Lew Rockwell has an interesting article today on Adolf Hitler’s economic policies. His bottom line: Adolf Hitler was a Keynesian.
Two highlights:
What were those economic policies? He suspended the gold standard, embarked on huge public works programs like Autobahns, protected industry from foreign competition, expanded credit, instituted jobs programs, bullied the private sector on prices and production decisions, vastly expanded the military, enforced capital controls, instituted family planning, penalized smoking, brought about national health care and unemployment insurance, imposed education standards, and eventually ran huge deficits. The Nazi interventionist program was essential to the regime’s rejection of the market economy and its embrace of socialism in one country.
Such programs remain widely praised today, even given their failures. They are features of every “capitalist” democracy. Keynes himself admired the Nazi economic program, writing in the foreword to the German edition to the General Theory: “[T]he theory of output as a whole, which is what the following book purports to provide, is much more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state, than is the theory of production and distribution of a given output produced under the conditions of free competition and a large measure of laissez-faire.”
Can’t we separate Hitler’s Keynesian economics from his murderous policies? In principle, yes. But Rockwell makes the point that a government powerful enough to control this many aspects of the economy will be powerful enough to do some of those other nasty things. Also, as Friedrich Hayek pointed out in The Road to Serfdom, when governments acquire totalitarian power, the worst tend to get on top.
READER COMMENTS
david
Feb 28 2009 at 12:03am
There is a certain non-subtlety in grouping “family planning” and “penalized smoking” with economic policies, I daresay.
Is trying to Godwin arguments with the Keynesians? I mean, really?
Also, I like how your quote says “[these] are features of every ‘capitalist’ democracy” and then you say “the worst tend to get on top”. Because those European welfare states are the real top abusers of human rights, don’tcha know.
Patrick
Feb 28 2009 at 12:28am
You know what they say about invoking Hitler in a debate….
happyjuggler0
Feb 28 2009 at 12:42am
Regardless of how uncomfortable people may feel about comparisons to Hitler, and the inevitable inflammatory rhetoric that follows, the essence of the article is correct.
The real point, in my opinion anyway, is that if you give “the right people” in government power to usurp the liberties of the people “to do good”, you have pretty much by definition given “the wrong people” the power to do evil (or merely “bad stuff”) if they ever get in office. Which ought to, but doesn’t, put chills in the collective spines of any and all big government advocates.
David R. Henderson
Feb 28 2009 at 12:45am
I recommend to David and Patrick that they actually read Rockwell’s article.
david
Feb 28 2009 at 1:33am
I read it. Putting a picture of Keynes and ole Adolf next to each other? wow that is subtle
“The ADL is right in this case: central planning should never be praised. We must always consider its historical context and inevitable political results“? “Keynesian (or Hitlerian) policies unleash the sword of the state on the whole population”? Goodness gracious, I never knew that having a “government big enough and powerful enough to manipulate aggregate demand” inevitably led to slaughtering millions of Insert Minority Here.
Like I said, Godwin. And not even a subtle Godwin at that.
The Student
Feb 28 2009 at 1:50am
I love that the right feels the need to pull this argument.
INTERVENTION IN ECONOMIC AFFAIRS DOES NOT MEAN INTERVENTION IN SOCIAL OR POLITICAL LIBERTIES.
Just because you can pull one example out of a hat doesn’t make it true. The reason you have these two hand in hand is because they both involve increases in power of central government. But they are fundamentally different types of power. As Bush proved, it is very possible to be extremely free market, but also willing to intrude into the personal and civil liberties of people.
Just as Obama is committed to the concepts of the ACLU and constitution when it comes to civil liberties, but committed to “economic guidance” in other regards. One doesn’t necessitate the other. But it’s an easy and distinctly non intellectual argument to make, and I’m disappointed to see someone as intelligent as Henderson use it. Just like Bryan showed in his excellent book “the Myth…”, the seemingly logical argument will often fall apart under true scrutiny.
And yes, David, I did read it.
What I object to is that he keeps making arguments about how market distortions took place, how it would hurt Germany in the long run, but there is ABSOLUTELY NO proof of this. IN fact, it’s a commonly known fact (and a true one) that one of the reasons we prevailed was because Hitler was over confident and didn’t switch the economy to an all out war footing.
And if we all remember, Germany went from being among the poorest European countries to being the richest in a matter of a decade. The evidence is there that Keynesian made Germany the strongest country in Europe, so strong in fact, that the combined might of France, Poland, Czech, the Nordic Countries, Russia, and the British Empire couldn’t stop it and the little help it got from Italy.
