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

by Adam Tooze

Hitler and his acolytes were firmly convinced that the development of the German standard of living had been held back since 1918 by an unholy alliance formed between selfish bourgeois liberals and primitivist socialists.33 This conspiracy of low expectations had benefited only the German bourgeoisie, whilst robbing the majority of the German population of the full benefits of the new technologies of mass-production. Ford had had the entrepreneurial vision to break with the past and to turn what had once been a luxury product into a popular commodity. In Germany, what was required to break the deadlock was an act of decisive political will. The Third Reich made it its mission to use the authority of the state to coordinate efforts within industry to devise standardized and simplified versions of key consumer commodities. These would then be produced at the lowest possible price, enabling the German population to achieve an immediate breakthrough to a higher standard of living.