The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy

by Adam Tooze

Even if Hitler had not been appointed Chancellor and Schleicher had remained in power, it is hard to imagine Germany pursuing a course that was anything other than disruptive to the last-ditch efforts to restore peace and stability to the world, at the disarmament talks in Geneva and at the World Economic Conference in London. Added to which, one would be falling into the solipsistic trap of nationalist strategy if one imagined that the question was ultimately Germany’s to decide. Germany could pursue a policy more or less congenial to global stabilization, but the chance of achieving that elusive goal depended critically on the other major powers. And in 1933 the environment was far less congenial to a multilateral strategy than ten years earlier. Above all, the position of the United States had dramatically changed. In 1923 Stresemann had clearly been right to gamble on America as the dominant force in world affairs, both economically and as a future military superpower. Ten years later America’s position was fatally weakened by the most severe crisis in recorded economic history.