You can try to make the tenuous argument that Centralized Economies will tend towards absolutist government. But to make the argument that Germany some how was weak economically is the height of stupidity. The fact that Rockwell has no numbers, no data, and merely conjecture proves this.
Keynesian economics made Germany stronger than the rest of Europe combined. Indisputable.
The Student
Feb 28 2009 at 1:58am
Ha! I just went through the article that he sources, which makes it clear he DIDN’T EVEN READ IT.
THe conclusion of the authors that wrote the article is that the German Pubic Spending was not even in fact Keynesian recipe. You link to an article who sources a research paper that draws a different conclusion than he does!
Please, be more thorough next time David. The man writes an op-ed and sources a paper which disagrees with him. I’d rather trust the technical paper than him.
And even worse, the technical paper discusses the German recovery between 1932 and 36, without exploring the full length of the policies and whether they helped Germany prevail in WWII.
This is nearly as bad as the recent ruckus over George Will’s incredibly misleading and deliberate deceitful articles on Global Warming. I expect more thorough research from a tenured Professor at George Mason.
John Jackson
Feb 28 2009 at 2:00am
The Student wrote:
INTERVENTION IN ECONOMIC AFFAIRS DOES NOT MEAN INTERVENTION IN SOCIAL OR POLITICAL LIBERTIES.
Student,
Intervention in economic affairs is an intervention in social and political liberties. It is a limitation with whom I can conduct business with, and under what terms and conditions.
Otto Maddox
Feb 28 2009 at 2:07am
“how it would hurt Germany in the long run, but there is ABSOLUTELY NO proof of this.”
Germany lost the war, didn’t they? Rather convincingly too.
‘Nuf said.
The Student
Feb 28 2009 at 2:08am
How does a 39.6 top income tax rate prevent you from doing business with anyone. How do grants for scientific research, pell grants, or stricter regulation prevent you from doing business with someone?
Regulation, nor economic activism of the Keynesian kind, prevent you from doing business with anyone. It merely limits the terms of the business, the form, etc. Are Conservatives now going to make an argument that GAAP could be dropped because it infringes on a businessman’s right to do his books any way he pleases? Regulation exists to protect people from getting SCAMMED. It doesn’t prevent business, it prevents FRAUD.
I’d like to hear a more articulate example John. What Obama policy will in any way prevent you from living your life the way you please?
MikeP
Feb 28 2009 at 2:11am
This statement is more true than Keynes probably even intended it to be.
The very best way to improve output qua output is to produce things without regard to what people actually want to consume. In fact, the more divorced from actual demands that production becomes, the more amenable to Keynesian control an economy is. It is simply much easier to ramp up production to meet targets of long-range planned output than it is to ramp up production to meet the inconstant demands of hundreds of millions of disparate consumers.
Totalitarian states can get away with it, either by using propaganda to convince the people that they really do want tanks and airplanes, giant dams, or monuments to their leaders, or simply by forcing the population to accept what is produced. Thus factory output of 1930s Germany or Japan or the 1960s Soviet Union appears to match or exceed those of freer economies. But households are poorer because the product of the factories is not destined to find its way into consumers’ hands.
At best, the economy becomes an expensive redistribution scheme via forced full employment. At worst, it embodies the continuous impoverishment of the people.
The Student
Feb 28 2009 at 2:11am
Please Otto..
Yes, the German’s lost because their economy powered by I’m guessing 50 million people couldn’t manage to defeat Russia, Britain, the U.S.A. all at once. Not that they managed to subdue half of Europe in rather convincing fashion… Not that a disastrous invasion of Russia cost them an immense amount of men and material. Not an egomaniacal dictator that ruled his own country through fear and coercion.
Nope, it was all Keynesian economics that lost them the war.
Thanks for proving me wrong Otto!
MikeP
Feb 28 2009 at 2:15am
As Bush proved, it is very possible to be extremely free market, but also willing to intrude into the personal and civil liberties of people.
Who the hell is this Bush person you speak of?
Jim
Feb 28 2009 at 3:47am
When Rockwell says “Perhaps the worst part of these policies is that they are inconceivable without a leviathan state, exactly as Keynes said”, he is telling a dirty lie about what Keynes believed. Keynes wanted his theory to undermine totalitarianism, saying (in the General Theory, so there’s no excuse for not knowing this):
“The authoritarian state systems of today seem to solve the problem of unemployment at the expense of efficiency and of freedom … But it may be possible by a right analysis of the problem to cure the disease whilst preserving efficiency and freedom”
And that’s pretty much exactly what happened, in two senses: FDR’s Keynesianism meant the US had the resources to help defeat Hitler, and in general terms the success of Keynesian approaches undermined the appeal of both communism and fascism. Anyone who really cares about preventing political totalitarianism should be thanking Keynes.
