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The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy. By Adam Tooze. New York: Viking, 2006. xvii + 799 pp. Photographs, figures, tables, notes, index. Cloth, $32.95. ISBN: 978-0-67003826-8.
Reviewed by Richard Tilly
The inspiration for Adam ToOze's book, The Wages of Destruction, derived from his vision that Nazi Germany emerged on the geopolitical stage primarily in reaction to, and in order to challenge, U.S. world economic hegemony. In this view, the world economic crisis of the 1930s facilitated the Nazi takeover, not only because of its direct effects on German economic conditions but also because the United States, preoccupied by its own economic difficulties, turned away from Europe and the pattern of involvement it had maintained in the 1920s. Nazi economic policies, powerfully shaped by ideology, turned Germany inward -and eastward. In developing his vision, Tooze draws heavily on Hitler's geopolitical reflections, especially as developed in a manuscript known as "Hitlers Zweites Buch" ("second book"). These may be summarized as follows: By the standards of the 1930s, Germany was a major industrial power and the world's third largest economy, but its overall productivity and living standards lagged far behind those of the United States and even trailed those of Great Britain. America's superiority was based on its continental size and abundant natural resources, which enabled it to realize mass production and achieve economies of scale. British superiority, though slighter, reflected the still considerable fruits of empire. Hitler's aim was to create comparable conditions for Germany through the conquest and domination of Eastern Europe, including the territories of the Soviet Union. This was the dream behind the Nazi emphasis on Lebensraum, or "living space." According to Tooze, however, the Nazi aim...