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The Wages of Destruction

The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy

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The Wages of Destruction

By: Adam Tooze
Narrated by: Adam Tooze, Simon Vance
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"Masterful . . . [A] painstakingly researched, astonishingly erudite study…Tooze has added his name to the roll call of top-class scholars of Nazism." —Financial Times

An extraordinary mythology has grown up around the Third Reich that hovers over political and moral debate even today. Adam Tooze's controversial book challenges the conventional economic interpretations of that period to explore how Hitler's surprisingly prescient vision--ultimately hindered by Germany's limited resources and his own racial ideology--was to create a German super-state to dominate Europe and compete with what he saw as America's overwhelming power in a soon-to- be globalized world. The Wages of Destruction is a chilling work of originality and tremendous scholarship that set off debate in Germany and will fundamentally change the way in which history views the Second World War.

* This audiobook contains a downloadable PDF of tables and figures from the book. 20th Century Economic Conditions Economics Europe Germany Military Modern Russia Imperialism Socialism Soviet Union Holocaust Taxation Capitalism War Middle Ages
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Critic reviews

"One of the most important and original books to be published about the Third Reich in the past twenty years. A tour de force."
-Niall Ferguson

"Tooze has produced the most striking history of German strategy in the Second World War that we possess. This is an extraordinary achievement, and it places Adam Tooze in a very select company of historians indeed ... Tooze has given us a masterpiece which will be read, and admired; and it will stimulate others for a long time to come."
-Nicholas Stargardt, History Today

"It is among Adam Tooze's many virtues, in "The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy," that he can write about such matters with authority, explaining the technicalities of bombers and battleships. Hovering over his chronicle are two extraordinary questions: how Germany managed to last as long as it did before the collapse of 1945 and why, under Hitler, it thought it could achieve supremacy at all."
-Norman Stone, The Wall Street Journal

"Virtually every page of his book contains something new and thought-provoking, making the whole an impressive achievement, in which original research has been combined with critical scrutiny of a vast literature that seems ripe for such a re-examination."
-Michael Burleigh, The Sunday Times (London)

"A magnificent demonstration of the explanatory power of economic history."
-The Times (London)

"Masterful . . . Tooze has added his name to the roll call of top-class scholars of Nazism."
-Financial Times
All stars
Most relevant
Exceptional analysis and one to return to for a second go I think. Well read too.

Superb

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A major study of the German economy which answers many questions about the apparent irrationality of Hitler’s war strategy. Not easy listening but very worthwhile.

I had understood that the Nazis engaged in a work creation program akin to Keynesian policy but this book shows that the Nazis focussed almost exclusively on rearmament (which incidentally had work creation benefits.

The most chilling aspect is the link between the Holocaust and food scarcity from 1941 onwards. The victory in France (thanks to a late change in strategy) and the Ribbentrop/Molotov pact were stunning but Hitler still calculated that he had to invade the Soviet Union to take its resources if he was to defeat the “world Jewish conspiracy” led by Roosevelt and Churchill.

Important insights into the Nazi regime from an economic perspective

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Comprehensive. I now understand the motivation and rational for the invasion of Russia which I never really got.

Brilliant

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Interesting to hear about the details that went into different aspects of making German's WW2 economy work, and what some of the driving forces were and how they affected overall diplomatic policy.

Interesting lens to view German's WW2 through

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The first half of this book is the strongest, covering the period at peace, detailing how they borrowed money from every possible source to fund their rearmament. It does a good job of putting the figures in context, helping the listener understand the overall size of the economy, as well as the portion going to the military and that which had been going to servicing debt and Versailles repayments. My only criticism is that after the war starts the book becomes more like a series of anecdotes of Nazi atrocities, rather than a detailed explanation of how much each method of plunder contributed to the war effort. I suspect that accurate figures for this period were simply harder to come by

Engrossing account of the buildup to war

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