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

by Adam Tooze

During World War II the Americans estimated that there were in the order of $450 million invested directly in businesses in Germany.102 Standard Oil’s investment of almost $65 million in the Deutsch-Amerikanische Petroleum Gesellschaft, combined with its close ties to IG Farben, made it the American industrial corporation with the greatest stake in Hitler’s Germany. But it was closely followed by General Motors (GM) which had $54.8 million invested in Opel AG of Russelsheim, Germany’s largest car-maker. By comparison, Ford’s stake valued at only $8.5 million was relatively modest, as was the stake held by IBM in its German subsidiary Dehomag.103 More significant American interests, with investments of roughly $20 million each, included Woolworths, the sewing-machine manufacturer Singer, and ITT, whose German interests included C. Lorenz AG, one of the Luftwaffe’s most important suppliers of radio and electronic equipment. Nor were Americans the only foreigners with a stake in German industry. British and Dutch multinationals such as Anglo-Persian (BP) and Royal Dutch Shell (Anglo-Dutch)