Description
Book SynopsisHow did the Nazis put Germany back to work? Was the recovery genuine? If so, how and why was it so much more successful than that of other industrialized nations? Hitler's Economy addresses these questions and contributes to our understanding of the internal dynamics and power structure of the Nazi regime in the early years of the Third Reich.
Trade ReviewTo have pinpointed the fragmented and decentralised as well as inefficient and inhumane traits to work creation programmes is among the greatest merits of Silverman’s study. Particularly useful are the passages on the hitherto neglected local and regional initiatives and the international comparison with employment policies in the US and the UK of the early 1930s. -- Harmut Berghoff * Business History *
Completely and fully researched from a variety of primary German sources, this book provides a thorough study of work creation at the beginning of the Third Reich and strengthens the structuralist approach to Nazism…No future study on Nazi economic policy will be complete without reference to this work. -- C. R. Lovin * Choice *
This is an exceptionally thoroughly worked out piece of research on a historiographically complicated and disputed issue. It examines the puzzle of German work creation in the early years of the Nazi dictatorship—how it was that a quite small-scale program apparently produced one of the most striking economic recoveries from the Great Depression in any industrial country. The virtue of Silverman’s study is that he gives for the first time an analysis of the politics of drawing up the Nazi program of 1933—the so-called Reinhardt program—and he then provides a detailed depiction of how the plans were translated into reality. There are some fascinating insights into local politics. -- Harold James, Princeton University
In this book, a highly knowledgeable scholar brings prodigious, multi-archival research to bear on an important phenomenon that has long puzzled historians and economists: the striking success of the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler in surmounting the mass unemployment of the Great Depression. The result is a solid, ground-breaking study—the most ambitious inquiry into this topic to date. -- Henry A. Turner, Jr., Yale University
Table of ContentsPreface Introduction National Socialist Labor Market Statistics: Fact or Fiction? Financing Germany's Economic Recovery National Socialist Work Creation from Theory to Practice Work Creation in Action: The Conquest of Unemployment Race Policy, Agricultural Policy, and Work Creation: The Hellmuth Plan for the Rhon Local and Regional Efforts in the "Battle for Work" Road Building: "Motorization," Work Creation, and Preparation for War The "Voluntary" Labor Service under National Socialism From Creating Jobs to Allocating Labor The Nazi Economic Achievement: A Comparative Evaluation Appendix Notes Sources Index
