An earlier version of this paper was presented at the meeting of the American Historical Association, New York, Dec. 29, 1971, in the session on “New Perspectives on German Economic Policies in the Twentieth Century.” I wish to acknowledge the helpful comments of John G. Williamson and Robert A. Gates.

1. “Big Business and German politics: A Comment,” American Historical Review, LXXV, No. 1 (10 1969), 78.Google Scholar

2. The feasibility of a comparative analysis increases as studies of individual figures appear. On Stalin's economic thought, see: Nove, Alec, Economic Rationality and Soviet Politics or Was Stalin Really Necessary? (New York, 1964), esp. pp. 17–66;Google Scholar and Erlich, Alexander, The Soviet Industrialization Debate, 1924–1928 (Cambridge, 1967), esp. pp. 90–97 and 171ff.Google Scholar On Roosevelt's economics, one should still consult two older works: Burns, James Mac Gregor, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox (New York, 1956), esp. pp. 328ff.;Google Scholar and Fusfeld, Daniel R., The Economic Thought of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Origins of the New Deal (New York, 1956).Google Scholar A recent essay that provides new insights into Roosevelt's style of managing economic issues is Wicker, Elmus, “Roosevelt's 1933 Monetary Experiment,” Journal of American History, LXII, No. 4 (03 1971), 864–79.Google Scholar

3. Still useful in this regard is Kroll, Gerhard, Von der Weltwirtschaftskrise zur staatskonjunktur (Berlin, 1958).Google Scholar An ambitious, though not altogether successful, attempt to establish a paradigm (“partial fascism”) characteristic of business-state relationships under Nazism is Schweitzer, Arthur, Big Business in the Third Reich (Bloomington, 1964)Google Scholar. The notion of the “anti-economy” is developed by Schoenbaum, David, Hitler's Social Revolution: Class and Status in Nazi Germany 1933–1939 (New York, 1966).Google Scholar The role of agrarian interests in the first phase of Nazi economic policy is discussed by Petzina, Dieter, “Hauptprobleme der deutschen Wirtschaftspolitik 1932/33,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (hereafter VfZ), XV, No. 1 (01 1967), 18–55.Google Scholar With a bow to Franz Neumann's enduring analysis of “Totalitarian Monopoly Capitalism” (Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism 1933–1944 [2nd ed., 1944; reprint ed., New York, 1966]),Google ScholarMason, T. W. emphasizes the self-destructive tendencies of Nazism in “The Primacy of Politics—Politics and Economics in National Socialist Germany,” The Nature of Fascism, ed. Woolf, S. J. (London, 1968).Google Scholar Most recently, Henry Ashby Turner, Jr., interprets Hitler's economic thinking, along with that of Fascist Italy, as an aspect of “utopian anti-modernism” in “Fascism and Modernization,” World Politics, XXIV, No. 4 (07 1972), 547–64.Google Scholar For other important contributions, consult the notes below.

4. The examples cited are from: François-Poncet, André, Souvenirs d'une ambassade à Berlin (Paris, 1946), pp. 350ff.;Google ScholarBondi, Gerhard, “Die Weltwirtschaftskrise im Spiegel westdeutscher Geschichtsschreibung,” Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte (1965, II), 11–25;Google Scholar and Taylor, A. J. P., The Origins of the Second World War (New York, 1961), pp. 211 and passim.Google Scholar

5. Newton to Vansittart (Aug. 23, 1933), Documents on British Foreign Policy, Ser. 2, V (London, 1956), 897.Google Scholar

6. There is a literature, of course, that takes Hitler's ideas seriously but specifically rejects the importance of his economic thought. See, e.g., Holborn, Hajo, “Origins and Political Character of Nazi Ideology,” Political Science Quarterly, LXXIX, No. 4 (12 1964), 548f.,Google Scholar and Jäckel, Eberhard, Hitlers Weltanschauung: Entwurf einer Herrschaft (Tübingen, 1969), p. 101Google Scholar (now trans. as Hitler's, Weltanschauung: A Blueprint for Power [Middletown, Conn., 1972]).Google Scholar

7. Economics and Politics (Boston, 1932), p. 17.Google Scholar

8. Design for Total War: Arms and Economics in the Third Reich (The Hague, 1968), 93f.Google Scholar Two earlier examples of writing that take Hitler's mind seriously are: Roper, H. R. Trevor, “The Mind of Adolf Hitler,” in Hitler's Secret Conversations 1941–1944 (New York, 1961), pp. vii–xxxii;Google Scholar and McRandle, James H., The Track of the Wolf (Evanston, 1965), pp. 123ff.Google Scholar

9. Design for Total War, p. 95. Carroll refers to the argument by Sauer, Wolfgang, “Hitlers Kriegsideen,” in Bracher, Karl Dietrich et al. , Die nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung (Cologne, 1962), pp. 744–66.Google Scholar

10. Design for Total War, p. 104.

11. The New Order and the French Economy (Oxford, 1970).Google Scholar

12. ibid., p. 32. This thesis was also presented in Milward's earlier work, The German Economy at War (London, 1965), chs. I–II.