Rockwell’s article and David’s endorsement of it are shameful.
Dezakin
Feb 28 2009 at 5:43am
Ideological economic purists don’t seem to realize that were they to actually get into power they would end up sabotaging their ideology more effectively than any realist we have now. Say we had a purist who thought Keynesian economics was to be avoided at all costs. He introduces austerity measures during an incredibly deep recession and handcuffs the central bank so that monetary policy is closer to nonintervention as well. Recession deepens, agregate demand falls, and a deflationary spiral continues untill the mob is so dissatisfied with their misery that they’ll put anyone into power that offers a different hope, a different recipie even if it doesn’t work.
And we’ve had that before with Hoover inadvertantly giving us FDR’s massive expansion of federal power, entitlements, and social security.
Babinich
Feb 28 2009 at 6:01am
The Student Posted February 28, 2009 1:50 AM:
“And if we all remember, Germany went from being among the poorest European countries to being the richest in a matter of a decade.”
Please define “rich”. There is no evidence that Germany was rich no matter the metric you use to gauge “rich”.
Dezakin Posted February 28, 2009 5:43 AM:
“FDR’s Keynesianism meant the US had the resources to help defeat Hitler, and in general terms the success of Keynesian approaches undermined the appeal of both communism and fascism. Anyone who really cares about preventing political totalitarianism should be thanking Keynes.”
Please… FDR enabled political totalitarianism.
Don’t believe me? Consult your history books and look at how FDR’s love affair with ‘Uncle Joe’ enable Stalin to murder and enslave millions in Eastern Europe.
FDR did all he could to cover up the mass murder at Katyn in order to preserve his standing with the Poles in America.
FDR’s standing in history is all myth and no substance.
Dan
Feb 28 2009 at 6:09am
This article was borderline Godwin’s law.
Regardless, I have to comment on something The Student said:
“Regulation exists to protect people from getting SCAMMED. It doesn’t prevent business, it prevents FRAUD.”
Fraud has been illegal via common law for a very long time. No need for regulation; there is only a need for laws that clarify what is and is not fraud.
I surmise that you’re a wholehearted believer in the idea that democratic governments tend to be benevolent and wise; that they can manipulate the economy without infringing on freedom more broadly. Let me throw out a few government interventions that toe the line between economic/social liberties (a sloppy dichotomy, in my opinion, but I’ll play along).
1. Professional licensures: someone is not allowed to post a sign on their door that says “Barber Shop” without first jumping through hoops imposed by the state. What fraud are we protecting people from? A bad haircut?
2. Liquor licensures: someone is not allowed to pose a sign on their door that says “Spirits” without going on hands and knees to a government organization. Often, this is an easy way to maintain oligopolies for the existing businesses in the area. And again, what fraud are we protecting against? That they’ll serve Busch and say it’s Bud?
3. Government grants: government grants divert money from potential business ventures to causes favored by politicians. These will tend to be inefficient because of the incentives: neither competition nor the profit motive will impact a government grant. Or do you really think Amtrak is a wise, benovolent, efficient use of scarce capital?
I could go on. I’ll switch gears and make one more point. You brought up the GAAP. Ironically, these are mostly set by private organizations, not government. It is in the interest of businesses to follow these guidelines because it eases their dealings with other business and the markets.
I’m thinking you must be new here, The Student, because you keep referring to people here as conservatives, or “the right.” They’re libertarians.
needle
Feb 28 2009 at 7:00am
nazi germany was never on a war footing? wow, just think what they might have done to the world if FDR hadn’t mobilized the resourses of the US economy by his timely and far sighted economic stimulus plans.we are so very fortunate to have such men rise up and lead us out of the wilderness . you “rightwingers” need to sit up and take notes, this stuff is for your own good.
Max
Feb 28 2009 at 7:56am
“I love that the right feels the need to pull this argument.
INTERVENTION IN ECONOMIC AFFAIRS DOES NOT MEAN INTERVENTION IN SOCIAL OR POLITICAL LIBERTIES.”
the people here are mostly not conservatives but libertarians.
second, you say that loud but it proves nothing… social freedom is also the ight to choose your employees and employer freely!
