Jewish Political Studies Review
Jewish Political Studies Review 17:3-4 (Fall 2005)
How German Banks and Industry Profited
from "Aryanization" and Slave Labor
Susanne Urban
Books Discussed in this Essay:
From Cooperation to Complicity: Degussa in the Third Reich, by Peter
Hayes
The Nazi Dictatorship and the Deutsche Bank
by Harold James
Industry and National Socialist Politics: A Close Relationship
The first generation of research on the structure and politics of the
Third Reich focused on the leading personalities of the Nazi Party.
Then, for a long time, investigators directed their attention to second-ranking
politicians, the Wehrmacht, and the special forces of war
and terror.
After the German reunification, the contribution of industrial and
insurance companies, banks, and similar institutions to the Nazi Party,
the rise of the Party, the network of war and repression, and finally
the Holocaust became matters of serious interest. The OMGUS Report
on the economic structure of Nazi Germany disclosed much information
on the perpetrators and the profiteers of forced and slave labor1
and also on the death camps. Published in 1947 by the Office for
Military Government for Germany, US/Finance Division/Investigation
Section, it did not become available within Germany until the
late 1980s.
It was in the early 1990s that the financial restitution of the
forced and slave laborers was first placed on Germany's agenda.
Although, initially, German companies and banks often denied any
connection to the forced-labor network that the Nazis set up
throughout Europe, historians began researching these bodies' role
during the Third Reich, and by now many books have been published
on the subject. In some cases, companies and banks themselves
initiated inquiries, which for the most part were genuinely independent
of their boards.
One area of interest is the role of such major bodies as the
Deutsche Bank, the Dresdner Bank, and the chemical industry. Regional
studies analyzed smaller companies. Little by little, the "blind
spots" in these organizations' history are being illuminated. The
research often shows that cooperation with the Nazi Party brought
large financial benefits.
Degussa, Degesch, and Zyklon B
Peter Hayes, a specialist in twentieth-century German history at
Northwestern University, published in 1988 the prizewinning
Industry and Ideology: IG Farben and the Nazis (new ed., Cambridge,
2001). Another company that has received much attention is
Degussa, which smelted metals plundered from Holocaust victims
and was directly connected to producing Zyklon B, while using
forced laborers from ghettos and camps. Degussa invited Hayes to
write the firm's story during the Third Reich; the historian hesitated
until he received a guarantee that Degussa would not have any rights
of review or censorship.
Hayes was given full access to Degussa's archives. Other companies
that were connected to it after 1933, such as Henkel of
Düsseldorf, have kept their records closed. Hayes's outstanding study
of Degussa is, however, based on newly available material from its
own annals.
Although Degussa was never a large firm, it gained importance
because of its specialization in smelting. Gold, silver, and other
precious metals taken from Jews passed through its refineries.
Degesch, a chemical concern concentrating on pesticides that
Degussa bought after World War I, later produced Zyklon B, which
was used not only against pests but also against Jews and others in
the gas chambers. As detailed in an appendix to this book, Degussa
and Degesch's participation in the Holocaust increased after
Auschwitz was built in 1942. More than fifty-six tons of Zyklon B
were provided by these companies and others to the extermination
camps.
Hayes emphasizes that cooperation with the Third Reich was
extremely profitable for Degussa and its daughter companies. Degussa
had excellent relations with the Nazi Party, prominent members
of which served on its board during the war years. Degussa
also derived benefit from its approximately three thousand forced
laborers, 40 percent of whom were Jews, and from taking over industries
and factories as part of the Aryanization program.
Degussa representatives increasingly identified with the racial
program and other aspects of Nazi ideology that were linked to
terror and mass murder. They also accepted the National Socialist
approach of a centralized economy. There were no efforts to keep
Degussa independent of the Party's influence; on the contrary, Degussa
was totally devoted to the Third Reich. It sought the easiest
ways to amass wealth and power under a terror regime, never showing
the slightest concern even about victims murdered with its own
products.
Like his study of IG Farben, Hayes's book on Degussa is an
exemplary and judicious account. His insights into the company's
structure and history are applicable to other German firms that
participated and profited from Nazi policies. More broadly, this well-written,
readable work is essential for those seeking to understand
how German citizens in general became collaborators with the
Third Reich.
Hunger for Profit: The Deutsche Bank during the Third Reich
Harold James, professor of modern history at Princeton University,
has published books on such subjects as the interwar depression in
Germany and the changing character of its national identity. He is a
member of the Independent Commission of Experts investigating the
political and economic links between Switzerland and Nazi Germany,
and of commissions examining the roles of Deutsche Bank and
Dresdner Bank. In the latter capacity, in 1995 he contributed to a
history of the Deutsche Bank a chapter on its role during the Third
Reich. His further study, The Deutsche Bank and the Nazi Economic
War against the Jews, appeared in 2001 (Cambridge), and his latest
book explores the Nazi leadership's connection to this body.
