Was Nazi Germany an “Accommodating Dictatorship”? A Comparative Perspective on Taxation of the Rich in World War II

Götz Aly's book Hitler's Beneficiaries considers the Nazi regime an “accommodating dictatorship.” According to Aly, the majority of the population benefited from the Nazis’ war. He sums up Nazi tax policy under the headings “Tax Breaks for the Masses” and “Tax Rigor for the Bourgeoisie.” This perspective represented progress in that, until then, tax policy had not featured in any of the major historical overviews of National Socialism. For a more in-depth assessment of Nazi tax policy, however, it must be compared against the tax policies of Germany's wartime enemies. I compare tax policies in Germany, Britain, and the United States and show that Aly's theories do not hold. They are neither consistent with the declared intentions of those who imposed these policies nor with the results as reflected in the relevant statistics

Profitorientiert, gewaltaffin: Heide Gerstenberger holt die Gewalt in die Geschichte des Kapitalismus zurück

Heide Gerstenberger: Markt und Gewalt: Die Funktionsweise des historischen Kapitalismus. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot 2017. 978-3-89691-125-

Die vier apokalyptischen Reiter der Nivellierung: Rezension zu "Nach dem Krieg sind alle gleich" von Walter Scheidel

Walter Scheidel: Nach dem Krieg sind alle gleich: Eine Geschichte der Ungleichheit. Darmstadt: wbg Theiss in Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft (WBG) 2018. 978-380623819

Andrea Rudorff, Katzbach – das KZ in der Stadt. Zwangsarbeit in den Adlerwerken Frankfurt am Main 1944/45. (Studien zur Geschichte und Wirkung des Holocaust, Bd. 5.) Göttingen, Wallstein 2021

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers (De Gruyter) frei zugänglich.Peer Reviewe

(No) Taxes for the Rich: Rezension zu "Counterrevolution: Extravagance and Austerity in Public Finance" von Melinda Cooper

Melinda Cooper: Counterrevolution: Extravagance and Austerity in Public Finance. New York: Zone Books 2024. 978-1-942130-93-

Arbeit im Nationalsozialismus

Work was a core concept in National Socialism. In pre-war concentration camps, it was a tool for converting prisoners into Volksgenossen, or members of the national community. And during the war, forced labor was crucial to armaments production. “Ability to work” meant life or death for Jews, POWs, and others. The essays in this volume explore the multiple meanings of work as a social, political, and cultural practice in National Socialism

Building to Death: Prisoner Forced Labour in the German War Economy — The Neuengamme Subcamps, 1942—1945

In 1944 most concentration camp prisoners were not interned in the main camps but in subcamps. These subcamps were erected near important armament production sites, where the work power of the prisoners was needed. The conditions in these subcamps were sometimes even more terrible than in the main camps. In historiography, the phrase ‘extermination through work’ is often used in order to describe the subcamps. However, newer studies show that conditions differed enormously between camps. For this reason it is necessary to compare the conditions in the different subcamps systematically. My article discusses the reasons for the differences that have been put forward so far. Afterwards I show that an exploration of the subcamps of Neuengamme leads to somewhat different results, and I argue that, therefore, the phrase ‘extermination through work’ should be used more cautiously. </jats:p