“Just because you can pull one example out of a hat doesn’t make it true.” right but theory plu exemple has to be refuted or you are just talking sans argument.
“The reason you have these two hand in hand is because they both involve increases in power of central government. But they are fundamentally different types of power.”
are they? I dont think so, they are often intertwined, see employement and racism or licenses.
“As Bush proved, it is very possible to be extremely free market, but also willing to intrude into the personal and civil liberties of people.”
bush wasnt free market, actually he was more leftist than most conservatives. And he didnt start the social liberties erosion, that was before him with democrats and reps in power.
“Just as Obama is committed to the concepts of the ACLU and constitution when it comes to civil liberties, but committed to “economic guidance” in other regards. One doesn’t necessitate the other. But it’s an easy and distinctly non intellectual argument to make, and I’m disappointed to see someone as intelligent as Henderson use it. Just like Bryan showed in his excellent book “the Myth…”, the seemingly logical argument will often fall apart under true scrutiny.”
which you didnt counter but rather only compained about..
“And yes, David, I did read it.
What I object to is that he keeps making arguments about how market distortions took place, how it would hurt Germany in the long run, but there is ABSOLUTELY NO proof of this. IN fact, it’s a commonly known fact (and a true one) that one of the reasons we prevailed was because Hitler was over confident and didn’t switch the economy to an all out war footing.”
Since I am a german, I want to add a bit of snse to this. Actually, when the risk of war became obvious to Nazi-Germany (around 1937) they started to ramp up warfare production (which reached its heights around 1941), but
a) change needs time when you have to change from actual productive production to warfare production (you just can’t flip a switch and hope it turns out well)
b) It is expensive at first, becase you still have to supply your people (which was a problem around 1942).
Hitler couldn’t have maintained his level of war production for much longer, which became obvious around 1942, by then the lack of raw materials was obvious.
so, sorry but germanys prouction was strong BUT not sustainable! Also the rise of germany after the war was due to free markets and despite the marshall plan.
“And if we all remember, Germany went from being among the poorest European countries to being the richest in a matter of a decade. The evidence is there that Keynesian made Germany the strongest country in Europe, so strong in fact, that the combined might of France, Poland, Czech, the Nordic Countries, Russia, and the British Empire couldn’t stop it and the little help it got from Italy.”
why did germany prevail contre france, poland and the british?
a) they had stalin on their side.
b) english and the french were caught by surprise!
c) when russia entered the war on the allied side, they had to amplify war production, which exceeded germany 1943 and turned the war, but left russians to suffer bredless winters!
“You can try to make the tenuous argument that Centralized Economies will tend towards absolutist government. But to make the argument that Germany some how was weak economically is the height of stupidity. The fact that Rockwell has no numbers, no data, and merely conjecture proves this.”
like you? It depends on which economy you mean: warefare or peacetime. The latter is inherently different, because you dont order 1000 grenades which have to be replaced, but rather a variety of variable goods!
“Keynesian economics made Germany stronger than the rest of Europe combined. Indisputable.”
No it left dresden in ruins, millions of jews dead and germans to suffer…
though it was war, racism and economic idiocy that caused it, the methods used for controlling the economy were krugman style keynsianism…
LemmusLemmus
Feb 28 2009 at 8:06am
If you want to suggest that Obama wants to gas jews you should say so. If that’s not your post’s point then I’m afraid I don’t see it.
shayne
Feb 28 2009 at 8:17am
A note to ‘The Student’:
Just to clarify, and to expand a bit on Dan’s post, virtually no one on this blog – hosts or commenters – are big fans of George Bush policies. This is an economics discussion site, not a Republican/Conservative bastion. The object here is to discuss and advance sound economic theory applicable to any government, society or individual, not to win the White House back in 2012. Economics is a social science, as is Political Science, but as I tell my econ students, the Poli Sci department is ‘down the hall’.
To clarify a bit further, the overwhelming majority of the stated goals of economists are ostensibly the same regardless of their political leanings (liberal, conservative or libertarian) – a ‘better’ society for individuals and at large. The difference lies both in what ‘better’ means and in how to get to it.
z
Feb 28 2009 at 9:29am
“To clarify a bit further, the overwhelming majority of the STATED GOALS of economists are ostensibly the same regardless of their political leanings (liberal, conservative or libertarian) – a ‘better’ society for individuals and at large. THE DIFFERENCE LIES BOTH IN WHAT BETTER MEANS AND IN HOW WE GET IT.”
