The German Economy and the Exploitation and Extermination of the Jews

doi:10.1017/9781108990158.008

5 - The German Economy and the Exploitation and Extermination of the Jews

from Part I - Structures, Players, and Processes

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 May 2025

Susanne Heim

Edited by

Mary Fulbrook and

Jürgen Matthäus

Show author details

Mary Fulbrook: Affiliation:
University College London
Jürgen Matthäus: Affiliation:
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Book contents

Get access

Summary

This chapter discusses the relevance of economic factors for Nazi policy in general and the Holocaust in particular against the background of recent historiography (food and labor demands); addresses the role of “big business” and their expectations vis-à-vis the regime for wartime and postwar planning; and exemplifies the tension between macro- and micro-levels, central planning and local implementation in terms of economic viability, political expediency, and human costs.

Keywords

Nazi economic policy big business

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of the Holocaust , pp. 122 - 145

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108990158.008 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Select Bibliography

Aly, G. and Heim, S., Architects of Annihilation: Auschwitz and the Logic of Destruction (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003).Google Scholar

Banken, R., ‘Das nationalsozalistische Devisenrecht als Steuerungs- und Diskriminierungsinstrument 1933–1945’, in Bähr, J. and Banken, R. (eds.), Wirtschaftssteuerung durch Recht im Nationalsozialismus: Studien zur Entwicklung des Wirtschaftsrechts im Interventionsstaats des “Dritten Reichs” (Frankfurt am Main, Klostermann, 2006), pp. 121–236.Google Scholar

Brandon, R. and Lower, W. (eds.), The Shoah in Ukraine: History, Testimony, Memorialization (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2008).CrossRef Google Scholar

Corni, G. and Gies, H., Brot, Butter, Kanonen: Die Ernährungswirtschaft in Deutschland unter der Diktatur Hitlers (Berlin, Akademie Verlag, 1997).CrossRef Google Scholar

Dieckmann, C. and Quinkert, B. (eds.), Kriegführung und Hunger 1939–1945 (Göttingen, Wallstein Verlag, 2015).Google Scholar

Frei, N. and Schanetzki, T. (eds.), Unternehmen im Nationalsozialismus: Zur Historisierung einer Forschungskonjunktur (Göttingen, Wallstein Verlag, 2010).Google Scholar

Gerlach, C., Krieg, Ernährung, Völkermord: Forschungen zur deutschen Vernichtungspolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Hamburg, Hamburger Edition, 1998).Google Scholar

Gerlach, C., The Extermination of the European Jews (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016).CrossRef Google Scholar

Hartmann, C., Hürter, J., and Jureit, U. (eds.), Verbrechen der Wehrmacht: Bilanz einer Debatte (Munich, C. H. Beck, 2005).Google Scholar

Herbst, L., Das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933–1945: Die Entfesselung der Gewalt: Rassismus und Krieg (Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp Verlag, 1996).Google Scholar

Kilian, J., Krieg auf Kosten anderer: Das Reichsministerium der Finanzen und die wirtschaftliche Mobilisierung Europas für Hitlers Krieg (Berlin and Boston, De Gruyter, 2017).CrossRef Google Scholar

Ritschl, A. (ed.), Das Reichswirtschaftsministerium in der NS-Zeit: Wirtschaftsordnung und Verbrechenskomplex (Berlin and Boston, De Gruyter, 2016).Google Scholar

Tönsmeyer, T., Haslinger, P., and Laba, A. (eds.), Coping with Hunger and Shortage under German Occupation in World War II (London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).CrossRef Google Scholar

Tooze, A., Wages of Destruction (London and New York, Allen Lane, 2006).Google Scholar

Various editors, Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933–1945 (VEJ), 16 vols. (Munich, Berlin and Boston, De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2008–20).Google Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.