The Price of Destruction: The Making and Fall of the Nazi Economy
39.99 €
In stock
The Price of Destruction: The Making and Fall of the Nazi Economy
39.99 €
The central idea in all accounts of World War II has been that Nazi Germany was an indomitable monster, backed by a highly industrialized economy. But what if the reality was quite different? What if the roots of Europe’s 20th-century tragedy lay not in Germany’s strength, but in its weakness? Adam Tooze has written the first radically new account of World War II in a generation. He has achieved this by focusing on economics, along with race relations and politics. Hitler’s intuitive understanding of global economic realities played a fundamental role in his worldview. He guessed that Germany’s relative poverty in 1933 was due not only to the Great Depression, but also to the country’s limited territory and natural resources. He foresaw the emergence of a new, globalized world in which Europe would be crushed by the crushing might of America. There remained one last chance: a European superstate led by Germany. But the global balance of economic and military power was completely against Hitler from the start, and it was precisely to forestall this threat from the West that he launched his under-equipped armies into an unprecedented and ultimately disastrous conquest of Europe. Even in the summer of 1940, at the moment of Germany's greatest triumphs, Hitler was still haunted by the looming threat of Anglo-American air and sea domination, which he believed was the product of a global Jewish conspiracy. Once the Wehrmacht entered the USSR, the war quickly became a battle of attrition, leaving Germany with no hope of victory. Because of the unwillingness of Hitler, Albert Speer, and others to admit it, the Third Reich was destroyed at the cost of tens of millions of lives. Adam Tooze's book offers a gripping and terrifying account of shocking events that forces us to look at Nazi Germany and World War II with new eyes.
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