How Guilty Was German Industry?:
SCHNABEL, OSCAR
How Guilty Was German Industry? Tycoons and Tyrant: German Industry from Hitler to Adenauer. By Louis P. Lochner. Regnery. 304 pp. $5.00. Reviewed by Oscar Schnabel Economist; former Austrian...
...It also tells the story of the pre-Hitler politicians and, more important, of the German people's reaction to crushing defeat...
...After all, more than two-fifths of the German people voted for the Nazis in 1932 in a free election...
...former Austrian Consul General in Amsterdam THIS IS a well-written book which keeps the reader engrossed from the first page to the last but leaves him with many questions...
...The author hardly mentions this, but he goes out of his way to show that many industrial leaders expressed their contempt for the Nazis in private conversation, and that some of them refused to divorce a Jewish wife or to dismiss a Jewish secretary...
...By all means, let us accept the Germans as a valuable member of the Western community and give them a chance to prove their good faith...
...He is probably right in believing that Nazism no longer counts...
...But what about a revival of German nationalism...
...The historic guilt of the German people, however, is not that they endured a criminal tyranny but that they permitted it to be established in spite of the brutal frankness with which Hitler stated his aims...
...The last part of this book deals with postwar Germany...
...naturally, it preferred to continue its advances under Hitler's foreign policy of blackmail rather than risk a world war...
...Tycoons and Tyrant should be read primarily for its picture of the helplessness of the civilian population once a dictatorship has been established...
...Lochner also takes pains to show that the leading industrial concerns gave only limited financial support to the Nazis before they took over Germany, but he fails to mention that none of them aided the pre-Munich movement to overthrow Hitler...
...Lochner's explanation of Hitler's famous speech at the Dus-seldorf Industrie Klub is extremely weak...
...Will history then repeat itself and will Germany try to achieve her principal aim, unification, by cooperation with her mighty eastern neighbor...
...The stronger Germany becomes, the more she will resent her partition...
...Chamberlain's pilgrimages to Berchtesgaden and Munich, the disastrous political situation in France which made a civil war more likely than an external one, and the unchallenged superiority of German air power combined to make Hitler and most Germans believe that the aggression against Poland would be accepted just like the seizure of Austria and Czechoslovakia...
...Of course it did not want a world war, but neither did Hitler...
...But let us also remember past experience and keep our eyes open...
...Lochner's thesis that German industry was opposed to war is not wholly convincing...
...And it is hard to believe that the recognition accorded Hitler as a respectable political leader by outstanding industrialists had no influence on the voting...
...By the time they found out that Hitler planned to be commander-in-chief himself, it was too late...
...Going beyond its title, it deals with German industry's attitude not only from Hitler to Adenauer but in the crucial years before Hitler's rise to power...
...The German Army's abject surrender to the rule of a fanatical ex-corporal is another story...
...The author rightly praises the country's miraculous resurrection and gives many examples of deep-felt remorse over the terrible crimes committed by its former rulers...
...It excuses whatever can be excused, and, where excuses are impossible, it pleads mitigating circumstances...
...Of course, Mr...
...Lochner is right in describing the contempt which this group of patricians and plutocrats felt for the uneducated and ill-mannered Hitler gang, but that does not diminish their responsibility for trying to use Hitler as the recruiting sergeant for an army which they foolishly expected to command...
...it did too much harm to the German people to be still popular...
...But, in his eager defense of Germany, he shows only the bright side of the picture...
...A full year before Hitler's rise to power, the club, largely influenced by the ardent Nazi Fritz Thyssen, accepted the future Fuhrer's offer to deliver an address as its guest...
...What the books adds up to is an ardent defense rather than an impartial judgment...
...Guided by Hjalmar Schacht, German industry virtually monopolized its markets in Eastern Europe...
Vol. 37 • November 1954 • No. 48
