Why Nazi Germany invaded Soviet Union?

[PeeDeeAitch]

Tooze put me off more than a bit with his anti-Speer focus. The in and of itself shows an agenda that colors what is written. Now, his description of the pre-Nazi German economy bouncing back with job creation (to be later dismantled by Hitler) is a highlight that gets too often overlooked.

All in all, there are some structural problems with this, but not major. It must be remembered that he wrote to counter the "common wisdom" notions, and thus his argument is sometimes a bit too stringent.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek

ORIGINAL: Keke

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek
Another important point was that as soon as the resources - money, labor, whatever - available for plunder in the occupied countries started to dwindle - because of the Allies advances or just because everything of value had already been sent to the Fatherland - the whole Nazi enterprise was doomed. Yet another stark parallelism with the woes of Napoleonic France after the 1812 campaign in Russia.

There was no surplus of coal, oil, or foodstuffs before Barbarossa, which is quite amazing. American and Soviet estimations of German resources were exaggerated because they refused to believe the actual numbers...

Yes you're right. I was referring how Germany substituted trade with plundering - "scientific" plundering at that - occupied nations, especially France and Belgium. I need to dig up the reference, but I recall I found it on Götz Aly's "Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State", New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2005, which is well received by Tooze himself (see www.hist.cam.ac.uk/academic_staff/furth ... ze-aly.pdf).

Re-reading myself I realize I shouldn't have used the word "doomed", it implies the whole thing wasn't doomed for starters, which I think it was. Another thing I need to clarify is the notion of "plunder" and what I mean by "dwindle".

Plunder - in industrial times - it's not necessarily to take stuff away by obvious force, as was more commonly done in occupied nations such as Poland. Nazi occupation of Western countries had a more "respectable" facade, at least for starters. One of the subtle ways in what the Third Reich plundered conquered nations was by buying from them raw resources not in Reichsmarks but in a "special" currency whose precise name I can't recall at the moment. In a quite bare faced way - and typical Nazi style by the way - this "special" currency value was laughable but the exchange rate with local currencies was fixed. This basically meant that the Third Reich was buying these resources well under their actual value.

And by "dwindle" I mean that this kind of economy sustains itself on conquering other countries. As soon as the conquering stopped, this extra income volume couldn't do anything but decrease.

[Tzar007]

I have not read - yet - Tooze's book, so it's hard to judge the thesis. But I will say this: events as complex and multifaceted as World War II was are EXTREMELY difficult to acknowledge and understand in all their aspects. To make sense of such complexity, the human mind tries to find silver linings, patterns, and thus builds theories or paradigms that try to organize the incomprehensible mess.

The idea that Germans have been slow and late in fully mobilizing is one such attempt at making sense of Germany's defeat. This view has been the predominant one since the end of the war, and it is supported by multiple facts, analysis and numbers. So it is not entirely mythical, horse manure, or whatever else, even if it does not represent reality in its entirety. Now, Tooze has developed a counter-thesis based on either different facts, or a different interpretation of the same facts. Tooze might have strong arguments that support his case, but it does not mean that what other historians are uncovered before him that do support the traditional view are suddenly false, wrong, or are now meaningless. It simply means that our understanding of the situation has now become richer because Tooze's thesis shed a different and very interesting light on Germany's production capacity and evolution.

Let me say I have a hard time with the kind of blanket statements that suddenly throw overboard decades of serious research based on one single work. Reality is never totally black and white, it comes in all shades of grey, and nobody is the ultimate bearer of the Truth with a capital "T". It might be comforting to the mind to simplify events such as WW2 to one single paradigm, but having read literally hundreds of books about WW2, I believe we are just deluding ourselves when we do this.

We should greet new thinking as a way to enrich our knowledge of the situation rather than automatically saying that everything else that has been published before was crap and mythology.

