sheds new light on the foundations of German economic power.

The Making of the German Post-War Economy

The Making of the German Post-War Economy
Author: Christian L. Glossner
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2010-02-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0857714589

The years following the end of World War II in Germany were a significant period of change and upheaval. This book on the economic reconstruction of post-war West Germany traces the development of economic and socio-political ideas, and their gradual absorption by mainstream politicians, officials and the general public during the period of transition between 1945 and 1949. In the aftermath of World War II, several German think-tanks, political parties and individuals gave impulse to and then shaped the development of a viable socio-political and economic model between the extremes of laissez-faire capitalism and the collectivist planned economy. In their endeavours to bring into effect their particular economic ideas - often diametrically opposed to one another - the parties of left and right stimulated not only academic and political debate, but also public debate about the political and economic reconstruction of occupied post-war Germany. While all the various neo-liberal approaches assigned to the people sovereign and decisive status in the institutional economic order, and recognised the interdependence of politics, economics and the public, one particular school of economic thought outpaced the others in communicating a model of coordinated economic and social policy, namely the Social Market Economy. Christian Glossner here investigates whether or not it was primarily the subtlety of the political campaign for this model that led to its implementation by the then Economic Council and eventual validation by the German electorate. The programmes published by the principal academic and political groups of the time and the practical day-to-day decisions of the first parliament in post-war Germany are analysed with reference to popular preferences. By examining both the formative involvement of German parties in post-war reconstruction and the role of the public during the process of economic liberalisation, this book provides explanations for why the Social Market Economy prevailed as the socio-political and economic model for the Federal Republic of Germany. It will be of interest to scholars of German, economic and twentieth-century history.

The Economic Consequences of the Peace

The Economic Consequences of the Peace
Author: John Maynard Keynes
Publisher: Simon Publications LLC
Total Pages: 312
Release: 1920
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781931541138

John Maynard Keynes, then a rising young economist, participated in the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 as chief representative of the British Treasury and advisor to Prime Minister David Lloyd George. He resigned after desperately trying and failing to reduce the huge demands for reparations being made on Germany. The Economic Consequences of the Peace is Keynes' brilliant and prophetic analysis of the effects that the peace treaty would have both on Germany and, even more fatefully, the world.

The German Economy

The German Economy
Author: Horst Siebert
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2014-04-24
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1400851653

In this book, one of Germany's most influential economists describes his country's economy, the largest in the European Union and the third largest in the world, and analyzes its weaknesses: poor GDP growth performance, high unemployment due to a malfunctioning labor market, and an unsustainable social security system. Horst Siebert spells out the reforms necessary to overcome these shortcomings. Taking a broader view than other recent books on the German economy, he considers Germany's fiscal policy stance, product market regulation, capital market, environmental policy, aging and immigration policies, and its system for human capital formation as well as Germany's role in the European Union, including the euro zone. Germany's system of economic governance emerges as a common theme as Siebert examines why this onetime economic powerhouse is today a faltering giant. He argues that what Germany needs, above all, is a market renaissance; that it must throw off the shackles of its social welfare economy and of its hallmark consensus approach, whereby group-based cooperative decision-making has undermined competition and markets. In doing so he examines both the country's social security system and its labor market, including trade unions. His focus throughout is on Germany's present concerns, foreseeable future problems, and long-term policy issues. The definitive word on the postwar German economy to the present day, The German Economy is essential reading for economists and finance professionals as well as students, researchers, and others interested in modern-day Germany and its place and prospects at the heart of Europe.

Capitalism Against Capitalism

Capitalism Against Capitalism
Author: Michael Albert
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2009-01-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1870332547

Communism has collapsed. Capitalism has rid itself of the competition on which it thrives. But though now victorious, capitalism has become a threat. The future of us all may be shaped by the outcome of the conflict between capitalism as victor and capitalism as threat. Not only in Europe, but also in the US and Japan - and no doubt shortly in the Eastern countries too - the great debate is capitalism versus capitalism. On the one hand is the "neo-American" model based on individual achievement and short-term profits. On the other is the Rhine model practices in Switzerland, Germany, Benelux, Northern Europe and, partly, in Japan. In the Rhine model collective achievement and public concensus are seen as the keys to long-term success. The first is more seductive, the second more effective. These two opposing forms of capitalism are engaged in a war which, like all internal conflicts, involves both secrecy and even hypocrisy. The outcome of this struggle could affect the quality of life on all levels of society. The author of this book aims to provide a synthesis which will force the reader to consider the political and economic issues at stake towards the end of the century.