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

by Adam Tooze

The example of VGF raises the more general question of how foreign owned companies fared in Hitler’s Germany. Many sensationalist claims have been made on this score in recent years and a dose of realism is in order. It is true that there was substantial foreign direct investment in Germany both in the 1920s and before 1914. 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,