[Zebedee]

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek
Yes you're right. I was referring how Germany substituted trade with plundering - "scientific" plundering at that - occupied nations, especially France and Belgium. I need to dig up the reference, but I recall I found it on Götz Aly's "Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State", New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2005, which is well received by Tooze himself (see www.hist.cam.ac.uk/academic_staff/furth ... ze-aly.pdf).

Bletchley - that review of Aly's work sparked off quite a bit of a tiff between the two men. The language is polite but the points made absolutely rip apart Aly's major conclusions in that work.

Aly wants to make a case for the importance of economic and financial processes in the understanding of the Third Reich. But his intentions are subverted by the unnecessary crudity of his conceptual schema and the gross errors engendered by his reliance on kitchen sink accounting techniques. Aly may have broken new ground in opening up the hitherto under-utilized files of the Reich’s Finance Ministry, but his lack of technical competence combined with his determined self-isolation within the historical community, leave him unable to actually understand the perpetrators he so relentlessly pursues, or to properly situate the fascinating material that he has uncovered.

That's absolutely scathing not 'well received'

[EisenHammer]

The Nazi invaded the Soviet Union because they were drunk with victory against the West. And were sure they could win a two front war if they knock out Russia soon enough. Hitler said, “kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will collapse” This was a big mistake. The Germans were thinking that the Russians were as weak in 1941 as they where in 1917-18 and only a big push would defeat them.

I use the word big push because that what the Germans did in November of 41 thinking one more push would do it and the Russians would give up because the Germans were supermen and would take Moscow and win. Really pathetic if you think about it. The Nazi really killed themselves when they invaded the Soviet Union with there racist ideology. Without their racist ideology the Germans would had a good chance of winning the war in the east.

[Rafo35]

Tooze is not the first one to have written about all the investments made by the Germans before 42 and how those investments were one of the major explanation of the later results. Iit doesn't mean there wasn't room of improvement before 42, though.

I love Battle Cry for Freedom by the way.

[JJKettunen]

ORIGINAL: Tzar007

We should greet new thinking as a way to enrich our knowledge of the situation rather than automatically saying that everything else that has been published before was crap and mythology.

It's a debating technique. I have MA in History, so I know the intricacies of history writing. My Master's thesis was actually about the history of historiography. In another words, you are preaching to the converted. [;)]

[JJKettunen]

ORIGINAL: EisenHammer

The Nazi invaded the Soviet Union because they were drunk with victory against the West.

No, that is just totally irrational explanation. One cannot claim that the surprising success in the West didn't have any affect, but there are much better reasons for the invasion.

Within their absolutely horrible ideology, Nazis made rational decisions more often than not. Not all were that successful, of course. It is much easier to think of them as raging lunatics though...

[Mehring]

ORIGINAL: Keke

Mehring, Tooze uses Hitler's "Second Book" quite extensively in describing Nazi objectives.

Amidst your quality reply there was this bit from the old, very persistent mythology.

But it did prevent her leaders from mobilising industry for the war effort at the expense of consumer goods. Social peace at home had to be maintained by making the war appear to be somewhere 'over there.'

I'll go over the details later.

Why, thank you sir!

I've subsequently read a few reviews of Tooze's book. It does indeed look like a major contribution to our understanding of the war and its motives; a refreshing break from the often interest driven intellectual abstentionism of the "Naziism was just insane, evil, there's no rational explanation for it" school of non-history.

One of the instances cited in a review was that the Nazis procurred hundreds of millions in down payments for the "people's car" which proved to be a scam. Not one was delivered to a civilian, all production being reserved for party functionaries. Such examples do add weight to the thesis that the higher living standards the Nazis offered were on a never realised promise. Deceit and fiction were certainly the stock in trade of the Nazis.