Deutsche Bank was one of the main financers of the Third Reich,
a role from which it reaped huge profits. Both the Nazi Party and the
SS were its beneficiaries, as well as the military industries. During the
Reich, the bank's director Hermann Josef Abs was also the head of
IG Farben's board.
James's well-structured, clearly written book is an elaboration of
his earlier chapter. It incorporates new materials from American, Russian,
and Central European archives, which, he notes, shed light on
"some aspects of the bank's activities and policies that were neglected
in the 1995 history," particularly gold transactions. Beyond that, The
Nazi Dictatorship and the Deutsche Bank is not really new, though
worthwhile for those who do not want to read the whole book on
Deutsche Bank's history.
Deutsche Bank profited both from forced labor and from giving
the Nazis a million-Mark credit for building Auschwitz. The OMGUS
Report noted that Deutsche Bank also financed an IG Farben factory
with $250 million (1947 currency). During the reparation proceedings,
the bank also sold over 300 kilograms of gold whose origin was
never completely disclosed, and transferred the profit to Jewish organizations.
Although this book could perhaps have been better titled Hitler's
Willing Bankers, James does not convey the prominence of Deutsche
Bank's role during the Third Reich. He is circumspect in his conclusions
and less clear than Hayes, speaking of a "fundamental dilemma"
and "Germany's moral catastrophe" in which the "bankers too played
a role" (p. 224.). Germany, however, was not beset by a calamity; an
overwhelming majority favored the Nazi Party and its program.
* * *
Notes
1. The Claims Conference defined forced laborers as people deported from
their homeland to the territory of the German Reich or to a German-occupied
area, outside the territory of Austria, and forced to perform work
there, and slave laborers as people compelled to work in concentration camps,
ghettos, or other places of incarceration.
The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect
those of the Board of Fellows of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
The above book review appears in the Fall 2005 issue of the Jewish Political Studies Review, the first and only journal dedicated to the study of Jewish political institutions and behavior, Jewish political thought, and Jewish public affairs.
Published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (http://www.jcpa.org/), the JPSR appears twice a year in the form of two double issues, either of a general nature or thematic, with contributors including outstanding scholars from the United States, Israel, and abroad. The hard copy of the Spring 2005 issue will be available in the coming weeks."
From the Editors: Manfred Gerstenfeld and Shmuel Sandler
The Forgotten Narrative: Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries by Avi Beker
European Politics: Double Standards toward Israel by Manfred Gerstenfeld
Annals of Israeli-Albanian Contacts on Establishing Diplomatic Relations by Yosef Govrin
Perspectives - Jomo Kenyatta and Israel by Asher Naim
Assessing the American Jewish Institutional Response to Global Anti-Semitism by Steven Windmueller
The New Muslim Anti-Semitism: Exploring Novel Avenues of Hatred by Raphael Israeli
Arab and Muslim Anti-Semitism in Sweden by Mikael Tossavainen
Kill a Jew - Go to Heaven:
The Perception of the Jew in Palestinian Society by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
Israel in the Australian Media by Tzvi Fleischer
Barbara Tuchman's Comments on Israel by Moshe Yegar
Hidden in Plain Sight: Alexis de Tocqueville's Recognition of the Jewish Origin of the Idea of Equality by Joel Fishman
Perspectives - The Seventh-Century Christian Obsession with the Jews: A Historical Parallel for the Present?
by Rivkah Duker Fishman
Book Reviews:
Isi Leibler on Tower of Babble: How the United Nations
Has Fueled Global Chaos by Dore Gold
Shalom Freedman on Iran's Nuclear Option: Tehran's Quest
for the Atom Bomb by Al J. Venter
Shalom Freedman on Rabin and Israel's National Security
by Efraim Inbar
Freddy Eytan on The Long Journey to Asia
by Moshe Yegar
Susanne Urban on From Cooperation to Complicity:
Degussa in the Third Reich by Peter Hayes,
and The Nazi Dictatorship and the Deutsche Bank
by Harold James
Joel Fishman on The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People
under Siege by Kenneth Levin
Manfred Gerstenfeld on Rising from the Muck: The New
Anti-Semitism in Europe by Pierre-André
Taguieff
Manfred Gerstenfeld on Les territoires perdus de la
République: Antisémitisme, racisme et sexisme en milieu
scolaire by Emmanuel Brenner
Manfred Gerstenfeld on Holocaust Justice: The Battle for
Restitution in America's Courts by Michael J. Bazyler
Shalom Freedman on Double or Nothing: Jewish Families
and Mixed Marriages by Sylvia Barack Fishman
About the Contributors
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