13. Gerth, H. H. and Mills, C. Wright, eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York, 1958), pp. 247f.Google Scholar

14. ibid., p. 245.

15. ibid., p. 249.

16. See, e.g., Ratnam, K. J., “Charisma and Political Leadership,” Political Studies, XII, No. 3 (10 1964), 341–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17. “The Concentration and Dispersion of Charisma,” World Politics, XI, No. 1 (10 1958), 1–19,Google Scholar and “Charisma, Order, and Status,” American Sociological Review, XXX, No. 2 (04 1965), 199–213.Google Scholar

18. “Underdevelopment, Obstacles to the Perception of Change, and Leadership,” Daedalus (Summer, 1968), 925–37. Hirschman writes: “…leadership may be achieved by those who hold to the average perceptions with an uncommon degree of ‘passionate intensity.’…Average misperceptions…are of course also reflected and accentuated by this sort of leader, and his ability to empathize with them or his blindness to ongoing change may be an important part of his appeal” (p. 933). Weber hinted at such incompatibilities in the passages cited above (“In general, charisma rejects all rational economic conduct.” “‘Pure’ charisma…is the opposite of all ordered economy. It is the very force that disregards economy.” Gerth, and Mills, , eds., From Max Weber, pp. 247f).Google Scholar But Weber appears to be referring to the personal economic conduct of the charismatic figure himself, not to the wider economic system in which charismatic leadership may be found.

19. See Nyomarkay, Joseph, Charisma and Factionalism in the Nazi Party (Minneapolis, 1967), esp. ch. I.Google Scholar

20. This phrase is taken from Laurence Lafore, The End of Glory (Philadelphia, 1970), p. 186.Google Scholar

21. Schulthess' Europäische Geschichtskalender 1933 (Munich, 1934), p. 190.Google Scholar See also Kroll, , Von der Weltwirtschaftskrise, pp. 469f.Google Scholar

22. West German Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz): R43II (Reich chancellery)/Band 321: 120. See also the comment by Petzina, “Hauptprobleme,” pp. 48f. A similar analogy was employed by Roosevelt in a campaign speech in 1936; see Rosenman, Samuel, ed., The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, v (New York, 1938), 488.Google Scholar

23. Bundesarchiv, Koblenz: R43II/Band 321: 121.

24. Ibid., 151.

25. This framework draws on Hirschman, “Underdevelopment,” pp. 933ff., and Tucker, Robert, “The Theory of Charismatic Leadership,” Daedalus (Summer 1968), 731–56.Google Scholar

26. Turner, Henry Ashby Jr., “Hitler's Secret Pamphlet for Industrialists, 1927,” Journal of Modern History, XI, No. 3 (09 1968), 351.Google Scholar

27. See, e.g., Hitler's Secret Book (1928), trans. Attanasio, Salvator (New York, 1961), pp. 14 and 20–22.Google Scholar

28. Mein Kampf (1925), trans. Manheim, Ralph (Boston, 1943), pp. 149ff.Google Scholar, and Hitler's Secret Book, pp. 23 and 144. See also Horn, Wolfgang, “Ein unbekannter Aufsatz Hitlers aus dem Frühjahr 1924,” VfZ, XVI, No. 3 (07 1968), 280–94, esp. 281f.Google Scholar

29. Turner, , “Hitler's Secret Pamphlet,” pp. 355f.Google Scholar, and in talks with Otto Strasser (May 1930), Baynes, Norman H., ed., The Speeches of Adolf Hitler 1922–1939, I (New York, 1942), 774f.Google Scholar

30. Keynes, John Maynard, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (New York, 1936), p. 383.Google Scholar

31. Rauschning, Hermann, Hitler Speaks (London, 1939), p. 29.Google Scholar

32. Bundesarchiv, Koblenz: R43I (Reich Chancellery)/Band 1465: Cabinet Minutes of Sept. 26, 1933: 319. This view was, of course, thoroughly conventional in its day. One need only recall Roosevelt's frequent outbursts against speculators, including his famous attack on “old fetishes of so-called international bankers” that helped wreck the World Economic Conference of 1933; see Roosevelt, to Phillips, (07 2, 1933), Foreign Relations of the United States 1933, I (Washington, 1950), 673.Google Scholar

33. See Stolper, Gustav et al. , The German Economy 1870 to the Present, trans. Stolper, Toni (New York, 1967), p. 130.Google Scholar

34. “Of course, there are areas [in the economy] which I would say are ripe for socialization. These are the areas in which competition is unnecessary, in which in fact competition does not exist, in which the age of inventions is past, and in which, over the course of many centuries, a zealous bureaucracy has been built up…e.g., transportation, etc.” Speech of May 20, 1937, in Berchtesgaden, printed in von Kotze, Hildegard and Krausnick, Helmut, eds., Es Spricht der Führer: 7 Exemplarische Hitler-Reden (Gütersloh, 1966), p. 201.Google Scholar These views compare favorably with Keynes's recommendations to Roosevelt in 1938 with regard to utilities and the railroads; see Zinn, Howard, ed., New Deal Thought (Indianapolis, 1966), p. 407.Google Scholar

