Nazi Billionaires: The Darkish Historical past of Germany’s Wealthiest Dynasties. By David de Jong. Mariner Books; 400 pages; $28.99. William Collins; £25
AT THE APPEALS listening to in April 1949 of Günther Quandt, considered one of Nazi Germany’s high industrialists, Julius Herf, the prosecutor, learn from “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” in his closing argument. He felt the passage in Max Weber’s magnum opus elucidated Quandt’s single-minded persona:
It’s the intoxication of the pursuit of energy, the intoxication of constructing an enormous company, the obsession with self-affirmation that's on the root of all this, and it’s the idea within the worth of 1’s personal work, not solely as a result of work is one thing ethical, however as a result of constructing the company is the final word good, and since something that resists constructing it out is unhealthy.
He didn't handle to steer the Munich court docket of Quandt’s guilt, nor the Bavarian court docket of cassation the place he once more appealed the decision. Judges argued there was no “clear proof” that Quandt had procured “extreme benefits” for himself below the Nazis. As David de Jong describes in “Nazi Billionaires”, different German magnates, together with Rudolf-August Oetker and August von Finck, obtained “little greater than a slap on the wrist”.
After Adolf Hitler’s rise to energy, German corporations benefited from profitable contracts associated to rearmament. They took over Jewish-owned companies. Going through a scarcity of staff in the course of the struggle, German corporations staffed their factories with concentration-camp inmates and compelled labourers from occupied territories in Europe. Many of those 13.5m individuals died from hunger, abuse or poor residing and dealing circumstances.
But businessmen have been usually deemed by regional denazification courts to be mere followers of the regime slightly than lively supporters. Executives went again to work within the newly based federal republic to develop into even richer. Friedrich Flick (pictured on subsequent web page) was an exception: Mr de Jong describes him as “one of many Third Reich’s largest arms producers, Aryanisers, and exploiters of pressured and slave labour by means of his metal, coal and equipment conglomerate”. In December 1947, in the course of the Nuremberg trials, Flick was convicted of struggle crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity and sentenced to seven years in jail.
The shameful function of Germany’s enterprise dynasties in the course of the Nazi regime has been identified for many years, however Mr de Jong’s investigative work provides element. “Initially, most enterprise tycoons considered Hitler and his Nazis as loud, violent, boorish, brutish uniformed curiosities from the uneducated and impoverished hinterlands,” he writes. That modified after the worldwide stockmarket crash in 1929, which took a devastating toll on the German financial system. In September 1930 the Nazi celebration turned the second-largest within the Reichstag. For Hitler, financial malaise opened the door to Germany’s richest businessmen: they hoped a Faustian pact with the upstart from Austria would assist to defend their enterprise empires from a rebel on the left.
Von Finck, a financier who joined the Nazi celebration after Hitler got here to energy in 1933, “believed that Hitler was despatched by God to develop into Führer of the German individuals”; a pal noticed that the dictator exercised “a hypnotic affect” on him. Flick, Oetker, Albert Reimann and Ferdinand Porsche additionally subscribed to Hitler’s imagined future for the nation.
Quandt disliked the Nazis, but he had no scruples about facilitating their rise. When Quandt met Hitler in 1931 he described him as “completely common”. A widower with two sons, Quandt married Magda Friedländer, the stepdaughter of a German-Jewish businessman, with whom he had one other son, Harald. After divorcing Quandt, Magda married Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister. Quandt and Goebbels deeply resented one another and fought over the custody of Harald, who had caught Hitler’s eye as he regarded like the right Aryan youngster.
The second half of “Nazi Billionaires” is dedicated to the many years after the top of the struggle, by means of West Germany’s financial miracle to the current day. After his untimely launch from jail in 1950, Flick managed to rebuild his enterprise empire; he turned one of many largest shareholders of Daimler-Benz and, for a time frame, West Germany’s richest individual. Each one of many titans, and their heirs, examined their Nazi previous solely belatedly, very reluctantly and below strain.
The sins of their forefathers are a legacy that a few of Germany’s best-known manufacturers, together with Allianz (insurance coverage), Mercedes, Volkswagen, Porsche and BMW (vehicles), Oetker (foodstuffs) and others nonetheless carry. “Many German enterprise dynasties proceed to sidestep an entire reckoning with the darkish historical past that stains their fortunes,” Mr de Jong says. “The ghosts of the Third Reich nonetheless hang-out them.” ■
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