-And the unstated goals are, of course, to advance their own favored ideologies.
-And that difference is what means that the poli-sci department isn’t ‘down the hall’, but rather, hidden between the lines.
RickC
Feb 28 2009 at 10:26am
The Student,
Explain to me how “INTERVENTION IN ECONOMIC AFFAIRS DOES NOT MEAN INTERVENTION IN SOCIAL OR POLITICAL LIBERTIES.” Seriously.
The Student
Feb 28 2009 at 4:52pm
[Comment removed for supplying false email address and for policy violation. A valid email address is required to post comments on EconLog.–Econlib Ed.]
SydB
Feb 28 2009 at 7:53pm
Governments have the ultimate means of power: the military. With control of the military, the government can largely do what it wants if the military obeys.
Hilter was a vegetarian too. And I hear he liked dogs.
Patrick
Feb 28 2009 at 11:39pm
“I recommend to David and Patrick that they actually read Rockwell’s article.”
I read the article David. But thank you for presuming that I had not.
Let’s just say that I didn’t find it particularly thought provoking.
DonQuiKong
Mar 1 2009 at 1:08am
The hot question on here is whether freedom from taxation is a right in the same sense that the right not to get run over by a tank in a demonstration is a right.
Rights are a rather arbitrary thing. In the legal sense, they are just interests that the government takes it upon itself to protect. Anyone who’s studied constitutional or human rights law knows that they rarely come with conceptually easy-to-define boundaries to distinguish them from non-rights, that is those interests that are left to fend for themselves. Court decisions defining individial rights are always controversial.
I mean, every interest you have cannot be a right, the line has to fall somewhere.
To the extent that the left and right (or libertarians) agree on what is or isn’t a right, it’s mostly because those rights are vaguely stated and/or they are enshrined in founding documents that everyone has the good sense (others might say pusillanimity) not to question. The US consititution authorizes taxation, so I doubt you’ll find much support there.
Yes, there are *theories* of rights, but no one agrees on them and they aren’t testable. I like Mill’s theory, like I guess a lot here do. But even if everyone suddenly agreed to it, the ideological fights would take place within the framework of Millian libertarianism: what constitutes a harm in practice, exactly? Do we count market failures and externalities, etc. Trying to apply the harm principle, you’ll get a similar range of ideologies that you see today.
And of course total agreement on a theoretical framework will never happen. There will always be people who disagree, who are kept in line not by a philosophically-grounded respect for the government’s legitimacy, but, you know, because they have guns. I mean, even libertarians generally want civil police forces, but anarchists will not, etc. If the anarchists got their way, then the rights of libertarians would be violated by the lack of basic rights-enforcing structures.
So, since I’m throwing out theoretical frameworks (which are mostly, let’s be honest, rationalizations for a gut reaction), I ask myself–how bad does getting taxed feel to me? Not so much. How bad would getting run over by a tank feel to me. A lot, I think. Are there consequences of not doing these things so serious that it overcomes their badness? In the case of taxes, I think so. I want to live in an society that can maintain a complex modern economy, provide basic services, and I don’t see any real way to achieve that without requiring those that benefitted from that society to give back some part of their earnings to the political and social structures that make it possible.
I’m sure most disagree, but that last point is at least amenable to empirical study, and the evidence is pretty solid to me.
The other story, that “big government” leads inexorably to Hitlerian catastrophes. I don’t see it, looking at the modern West. (Except, to a still terrible, but lesser extent with military interventions. See, Iraqis don’t get to vote in the US, so American politicians face surprisingly little political and judicial consequences for misdeeds oversees. That is as big an externality as they come.)
On the other hand, there are free market types like Pinochet who were also brutal dictators (while being lauded by conservatives for their sensible economics). I wonder how much the Darfur Christians pay in taxes? I doubt it’s all that much. Etc. There’s enough violence to go around and anarchy is as capable as order in perpetrating it.
Sadly, there’s no utopia that will close off that possibility, and eternal vigilance is required. Rule of law and a strong judiciary seem to help.
Jeremy, Alabama
Mar 1 2009 at 3:47pm
Student,
If your policies were not interventionist they would not need the force of government.
It is impossible for a government that disposes of 40% of GNP to not infringe on political and social liberties.
A simple example – for the states to receive bailout money, they must (permanently) increase their unemployment benefits. This is tax money raised from 50 states and 100 million people, vectored through a tiny Washington elite, and coming back with political and social strings.
