Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Abbreviations
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction and Overview
- 2 The Company, the Party, and the Regime
- 3 Aryanization
- 4 Autarky and Armament
- 5 Precious Metals for the Reich
- 6 War Production and Spoliation
- 7 Forced Labor
- 8 Degesch and Zyklon B
- 9 War's End and Aftermath
- Appendices
- Index
6 - War Production and Spoliation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Abbreviations
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction and Overview
- 2 The Company, the Party, and the Regime
- 3 Aryanization
- 4 Autarky and Armament
- 5 Precious Metals for the Reich
- 6 War Production and Spoliation
- 7 Forced Labor
- 8 Degesch and Zyklon B
- 9 War's End and Aftermath
- Appendices
- Index
Summary
If, as the preceding chapters have argued, Degussa's decisions and development had become irreversibly oriented toward serving state-determined markets by 1937–39 and the morally corrupting effects on corporate conduct already had begun to emerge, the onset of World War II clearly intensified both trends. Even at the height of Hitler's military success in July 1940, when peace seemed at hand, the terms of doing business in the Third Reich remained tightly prescribed. As Hermann Schlosser informed his colleagues, the future would resemble the past, only now on a larger geographical scale:
the “Great European Economic Sphere” must embrace almost the entire continent, which should confront the other economic blocs as a solid unit. The clear result is that the foundation of autarky will … be extended to the whole Sphere. … Certainly one has to reckon with a considerable reduction in armament, even with the maintenance of a very strong military. … Peacetime economic prospects are assessed so favorably, however, that further accelerated expansion is to be expected in the vast majority of fields. … This creates for industry the extraordinarily important and equally difficult task of keeping pace through private-sector initiative without abandoning private-sector caution and responsibility. It will not always be easy to do both, for if, rightly or wrongly, the initiative and tempo of expansion on a private economic basis become viewed as inadequate, then the danger of not only a planned but also a state-imposed system will be strengthened. … [T]he tendency expressed by the Hermann-Göring-Works will be reinforced yet again if business does not exploit its chances sufficiently.
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- Chapter
- Information
- From Cooperation to ComplicityDegussa in the Third Reich, pp. 195 - 235Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004