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Authors: Götz Aly

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BOOK: Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State
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46.
BA R 2/appendix/52, pp. 9-11. Emphasis in the original. There were extensive continuities between the postwar Federal Republic of Germany and the Third Reich. Numerous civil servants who worked for the Reichsbank and the various ministries discussed in this book carried their attitudes with them into postfascist Germany.
47.
All quotations concerning the cooperation between private banks and the Reich government are from RKG-Akte, BA R 8136/3692 (21 pp.).
48.
Decree, Dec. 3, 1938, RGBl. I, p. 1710, secs. 11, 12; Schwerin von Krosigk to the Reich Finance Offices, Dec. 10, 1938, NG-4902.
49.
Deutsche Bank memorandum to local branches, Dec. 13, 1938, BA R 8119/10563, pp. 99, 180.
a >
50.
RFM, Dec. 13, 1941, NG-5067; RFM, Sept. 1, 1942, NG-5040; RFM, Sept. 14, 1942, NG-5000; Krüger, Lösung, pp. 371ff. Even as late as 1944, the Prussian State Bank recorded numerous transactions concerning “Payments for Securities from Jewish Assets Contributions,” BA R 2/31802. For 1938-39: 14695, 14696, 14697, 14698; for 1940: 14700; for 1941: 14710, 14711; for 1942: 31801; for various other issues: 14699, 14701, 14702. See also “Ein ‘circulus,’” Berliner Börsen-Zeitung, Feb. 9, 1939.
51.
Preussische Staatsbank to RFM (Bussmann), March 6, 1942, BA R 2/31800, p. 99.
52.
Reichsbank, Securities Statements 272.1941, April 10, 1942, NA AJ 40/1125B. Together with his superior Walther Bayrhoffer, senior government adviser Walther Bussmann was the administrator responsible for managing war finances. As of 1939, Bayrhoffer ran the Main Bureau for General Finance and Credit Affairs in the Finance Ministry. On Feb. 1, 1939, he was charged with representing that ministry on the Reichsbank board of directors. His responsibilities there encompassed general legal and economic issues, cash transactions, and public finances. See Bayrhoffer testimony, Feb. 5, 1948, NID-14444.
53.
GBW (Wohlthat), Dec. 1937, NA RG 238/case Xl/microfiche 32.
54.
Reich Labor Office (Rettig) to Reichsbank, Aug. 29, 1936; see Mason, Arbeiterklasse, pp. 986ff.
55.
GBW (Posse, Reinhardt, Kretzschmann, Michel, Tischbein, Neumann, Kadgien, and others), May 30, 1939, PS-3562.
56.
Boelcke, “Kriegsfinanzierung,” p. 37.
57.
To clarify the KWVO, the Reich High Court issued a ruling on Sept. 22, 1941 (5 D 355/41), Deutsches Recht, 1941, p. 2441. VO zur Ergänzung der KWVO [Supplementary Ordinance to the KWVO], March 25, 1942, RGB1. I, p. 147. The ordinance outlawed the hoarding of currency, although it imposed no specific penalties. These were added three years later.
58.
RGB1. 1939/1, pp. 1609ff.; Recker, Sozialpolitik, pp. 43-44, which cites Mason, Arbeiterklasse. The figures on exemptions vary. Recker writes of a 2,500 reichsmarks cutoff, others of 3,000. The discrepancies can be explained by the extremely low tax rates on monthly incomes between 220 and 245 reichsmarks and the tax-exempt status of certain premiums on wages. See Oermann and Meuschel, Kriegssteuern, p. 146.
59.
Begründung zur VO über Kriegszuschläge [Rationale behind the Ordinance on Wartime Surcharges] [1943], NA T 178/15, microfilm 098. According to statistics from 1937, members of Germany’s working class earned less than 2,400 reichsmarks per year, as did 53 percent of the country’s 3.7 million white-collar employees. Low-level civil servants, many of whom worked for the post office and the railroad, almost certainly did not earn that much, either, so very few German wage earners were required to pay direct wartime taxes.
60.
Economics division of the RKG, “Probleme der Kriegsfinanzierung,” Oct. 3, 1939, p. 13, BA R 8136/3809. In 1936, 90 percent of all employed people earned less than 3,000 RM a year. See Donner, “Grenzen,” p. 205.
 
61.
Reich Defense Council, June 26, 1935, NA RG 238/case Xl/microfiche 28; Boelcke, Kosten, p. 99.
62.
Bayrhoffer, “Reichsbank,” p. 100.
63.
Jessen, Kriegswirtschaftsverordnung, p. 26.
64.
Bark, “Kriegsfinanzierung,” p. 55; Hitler, speech on Dec. 10, 1940, “Rede,” pp. 348-49.
65.
Recker, Sozialpolitik, pp. 34-35.
66.
RFM, Dec. 8, 1943, BA R 2/56205, p. 1.
67.
Grosa, Zielsetzungen, p. 38; Recker, Sozialpolitik, p. 34.
 