35. Rauschning, , Hitler Speaks, pp. 33f.Google Scholar Similar views, considered overly optimistic even in the late 1930's, were held by such strange bedfellows as Franz Neumann (Behemonth, p. 280) and the editors of Fortune Magazine (see Landes, David, The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present [Cambridge, 1969], p. 482).Google Scholar

36. On the Brüning peiod, see Köhler, Henning, “Arbeitsbeschaffung, Siedlung und Reparationen in der Schlussphase der Regierung Brüning,” VfZ, XVII, No. 3 (07 1969), 276–307)Google Scholar; on the Papen-Schleicher period, see Petzina, “Hauptprobleme,” esp. pp. 26 and 30.

37. Schoenbaum, , Hitler's Social Revolution, pp. 174ff.Google Scholar

38. Rauschning, , Hitler Speaks, p. 182.Google Scholar Yet this problem has interested later interpreters of the Nazi economy very much indeed: see, e.g., Rubbert, Hans-Heinrich, “Die ‘gelenkte Marktwirtschaft’ des Nationalsozialismus: Ein Literaturbericht,” Hambuger Jahrbuch für Wirtschafts- und Gesellschaftspolitik, VIII (1963), 215–34Google Scholar, and Woolf, S. J., “Did a Fascist Economic System Exist?” The Nature of Fascism, pp. 119–202.Google Scholar

39. See Hitler's comments to a group of industrialists on May 29, 1933: Bundesarchiv, Koblenz: R43II/Band 536: 5f.

40. Landes, , Unbound Prometheus, pp. 480–85.Google Scholar Stalin's groping toward a theory of Soviet economic growth is discussed by Erlich, Soviet Industrialization Debate, pp. 90ff.

41. Kluke, Paul, “Hitler und das Volkswagenprojekt,” VfZ, VIII, No. 4 (10 1960), 361.Google Scholar

42. See, e.g., Hitler's enthusiastic discussion before Berchtesgaden workers in 1937 in Kotze, and Krausnick, , eds., Es Spricht der Führer, esp. pp. 210ff.Google Scholar

43. “Labour in the Third Reich, 1933–1939,” Past and Present, No. 33 (April 1966), 112–41, and “The Primacy of Politics—Politics and Economics in National Socialist Germany,” The Nature of Fascism, pp. 165–95.

44. See “Some Origins of the Second World War,” Past and Present, No. 29 (12 1964), pp. 69 and 86.Google Scholar The statement is found in Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918–1945, Ser. D, I (Washington, 1949), 30.Google Scholar

45. Bundesarchiv, Koblenz: Brammer Sammlung Z Sg 101/Band 28: 255–59 (italics mine). Goebbels may have been pointing to a frightening confirmation of the thesis Hitler had argued in Mein Kampf: “Always when in Germany there was an upsurge of political power, the economic conditions began to improve; but always when economics became the sole content of our people's life, stifling the ideal virtues, the state collapsed and in a short time drew economic life along with it” (p. 152).

46. Meinck, Gerhard coined the phrase in Hitler und die Deutsche Aufrüstung 1933–1937 (Wiesbaden, 1959), pp. 173ff.Google Scholar

47. See, e.g., Milward, The German Economy at War, ch. VI; Speer, Albert, Inside the Third Reich, trans. Richard, and Winston, Clara (New York, 1970), pp. 214ff.;Google Scholar and Barraclough's, Geoffrey analysis of Speer's memoirs, “Hitler's Master Builder,” New York Review of Books (Jan. 7, 1971), 10f.Google Scholar

48. Klein, Burton H., Germany's Economic Preparations for War (Cambridge, 1959), p. 170.Google Scholar Comparable judgments may be found in Birkenfeld, Wolfgang, Der synthetische Treibstoff 1933 bis 1945. Ein Beitrag zur nationalsozialistischen Wirtschafts- und Rüstungspolitik (Göttingen, 1964), pp. 77ff.Google Scholar; and Mason, “The Primacy of Politics,” pp. 173f.

49. Treue, Wilhelm, “Hitlers Denkschrift zum Vierjahresplan 1936,” VfZ, III, No. 2 (04 1955), 210 (italics mine).Google Scholar

50. See Klein, Germany's Economic Preparations, passim, and the more balanced account in Petzina, Dieter, Autarkiepolitik im Dritten Reich: Der Nationalsozialistische Vierjahresplan (Stuttgart, 1968).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51. For a critique of the Klein position, see Mason, “Some Origins,” pp. 77ff. A recent contribution to this discussion is Petzina, Dietmar, “Die Mobilisierung deutscher Arbeitskräfte vor und während des Zweiten Weltkrieges,” VfZ, XVIII, No. 4 (10 1970), 443–55.Google Scholar