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Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State [2008, PDF/EPUB, ENG]

by Götz Aly

(109 ratings)
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A 'provocative' account of great 'intellectual significance,' illuminating the economic workings of the Third Reich―and the reasons ordinary Germans supported the Nazi state (The New York Times Book Review)

In this groundbreaking book, historian Götz Aly addresses one of modern history's greatest conundrums: How did Hitler win the allegiance of ordinary Germans? The answer is as shocking as it is persuasive: by engaging in a campaign of theft on an almost unimaginable scale―and by channeling the proceeds into generous social programs―Hitler literally 'bought' his people's consent.

Drawing on secret files and financial records, Aly shows that while Jews and citizens of occupied lands suffered crippling taxation, mass looting, enslavement, and destruction, most Germans enjoyed an improved standard of living. Buoyed by millions of packages soldiers sent from the front, Germans also benefited from the systematic plunder of Jewish possessions. Any qualms were swept away by waves of tax breaks and government handouts.

Hitler's Beneficiaries has been hailed as 'startling' by Richard Evans, and as 'fascinating and important' by Christopher Browning. Above all, as Omer Bartov testifies, this remarkable book 'irreversibly transforms our understanding of the Third Reich.'

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Book details


  • Author : Götz Aly
  • Publisher : Picador; First Edition
  • Published : 01-07-2008
  • Language : English
  • Pages : 448
  • ISBN-10 : 0805087265
  • ISBN-13 : 978-0805087260
  • Reader Reviews : 109 (4.7)
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About the Author


Götz Aly


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Reader Reviews

J
Maelen Moonsinger
People are easy to buy
Reviewed in Canada on 07-06-2022
The German people in World War Two led surprisingly comfortable lives, all things considered. Their government kept them quiet and content by murdering millions of people and using the proceeds to buy their silence. Need money for the war? Don't raise taxes; steal from an out-group. Bombed out? Here's a new apartment! Just don't ask who was living here before. It's the old imperialist ploy of milking the colonies to prop up the homeland, turned up to 11. People don't easily question the source of their convenience and comfort. This was a peculiarly lethal expression of that principle, but it remains true today in somewhat more diluted forms..
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J
Stanislav Selitskiy
“Jewish financing” of the WWII
Reviewed in the United States on 12-16-2013
In his books Hitlers Volksstaat (English version Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War and the Nazi Welfare State) German historian Götz Aly attracts attention of the reader to the frequently overlooked fact that the Holocaust for Nazi regime rather had not demographical or political goals, but fiscal ones. Jews were not simply relocated to ghettoes, sent to concentration camps, or killed. First and foremost of all, their property was confiscated, and Nazi Regime used the property and proceedings of selling it to finance its social programs and war efforts.

Real estate and liquid wealth of Jews (buildings, businesses, stocks, deposits, precious gems and metals, jewelry, garments, luxury items) was nationalized and legally treated as a credit to government trust funds which were put in charge of handling those assets. Involuntary “creditors” were separated from the control over their former funds and were given per diem allowance for everyday needs of about $1500 per week. Over time, when Jews disappeared in camps, their property was classified as “abandoned” and either was used as a guaranty of government bonds, or sold for quite low prices. Those who invested in buying this property effectively received indirect subsidies from the government. However poorer Germans received their benefits, too. Despite the low selling prices for the Jewish property, its sheer amount made the government to collect huge sums on the property liquidation sales. These funds were used for the social programs for all Germans and for building the Werhmacht’s war machine, which was used to get more and more European Jews and their wealth into reach of Nazi regime. These policies resulted into unprecedented support of the regime from all Germans.

As a result, 4 billion Reichsmark (or about $60 billion in the current equivalent) were confiscated from Jews from 1939 to the end of WWII. Considering that before the WWII a bit more than 200 thousand Jews were living in Germany, on an average $1.2 million were expropriated form every abstract Jewish family of 4 (2 adults and 2 children – from a simple reproduction estimate).

To take away Jewish property in the occupied and allied European countries Nazi regime had to jump through additional hoops. According to the Hague Convention, which Nazi Germany tried to comply formally, an occupying power could not have seized and sold property of the civilian population. However, these regulations did not extend over the local authorities of being occupied countries, and this loophole was used for confiscating property of the European Jews. Thus, because of these requisitions, in 1940 budget revenues of France has increased by 211%, Belgium - 200%, Holland – 180%, and Norway – 242%. In 1941 this revenue boom continued, and reached 125% in Belgium, 131% in Netherlands, and 100% in Serbia.

Of course lion share of this spoil was extracted from these countries by Germans, but ordinary people of the occupied and allied countries also directly and indirectly benefited from this big grab of Jewish property. Overall, during war years 20 billion Reichsmark (or about today’s $300 billion) worth property was extracted from the European Jews. Especially these money were needed to finance needs of the Eastern Front. Thus, campaign of 1942 which allowed Germans to reach Caucasus and Volga, as well as campaign of 1943 which ended in the giant battle of the armored armadas near Kursk, were indeed funded by “Jewish money”. However, in reality, contrary to conspirological theorists, “financiers” were doing that involuntarily, and in most cases posthumously (obliteration of the Jews – 4 million – peaked in 1941-42).

So, it was not the 6 million (or 9 million pre-WWII European Jews) which was the target number of Nazi policies. That number was only a means to reach the real target number of 24 billion confiscated Reichsmark ($360 billion in current equivalent), which is about one and a half times more than GDP of the state of Israel with its 8 million population, contemporary technology and work productivity, and a more than a half-century direct and indirect financial infusions from USA. Or, again, calculated per an abstract 4 member family, that target number was about $160 thousand confiscated from each European Jewish family..
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J
Jonas Peabody
Essential German Economic HIstory of WWII
Reviewed in the United States on 07-22-2019
A thorough analysis of what motivated the German Nation in WWII - the common German and the High Command - to destroy tens of millions of lives. Aly goes into depth about the economics of Hitler's war machine, how Germans on every level did their best to keep the War going, the planning, the weighting of costs vs lives, the starvation of conquered Nations to feed and keep happy their own.

The common German did not starve during the War; after, some. But during, German soldiers happily looted Nations, sending home captured food stuffs, furniture, jewelry, anything they could pack.

Each conquered Nation was different in its compliance, and each delicately handled by subalterns for the German cause. After depriving Jews of their businesses, jobs and belongings, and moving them off into labor camps...the Reich soon realized it cost more to feed them, then what their labor was returning. The solution? Liquidation.

This is not an easy read, little of the war itself, but an overwhelming evidence of the complicity of Germans on every level to live and thrive off other Nations and races. This is the evil face of Socialism. Once Germany and Germans accepted that individuals were subordinate to the State, to be used as seen fit, then nothing stood in their way. This is the same evil America faces today: the encroaching State assuming powers never dreamed of by the Founding Fathers.

A shocking book, completely referenced..
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