Abstract
This chapter gives an overview of the new literature on the economic history of Nazi Germany by focusing on the general question whether a state is able to manage or govern its economy. Though in principle one would assume that the very authoritarian regime of Nazi Germany should have been able to subordinate the whole economy, research has found that the Nazis in fact did not do so. That raises the question, which choices authorities generally have to govern the economy, and how the Nazis did apply them?
First Publication: Werner Plumpe, ‘Steuerungsprobleme’‚ in der Wirtschafts- und Unternehmensgeschichte des Nationalsozialismus, in: Gerd Bender/Rainer Maria Kiesow/Dieter Simon (eds), Die andere Seite des Wirtschaftsrechts. Steuerung in Diktaturen des 20. Jahrhunderts. Frankfurt a.M. 2006, 19–30. Principally on this topic: Niklas Luhmann, Theory of Society, 2 vols., Stanford 1997. Also Niklas Luhmann, Die Wirtschaft der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt a.M. 1988; and Niklas Luhmann, Die Politik der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt a.M. 2000. Important in parts Niklas Luhmann, Organisation und Entscheidung, Opladen 2000. Relevant in terms of the title, factually unusable Michael von Prollius, Das Wirtschaftssystem der Nationalsozialisten, 1933–1939. Steuerung durch emergente Organisation und politische Prozesse, Paderborn 2003. In other respects, the following reflections have been penned by an economic historian who draws on ideas from Luhmann’s systems theory but is solely responsible for the resulting product. He does not seek to render a contribution to systems theory but is simply interested in using relevant considerations in investigating the historiographic plausibility of the years between 1933 and 1945. Helpful Gerd Bender/Rainer Maria Kiesow/Dieter Simon (eds), Das Europa der Diktatur. Steuerung—Wirtschaft—Recht, Baden-Baden 2002.
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Notes
- 1.
Something like this may undoubtedly always play a role in some aspects, but is by no means causative for the problem under discussion here. In general, organizations treat their management problems as HR or organizational problems or are forced to relinquish their claim to management. To go by the control legend, in cases of doubt it is the bad character of the employees selected for the task that is responsible for nothing working. In this context, we can also perceive that a contradiction between intentionalists and structuralists not only does not exist, but also that both positions are mutually dependent: precisely the desire for intentional control led to a polycratic organization!
- 2.
And, it should be added, was not able to succeed at all. A clear indication of this inability is the problem, recently demonstrated by Adam Tooze, of being able to statistically document complex production processes at all; see J. Adam Tooze, Statistics and the German State, 1900–1945. The Making of Modern Economic Knowledge, Cambridge 2001.
- 3.
Georg Thomas, Geschichte der deutschen Wehr- und Rüstungswirtschaft (1918–1943/1945), Boppard 1966. Dietmar Petzina, Autarkiepolitik im Dritten Reich. Der nationalsozialistische Vierjahresplan, Stuttgart 1968. Fritz Blaich, Wirtschaft und Rüstung im ‘Dritten Reich’, Düsseldorf 1987. Willi A. Boelcke, Die deutsche Wirtschaft 1930–1945. Interna des Reichswirtschaftsministeriums, Düsseldorf 1983. Ludolf Herbst, Der Totale Krieg und die Ordnung der Wirtschaft. Die Kriegswirtschaft im Spannungsfeld von Politik, Ideologie und Propaganda, Stuttgart 1982. Lutz Budraß, Flugzeugindustrie und Luftrüstung in Deutschland 1918–1945, Düsseldorf 1998. Like the Nazis, who overestimated their own reach, Marxist historians also tend to overestimate the dictatorship’s control efficiency, perhaps because indeed in East Germany the state leadership likewise claimed to have ‘society’ under control. On the Marxist economic historiography of Nazism, see Dietrich Eichholtz, Geschichte der deutschen Kriegswirtschaft, 3 vols., Berlin 1969–1996.
- 4.
The radical nature of this statement may seem strange, but is plausible upon brief reflection: Engineers may see technical achievements in automobiles; companies must sell them. In this respect, it is also only those cars that are made which we can assume will find a market at a suitable price. Incidentally, the fact that one does not know the relative prices of the future when making decisions in the present and has to simulate them is one of the main problems of corporate decision-making, namely having to feign confidence in decision-making where it de facto doesn’t exist.
- 5.
Another important point that can only be implied here. Companies operate exclusively with self-generated ‘information’; thus, in the self-production of communications, they can be irritated from the outside but not determined!
- 6.
On the decision-making process, see now Werner Plumpe, Perspektiven der Unternehmensgeschichte, in: Günther Schulz et al. (eds), Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte. Arbeitsgebiete—Probleme—Perspektiven. 100 Jahre Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte (VSWG-Beihefte 169), Stuttgart 2004, 403–26 and the literature sources it cites.
- 7.
Structural coupling means that each of the subsystems has to presuppose the other subsystems, but without being able to manage them in the sense of their own functional requirements. Markets presuppose a functional law, thus are structurally coupled with it, without being able to control its method of functioning in line with its own operations (i.e. via price signals and payments). Luhmann aptly alluded to this relationship elsewhere saying that you don’t get well when you pay the doctor’s bills!
- 8.
On communication media and their significance in-depth Luhmann, Theory of Society (see note First Publication: Werner Plumpe…), Ch. 2. On power Luhmann, Die Politik der Gesellschaft (see note First Publication: Werner Plumpe…), 18–68.
- 9.
No itemization shall follow, as this would go beyond the scope of this chapter. See on this first Werner Plumpe, Unternehmen im Nationalsozialismus—Eine Zwischenbilanz, in: Werner Abelshauser/Jan-Otmar Hesse/Werner Plumpe (eds), Wirtschaftsordnung, Staat und Unternehmen. Neue Forschungen zur Wirtschaftsgeschichte des Nationalsozialismus. Festschrift für Dietmar Petzina zum 65. Geburtstag, Essen 2004, 243–66. For an English version of this article, see the essay 5. Business and industry under National Socialism—an interim report in this book.
- 10.
As of 1934 and the nascent shortages of raw materials and foreign currency, the self-generated economic problems continually increased. See Christoph Buchheim, Zur Natur des Wirtschaftsaufschwunges in der NS-Zeit, in: Christoph Buchheim/Harold James/Michael Hutter (eds), Zerrissene Zwischenkriegszeit. Knut Borchardt zum 65. Geburtstag, Baden-Baden 1994, 97–119.
- 11.
Please excuse this untidy formulation. It is intended to convey that each individual decision-making process in any company had to take place in a changed climate of self-observation, which for its part in turn had consequences for the respective decision-making agenda.
- 12.
This ‘rational’ view is not intended, however, to contest companies’ willingness to support Nazism for political reasons, which merits further investigation in each case.
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Plumpe, W. (2016). The Economic and Corporate History of Nazism: Reflections from the Perspective of Systems Theory. In: German Economic and Business History in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51860-6_9
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