@Tzar007
The search for truth has never been a search for comfort. On the contrary, to have your long standing conceptions overturned can be unsettling. I defy anyone to find comfort in the discovery that the same and similar institutions which conflicting interests caused both world wars are still alive and kicking, that the state of our global economy provides all the necessary scope a megelomaniac could possibly hope for, for a new wave of autarkic madness and global war.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: Zebedee

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek
Yes you're right. I was referring how Germany substituted trade with plundering - "scientific" plundering at that - occupied nations, especially France and Belgium. I need to dig up the reference, but I recall I found it on Götz Aly's "Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State", New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2005, which is well received by Tooze himself (see www.hist.cam.ac.uk/academic_staff/furth ... ze-aly.pdf).

Bletchley - that review of Aly's work sparked off quite a bit of a tiff between the two men. The language is polite but the points made absolutely rip apart Aly's major conclusions in that work.

I'm well aware of that. Tooze rips apart quite a few of Aly's conclusions - which I do not fully buy either - but he recognizes the pioneering work of Aly's delving deep on the Third Reich records regarding how occupied countries were exploited to further the German war effort.

ORIGINAL: Zebedee

Aly wants to make a case for the importance of economic and financial processes in the understanding of the Third Reich. But his intentions are subverted by the unnecessary crudity of his conceptual schema and the gross errors engendered by his reliance on kitchen sink accounting techniques. Aly may have broken new ground in opening up the hitherto under-utilized files of the Reich’s Finance Ministry, but his lack of technical competence combined with his determined self-isolation within the historical community, leave him unable to actually understand the perpetrators he so relentlessly pursues, or to properly situate the fascinating material that he has uncovered.

That's absolutely scathing not 'well received'

Well, rather than "scathing" I'd say is fair to the man and his work. Aly is a quite controversial figure indeed and he's perhaps too much of a materialist. But he gives a new perspective on how the Third Reich obtained the resources it needed and Tooze can't anything but acknowledge that, while blasting his conclusions.

[Mehring]

Aly's primary function has been to whitewash the cosy relationship of big business with the Nazis. In what way is this, or Aly, materialist?

[Fishbed]

Did Tooze happen to have an estimation of what % of its overall potential (people, trains, camps...) the Holocaust may have "cost" the Axis?
(talk about being "rational decisions"...)

[Mehring]

The thing is, if you don't have enough food to maintain a healthy work force, it's better to exterminate a part of it and feed the rest enough for them to work productively. Under herbert backe's "Hunger Plan" up to 30 million were to be exterminated in western Russia, to free up food for germany. Happy now?

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: Mehring
Aly's primary function has been to whitewash the cosy relationship of big business with the Nazis. In what way is this, or Aly, materialist?

Because he completely disregards ideological and - implicitly - psychological factors in his analysis. His psychology is, I'd say, more simplistic even than his economic analysis. It completely disregards the effect it had in German people the economic woes the Weimar Republic went through. It also disregards the fact that most Germans felt that they were being ripped off - they actually were - by the Western allies terms at the end of First World War.

In a totalitarian state, people is either coerced, "bought" or are "true believers" in the Great Leader. The question with the Third Reich is to what extent and to what degree these three factors interact and their relative importance.

Yet another sign of his materialism - in a Marxist sense, where it determines everything else in society - is that he basically ends his book with the typical "and things were the way I've wrote. Big Period.". But this is typical of most historiographic work, where uncertainties are ignored.

[Mehring]

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek

ORIGINAL: Mehring
Aly's primary function has been to whitewash the cosy relationship of big business with the Nazis. In what way is this, or Aly, materialist?

Because he completely disregards ideological and - implicitly - psychological factors in his analysis. His psychology is, I'd say, more simplistic even than his economic analysis. It completely disregards the effect it had in German people the economic woes the Weimar Republic went through. It also disregards the fact that most Germans felt that they were being ripped off - they actually were - by the Western allies terms at the end of First World War.

In a totalitarian state, people is either coerced, "bought" or are "true believers" in the Great Leader. The question with the Third Reich is to what extent and to what degree these three factors interact and their relative importance.