68.
VO zur Lenkung der Kaufkraft [Ordinance on Control of Consumer Spending], RGBl. 1941/1, p. 664. According to Grosa, Zielsetzungen, concerns about social stability—“the need to restrain excessive demands for intoxicants”—and not financial ones motivated the second hike (p. 40).
69.
Oermann and Meuschel, Kriegssteuern, pp. 101, 123ff.
70.
RGBl. 1/1939, p. 2254; Ressortbesprechung [division meeting], Nov. 10, 1939, in Mason, Arbeiterklasse, pp. 1183ff.
71.
RGBl. 1/1939, p. 2403 (ordinance of Dec. 12, 1939, taking effect on Jan. 1, 1940).
72.
Recker, Sozialpolitik, pp. 51ff.
 
73.
Schwerin von Krosigk, Staatsbankrott, p. 299; original quotation, NA T 178/15, microfilm 898.
74.
Goebbels’s diary, March 15, 1940.
75.
Recker, Sozialpolitik, pp. 53-56.
76.
Bissinger, Das musst du wissen!, p. 22; RFM, Schwerin von Krosigk to RK (Lammers), June 28, 1943, BA R 2/32096. On the limits on tax exemptions for overtime pay and the moderate reductions in wages for workers during the final months of the war, see Recker, Sozialpolitik, pp. 275-76.
77.
Reinhardt to Schwerin von Krosigk, June 18, 1940, NA T 178/15, microfilm 041-044.
78.
Benning, “Expansion und Kontraktion der Geldmenge,” March 25, 1943, BA R 8136/3810.
79.
Head, Finance Office, Grevenbroich, to OFP, Düsseldorf, Dec. 1, 1939, BA R 2/56917.
80.
Gauleiter, Magdeburg, to PK, Aug. 15, 1941, BA R 2/31093, p. 103.
81.
Wirtschaftspressekonferenz, geh. Mitteilung [economic press conference (secret communiqué)], July 29, 1941, BA R 8136/3990. Prior to the law of July 24, 1941 (RGBl. I, pp. 443-44), a Dec. 1937 law improving pension payments (RGBl. I, p. 1393) had already bettered the lot of German senior citizens.
82.
Recker, Sozialpolitik, pp. 206ff., 282-83.
83.
Schwerin von Krosigk to Göring, Jan. 20, 1940, NA T 178/15, microfilm 896-902. On the discussions surrounding the reform, the arguments concerning the financing of the war, and German “socialism of deeds,” see DAF (Ley) to RFM, RWM, etc., Jan. 19, 1940, and Ley to Hitler, Dec. 28, 1939, NA T 178/15, microfilm 735ff.; Recker, Sozialpolitik, p. 115. A modest version of the reform was begun by German occupiers in Hungary as late as 1944; see Gerlach and Aly, Kapitel, pp. 198-99, 228.
84.
Recker, Sozialpolitik, pp. 283-84.
85.
Hupfauer (DAF) to Gündel (RFM) after a meeting with Ley, April 15, 1943, BA R 2/31092.
86.
Schwerin von Krosigk, Staatsbankrott, pp. 300-01; Recker, Sozialpolitik, pp. 217-23.
87.
BA R 2/20405a; emphasis in original.
88.
Klein, Lageberichte, p. 249.
89.
Benning, “Expansion und Kontraktion der Geldmenge,” March 25, 1943, BA R 8136/3810.
90.
Schwerin von Krosigk to Göring, May 6, 1943, BA R 2/20405a.
91.
Benning, “Expansion und Kontraktion,” pp. 15-16.
 
92.
Goebbels’s diary, May 7, 1943.
93.
Goebbels to Bormann, July 14, 1943; notes on conversation, June 30, 1943; NSDAP (Gündel) to Bormann, June 25, 1943 (Reinhardt’s handwritten notes); PK (Bormann), July 3 and 7, 1943, BA R 2/20405a.
94.
Goebbels’s diary, September 7 and 10, 1943.
95.
Lammers to Schwerin von Krosigk, Sept. 29, 1944, BA R 2/14553, p. 256.
 
