Hitler's beneficiaries
Subtitle: plunder, racial war, and the Nazi welfare state
By: Götz Aly ; translated by Jefferson Chase
Edition: 1st U.S. ed
Publisher: Metropolitan
Published: 2007
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 431
ISBN-13: 9780805079265
Subjects: National socialism -- Philosophy; World War, 1939-1945 -- Destruction and pillage -- Europe; World War, 1939-1945 -- Economic aspects -- Switzerland; Jewish property -- Europe -- History -- 20th century; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Economic aspects; Germany -- Economic policy -- 1933-1945; Germany -- Politics and government -- 1933-1945
Work titles: Hitlers Volksstaat.
Description: In this groundbreaking book, distinguished historian Gotz 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, Hitleralʾs Beneficiaries explains the inexplicable, making a radically new contribution to our understanding of Nazi aggression, the Holocaust and the complicity of a people. From the book jacket

Includes information on anti-Semitism, atonement payments, Banque de France Bank of Greece, Belgium, consumer goods, currency, debt and credit, Eastern Europe (Front), forced labor, France, Joseph Goebbels, gold, Hermann Goring, government bonds, Greece, Adolf Hitler, Holland (Netherlands), responsibility for Holocaust, Hungary, inflation, Italy, Jewish assets, Jews, deportation of Jews, National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party), occupation costs, Poland, Reich Credit Banks (Rreichkreditkasse), Reichsbank, Romania, Schwerin von Krosigk (Count Lutz), social welfare system, Soldiers, Soviet Union, taxes and tax policy, Vichy France, Wehrmacht, working classes, World War I, World War II, etc
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [399]-416) and index
Table of contents: title: Part I Political Opportunists in Action; title: 1 The Dream of a Peopleʾs Empire; title: 2 The Accommodating Dictatorship; title: Part II Subjugation and Exploitation; title: 3 With Unwavering Efficiency; title: 4 Profits for the People; title: 5 The Mainstay: Western Europe; title: 6 Room for Expansion: Eastern Europe; title: Part III The Dispossession of the Jews; title: 7 Larceny as a State Principle; title: 8 Laundering Money for the Wehrmacht; title: 9 Subsidies to and from Germanyʾs Allies; title: 10  The Trail of Gold; title: Part IV Crimes for the Benefit of the People; title: 11 The Fruits of Evil; title: 12 Speculative Politics; title: 13 Nazi Socialism; title: A Note on Calculations; title: Currency Exchange Rates