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

by Adam Tooze

By the summer they were cut to 5 per cent of the levels they had received before the crisis in July 1931. Since all the most important industries in Germany were dependent on raw materials from abroad, this savage restriction prompted fears of a new wave of lay-offs. Shortages of raw materials spelled not only unemployment; they also implied shortages of supply for consumers, fears that were compounded by the unusually bad harvest of 1934. Popular discontent with the rising price of imported food was widespread. And it was not just consumers who had little to cheer about. The mood in business circles in the second year of Hitler’s regime was far from good. The stock market responded to Hitler’s aggressive opening address for the new Battle for Work on 21 March 1934 with a sharp fall in share prices.8 By May 1934 the groundswell of popular discontent was such that Goebbels felt compelled to launch a national campaign against malcontents: a two-month ‘barrage of meetings, demonstrations and announcements’ against ‘rubbishers and critics’.9 The main theme of this campaign was the need for ordinary Germans to show more fortitude in coping with the effects of the foreign exchange shortage: ‘Helping to overcome