Гётц Али (Götz Aly)
A “STUNNING” ACCOUNT (DER SPIEGEL) OF THE ECONOMIC WORKINGS OF THE THIRD REICH THAT WILL FOREVER CHANGE OUR UNDERSTANDING OF WHY ORDINARY GERMANS SUPPORTED THE NAZI STATE
In this provocative and groundbreaking book, distinguished historian Götz Aly addresses one of modern history’s greatest conundrums: How did Adolf Hitler win the allegiance of ordinary Germans for his program of mass murder and military conquest? The answer Aly provides is as shocking as it is persuasive. By engaging in a campaign of theft on an almost unimaginable scale, and by channeling the proceeds into a succession of generous social programs, Hitler literally bought the consent of the German people.
Drawing on secret Nazi files and unexamined financial records, Aly shows that while Jews and citizens of occupied lands suffered crippling taxation, mass looting, enslavement, and destruction, most Germans enjoyed a marked improvement in their standard of living. He documents the many millions of packages soldiers sent from the front stuffed with valuables and provisions; the systematic plunder of conquered territory for raw materials, industrial goods, and food supplies; and the disappearance of Jewish property and fortunes into German homes and pockets across the Reich. Whatever moral qualms Germans may have felt toward Nazi policies were swept away by waves of government handouts, tax breaks, and preferential legislation.
Aly depicts a Nazi leadership addicted to the spoils of invasion, annexation, and dispossession. He shows that the pace and timing of Nazi conquests—from the Anschluss of Austria to the annexation of the Czech Sudetenland—were dictated by the rapidly escalating financial needs of the German war machine. Time and again, warnings of an imminent financial collapse spurred the Third Reich to ever more desperate and brazen acts of thievery and destruction.
A gripping work of scrupulous erudition and great historical importance, Hitler’s Beneficiaries explains the inexplicable, making a radically new contribution to our understanding of Nazi aggression, the Holocaust, and the complicity of a people.