96.
Schwerin von Krosigk to Lammers, Dec. 22, 1943, NA T 178/15, microfilm 078ff.
97.
Recker, Sozialpolitik, pp. 218-19.
 
98.
Goebbels’s diary, November 5, 1944.
99.
Goebbels’s diary, March 3 and 28, 1945; on Goebbels’s role as patron and protector of the lower and middle classes, see Federau, Weltkrieg, pp. 27-28.
100.
E. W. Schmidt (economics division, Deutsche Bank), “Die Entwicklung des deutschen Bankwesens im Kriege,” 1944; Schmidt, “Gewinnabführung und Preissenkung,” BA R 8119/10883/10935; Oertel, “Kriegsfinanzierung,” pp. 699-700.
101.
GewinnabführungsDVO [Implementation Ordinance on Profit Taxes], March 31, 1942, RGBl. I, p. 162; Zweite VO zur Durchführung der GewinnabführungsVO [Second Implementation Ordinance on Profit Taxes], Aug. 24, 1942, RGBl. I., p. 536; RFM, VO über die Gewinnabführung 1943 (Entwurf), Begründung [Draft Implementation Ordinance on Profit Taxes, 1943, rationale], BA R 2/32104; Meimberg, “Gewinnabführung.”
102.
Gewinnabführungserklärung [Declaration on Profit Taxes], 1943, RStBL, Sept. 27, 1944, p. 585.
103.
RGBl. 1/1941, p. 510 (SteueränderungsVO [Ordinance on Changes to Tax Legislation]).
104.
Hohrmann and Lenski, Körperschaftsteuer, pp. 2-3; RGBl. 1/1941, pp. 510, 515; 1/1942, p. 162.
105.
Benning, “Expansion und Kontraktion,” p. 212.
106.
Oertel, “Kriegsfinanzierung,” p. 735, table.
 
107.
Directors of J. F. Lehmann, Munich, to employees in the field (“Heil unserer Wehrmacht, Heil unserem Führer”), April 2, 1942, private newspaper collection, G. Aly, W. Lehmann estate.
108.
Louis Adlon, OFP, RFM, Berlin-Brandenburg, BA R 2/56903; on the relation between profit and risk, see Erhard, Kriegsfinanzierung, pp. 51-52ff.
109.
See Donner, “Staatsform.”
110.
Benning, “Der Versuch des Wiederaufbaus der deutschen Volkswirtschaft und sein Scheitern 1929/31,” Jan. 30, 1945, BA R 8136/3797; Schmidt, “Bi-lanz.”
111.
RGBl. 1/1931, p. 706; 1/1936, p. 992.
112.
“Der mögliche Erfolg einer Ablösung der Industrieumlage,” Bankwirtschaft, 1943, pp. 38-39; “Das Ergebnis der Hauszinssteuerablösung,” Bank-Archiv, 1943, pp. 32-33; BA R 2/57964, pp. 5-8, 90-91.
 
113.
Begründung zur VO über Kriegszuschläge [Rationale behind the Ordinance on Wartime Surcharges] [spring 1943], NA T 178/15, microfilm 096.
114.
Tribius (Reichsbund der Haus- und Grundbesitzer [Association of Property and Real Estate Owners]), in conversation with Uhlich (RFM), March 7, 1942, BA R 2/57964, p. 166.
115.
Benning, “Kriegsfinanzierung” 1944, BA R 8136/3809, p. 17; Erhard, Kriegsfinanzierung, pp. 104, 104a-i.
116.
Klein, Lageberichte, pp. 81-82. Similar articles were printed in Das schwarze Korps on Nov. 19 and 26, 1942.
117.
Price Commissioner (Fischböck) to Gauleiter, spring 1942; Schwerin von Krosigk to Fischböck [May 1942], BA R 2/31681. On the Nazi campaign against “the privilege of property owners,” see Völkischer Beobachter, May 15, 1942, and Berliner Börsen-Zeitung, May 14, 1942. With Goebbels’s support, the Finance Ministry succeeded in suppressing the campaign; see Klopfer to Bormann, May 22, 1942, BA R 2/31681.
118.
Meeting, Dec. 11, 1941, BA R 2/31681, pp. 39ff.; RFM (Uhlich), Jan. 31,1942, pp. 82-83; Popitz to Schwerin von Krosigk, March 26, 1942, p. 219; high-level meeting, April 17, 1942, pp. 248ff.; meeting, Feb. 11, 1942, pp. 106ff. See also BA R 2/14017.
 
119.
Göring in the Reich Defense Council, Nov. 18, 1938, notes of Woermann, Foreign Office, Berlin, IMG, vol. 32, pp. 411-15 (PS-3575).
120.
“Wieder Spekulationssteuer für Aktiengewinne,” Sparkasse 61 (1941), p. 9.
121.
Schwerin von Krosigk to Funk, Feb. 25, 1941, BA R 2/14007, pp. 84-86.
122.
Meeting with Reichsbank vice president Lange, July 22, 1941, BA R 2/14685, pp. 22ff., 55.
123.
“Die andere Seite der Aktienkäufe,” Rheinisch-Westfälische Zeitung, Sept. 21, 1942.
124.
BOOK: Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State
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