The Business of Genocide: The SS, Slave Labor, and the Concentration Camps

by Michael Thad Allen

During World War II, hundreds of thousands of prisoners were worked to death by the Nazis under a brutal system of slave labor in the concentration camps. By 1942, this vast network of slavery extended across all of German-occupied Europe, but the whole operation was run by a surprisingly small staff of bureaucrats--no more than 200 engineers and managers who worked in the Business Administration Main Office of the SS. Their projects included designing and constructing the concentration camps and gas chambers, building secret underground weapons factories, and brokering slave laborers to private companies such as Volkswagen and IG Farben.

The Business of Genocide powerfully contradicts the assumption that the SS forced slavery upon the German economy, demonstrating that instead industrialists actively sought out the Business Administration Main Office as a valued partner in the war economy. Moreover, while the bureaucrats who oversaw Holocaust operations have often been seen as technocrats or simple "cogs in the machinery," the book reveals their ideological dedication, even fanatical devotion, to slavery and genocide in the name of National Socialism.

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During World War II, hundreds of thousands of prisoners were worked to death by the Nazis under a brutal system of slave labor in the concentration camps across all of German-occupied Europe. The whole operation was run by a surprisingly small staff of bureaucrats--no more than 200 engineers and managers who worked in the Business Administration Main Office of the SS. Michael Thad Allen powerfully contradicts the assumption that the SS forced slavery upon the German economy, demonstrating that instead industrialists actively sought out the Business Administration Main Office as a valued partner in the war economy. Moreover, while the bureaucrats who oversaw Holocaust operations have often been seen as technocrats or simple "cogs in the machinery," this book reveals their ideological dedication, even fanatical devotion, to slavery and genocide in the name of National Socialism.

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Genres: History

392 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2002

Reviews

[Jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have often wondered whether the Nazis' use of slave labor balanced out the expense and extreme draw on resources, from transport to energy to manpower, needed to operate the concentration camps and then death camps. Michael Thad Allen does not directly answer that question for me, but he presents another perspective: that was never the intent of either the regime or the SS. The camps, and indeed, the way the SS operated, were always about Nazi ideology: racial supremacy and the future (post-war) New Order of the German volk, especially in a purified East.

Having grown up with capitalism, Allen's hypothesis the SS never intended to make money with its businesses or profit from what became the slave labor system they were masters of is hard to understand. Still, it pales in comparison with the enormity and incomprehensibleness that is the Holocaust. Yet, Allen suggests they have the same basis in ideology and both evolved over the course of time.

Slave labor became a solution to Germany's manpower shortages from 1942 and especially after 1943. Similarly, some SS industries adopted "modern", and sometimes technocratic, business practices. Although not directly related, these tended to industrialize the whole effort. Despite post-war claims to innocence, many businesses were complicit in this escalation late in the war. This industrialization and the growth in scale of the terror apparatus facilitated the extermination centers. This progression, Allen posits, all fits into SS and Nazi ideology. Thus, while the use of slave labor became a necessity for the war economy, death through work and extermination of "those unfit for work" was never counter to the regime's objectives. Industrial murder also developed alongside the rise in slave labor. Allen also concludes businessmen, industrialists, engineers, and SS personnel involved were at least tolerant, if not active advocates, of the system and its increasing barbarity.

There has been a fair amount of post-war effort to minimize the participation of businessmen and others, attempting to lay the blame at the feet of the rabid SS camp personnel. But the fact is, countless ordinary people played a role in the Holocaust. Ordinary Men, by Christopher R. Browning, examines this in the book about reserve police battalion 101. Allen is reluctant to accept minimizing complicity in the Holocaust: "It says much for the normalcy with which the contempt for freedom was viewed in the Third Reich that civilian managers had come to depend on terror and the threat of murder to do their job." While Allen does not raise the oft-heard "we didn't know" excuse concerning the Holocaust, he suggests a general acceptance of at least aspects of the ideology that enabled it: "Not all were 'orgiastic anti-semites,' but so many of them found enough of themselves and their ambitions fulfilled by one or another myriad theme of National Socialism that they were indeed Hitler's willing executioners."

Allen spends much of the book focused on his conclusion the SS was driven by its ideology coupled with Himmler's desire for the SS to be the standard-bearer of Nazi objectives and the executive agent for building the new German utopia. The theme is repeated frequently, making the book feel longer than it needs to be. But he also examines the theory from several perspectives. This gave me a new and better understanding, leaving me with different questions because the whole phenomenon seems so bizarre to most of us. I appreciated Allen's analysis. Allen's disdain for historians and others whitewashing aspects of involvement in the Holocaust are consistent with his position throughout the book. The Cold War may have driven the post-war powers to look the other way due to perceived exigencies of the time, but many may not have been less innocent than they preferred to be seen.

The Business of Genocide is neither hard nor easy to read. As I noted, it tends to feel a bit repetitive, but it is also thorough. It is well-researched and footnoted without feeling overly academic. It rarely mentions statistics, so it's not going to answer questions about the economics of the Holocaust. It is, however, a worthwhile analysis of the rationale and development of SS businesses, then slave labor, then genocide. The title makes it seem like a niche topic, but it is actually broader and I'd recommend it for anyone seeking some modicum of understanding of the Holocaust.

[John Vandike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Generally an interesting read, but I if you have already read Albert Speer's or Hannah Arendt's books, then you will find little behind a rehashing of the banality of evil. No where near enough detail for the well-acquainted, far to intricate detail for those unknowledgeable. A thin volume for a bookcase of an academic specializing in the subject.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 3 out of 5]

doesn't get into enough detail

for me the moral arguments crowd out the detail in a rather short work