This is a marxist’s bargain indeed – we Alabamians can take the deal or leave it – but you already took the money. This is freedom of choice, only to a leftist way of thinking.
Hayek showed that serfdom begins with a democratic clamor to do something; the government obliges by arrogating the power necessary to do something; that something usually makes things worse; which begets a cycle of intrusion, along with rulers who are more comfortable wielding intrusive power.
The difference between (early) Hitler and a modern US president is more about goodness of intentions than lack of power. I am glad that our president is a nice man, but he has already demonstrated a willingness to spend trillions, while talking up an incalculably damaging carbon tax in a futile attempt to change the climate. We have demonstrably reached the era of presidents who are comfortable wielding enormous, dangerous power … which is an important step On The Road that Hayek described.
What powers will be necessary to fix distortions created by mis-spent trillions? What kind of man will wield those powers?
Kurbla
Mar 1 2009 at 7:12pm
Whole that line of connecting of state power with war and genocide might have the sense – in the case Hitler did the putsch, and abused power of his state to stay in power.
It was quite opposite – Nazis were elected by German people to do exactly what they did. Building powerful state was just the part of the plan. But Nazis were elected before that, and their plans were know by people who elected him.
MikeP
Mar 1 2009 at 7:51pm
Hitler was elected in 1933 by a plurality, not a majority. Furthermore, he did not run on a “I will kill 8 million civilians and start a war that costs 40 million more lives and leaves Germany either the ruler of Europe or a battered ruin” platform.
Interesting for the sake of the original post is that Hitler formulated “recovery” from the depression on a Keynesian model. He placed the country into a wartime economy without any necessity, convincing the populace through propaganda and simple totalitarian powers that they would rather have airplanes in hangers and tanks in armories than consumables in households. Between the full employment that such easy-to-predict production provides and the propaganda of the apparently rising economy and rising Germany, he garnered greater and greater support. And before it could be discovered that such Keynesian policies were unsustainable, he had already brought Germany into war.
Again, it needs to be said: The key to understanding Keynesian economics in totalitarian states is to recognize that totalitarian economies don’t “succeed” because they control the means of production, but because they control the demands of consumption.
Wartime economies provide government-driven consumption that allows easy-to-plan production. Trying to have the government demand things that are worthwhile to consume in peacetime is far, far more difficult and is the ultimate source of failure of Keynesian economics even by the standards of the Keynesians.
Kurbla
Mar 2 2009 at 5:43am
MikeP, Hitler’s war and racist ideas are openly and exactly described ih his book Mein Kampf. Just few almost random paragraphs from this book speaking about war:
“It is no longer princes or their courtesans who contend and bargain about State frontiers, but the inexorable cosmopolitan Jew who is fighting for his own dominion over the nations. The sword is the only means whereby a nation can thrust that clutch from its throat. Only when national sentiment is organized and concentrated into an effective force can it defy that international menace which tends towards an enslavement of the nations. But this road is and will always be marked with bloodshed.”
“Germany will either become a World Power or will not continue to exist at all. But in order to become a World Power it needs that territorial magnitude which gives it the necessary importance to-day and assures the existence of its citizens.”
“Against all this we, National Socialists, must stick firmly to the aim that we have set for our foreign policy; namely, that the German people must be assured the territorial area which is necessary for it to exist on this earth. And only for such action as is undertaken to secure those ends can it be lawful in the eyes of God and our German posterity to allow the blood of our people to be shed once again.”
“But when we speak of new territory in Europe to-day we must principally think of Russia and the border States subject to her.”
So, you see, it is not true that “He placed the country into a wartime economy without any necessity”. Not only his plans were publicly revealed, but accepted: in 1933, Nazis got 44% of votes, and formed goverment in coallition with other extreme right, racist party, DNVP that got 8% of votes, making 52% total. In 1934, 95% of Germans attended to plebiscite, and 90% voted for Hitler’s appointement as Führer.
MikeP
Mar 2 2009 at 7:24am
When I said that Hitler “placed the country into a wartime economy without any necessity,” I was trying to differentiate Germany’s 1930s wartime economy from, say, the US wartime economy of 1940-1945. Sometimes wartime economies are necessary. Germany’s was not, by any standard of self defense.
However, I must admit no expertise in determining whether the German electorate was supporting charismatic figurative hyperbole or was making a party line vote for “kill 8 million civilians and start a war that costs 40 million more lives and leaves Germany either the ruler of Europe or a battered ruin.” This is an econ blog. The poli sci blog is down the hall.
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