Yet another sign of his materialism - in a Marxist sense, where it determines everything else in society - is that he basically ends his book with the typical "and things were the way I've wrote. Big Period.". But this is typical of most historiographic work, where uncertainties are ignored.

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying there, but it seems you are describing a somewhat vulgar materialism. Marxism, while insisting that the material world is primary to its ideological expressions in the minds of men, necessarily examines the interrelation between the two. It does not discount that the ideological effects of the material world become causes of new effects, that ideology becomes a material factor in the world. Neither does Marxism advance any theory of absolute knowledge which cannot be questioned. On the contrary, Marxist dialectics are absolute relativism, its generalisations are approximations, never intended to emcompass the totality of every particular.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: Mehring
I'm not entirely sure what you're saying there, but it seems you are describing a somewhat vulgar materialism. Marxism, while insisting that the material world is primary to its ideological expressions in the minds of men, necessarily examines the interrelation between the two. It does not discount that the ideological effects of the material world become causes of new effects, that ideology becomes a material factor in the world. Neither does Marxism advance any theory of absolute knowledge which cannot be questioned. On the contrary, Marxist dialectics are absolute relativism, its generalisations are approximations, never intended to emcompass the totality of every particular.

A very fine answer Mehring. I indeed mis-applied the "marxist" label. I should have made the difference between Marx - the philosopher - and part of his later followers - which weren't really doing any philosphy, but rather imparting doctrine. I don't know where are you from, but in Spain, and I think, quite a few Western Europe countries, many scholars adhere to a "marxism" where Marxism is indeed a theory, which is not questioned at all.

In any case, I must admit I'm out of my league here. I'm just a hobbyist who reads, and perhaps doesn't completely understand what he reads

[Tzar007]

ORIGINAL: Keke

ORIGINAL: Tzar007

We should greet new thinking as a way to enrich our knowledge of the situation rather than automatically saying that everything else that has been published before was crap and mythology.

It's a debating technique. I have MA in History, so I know the intricacies of history writing. My Master's thesis was actually about the history of historiography. In another words, you are preaching to the converted. [;)]

It didn't show all that much in the beginning of this thread [:)] But with a MA in History, you know better what I am referring to then. I do understand it's a debating trick, lots of politicians do this also. I don't like it very much though, as it makes somebody looks less intelligent than he is in reality, and especially unable to appreciate nuances and apprehend complexity [:)] In politics, this technique results sometimes in a discussion that starts well and then descent into a shouting match with most people ending up firmly camping on opposite sides of the case and refusing to budge. Everybody loses in those situations [:D]

[pompack]

ORIGINAL: Mehring

... that the state of our global economy provides all the necessary scope a megelomaniac could possibly hope for, for a new wave of autarkic madness and global war.

Ah Mehring, an excellent point well put. But the best part is that you actually used one of my favorite words in a coherent sentence! [:)]

[Fishbed]

ORIGINAL: Mehring

The thing is, if you don't have enough food to maintain a healthy work force, it's better to exterminate a part of it and feed the rest enough for them to work productively. Under herbert backe's "Hunger Plan" up to 30 million were to be exterminated in western Russia, to free up food for germany. Happy now?

I beg your pardon? What kind of unbelievable a$$ kind mandate were you given to feel like you can talk to me like that?
My grandma had to hide from the Nazis so she wouldn't get sent over there, in which sense do you feel like my question was ill-advised, you piece of self-conceited pig?

[Fishbed]

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek
It also disregards the fact that most Germans felt that they were being ripped off - they actually were - by the Western allies terms at the end of First World War.

I beg your pardon? If someone ripped off the Germans, it was their leadership. By every standards, the Versailles treaties were not the worst ever to be enforced on a losing nation such as the IInd Reich. If you look for something closer to a "rip-off", check the "minor" Allies, the Turks or Austrian-Hungarians. But Germany? Please, come on...