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

by Adam Tooze

In the event, what decided the fate of Germany and with it the world was the tragic miscalculation of a small coterie of ultra-nationalist conservatives. Ex-Chancellor Papen, embittered by his ousting in December 1932, conspired with the agrarian lobby and some of the most aggressive elements in the military to pressure the ailing Hindenburg into dismissing Schleicher and forming a new government founded on the popular platform of National Socialism. This was not possible without giving Hitler the Chancellorship. But the ultra-nationalist Hugenberg would take responsibility for both Agriculture and Economic Affairs. General Blomberg would take the Defence Ministry and Papen the Vice-Chancellorship. Nor should we assume that the balance of forces within the Hitler–Hugenberg–Papen–Blomberg government was foreordained. There were powerful forces in German society, most notably the military and the churches, but also the leadership of German business that could have done much to deflect Hitler and his followers from their path.119 The policy of anti-Semitism, aggressive rearmament and unilateral diplomacy was clearly in no sense forced on