The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age

by Tim Wu

Hitler’s rise and exercise of power were facilitated by the German Republic’s tolerance of monopolies in key industries, including the Krupp armaments company, Siemens railroad and infrastructure, and, most of all, the I.G. Farben chemical cartel. As a report by the Secretary of War concluded: “Germany under the Nazi set-up built up a great series of industrial monopolies in steel, rubber, coal, and other materials. The monopolies soon got control of Germany, brought Hitler to power, and forced virtually the whole world into war.” That conclusion came from the observation that the main German monopolists, over the 1930s, threw their weight behind the Nazi regime when it lacked support among other key groups, and that each ultimately became deeply allied with and enmeshed in the German war effort.

This is a very big conclusion that I would like to know more about