The Historiography of the Holocaust

144 Christopher Kobrak and Andrea H. Schneider
Post-war scholarly accounts of business’s role in bringing Hitler to power and
the early years of his rule tended to swing between the extremes of attributing
a decisive role to economics and business, or none at all. Although there were
several rival interpretations, the basic thesis that capitalism brought National
Socialism to power was extremely popular in many circles from the mid-
1930s. 8 Business leaders were thought to be relatively early supporters of Hitler
as evidenced by their financial contributions to the party, such as that ostensibly
given by coal companies in the Ruhr, some big name early converts, such
as Fritz Thyssen and Emil Kirdorf, big business’s alleged representation at the
Bad Harzburg meeting, its response to Hitler’s Düsseldorf Industry Club speech,
its petition to Hindenburg in 1932 and other forms of conniving to get Hitler
into the government. 9
Moreover, big business and the Nazi government were assumed to be working
hand in glove on virtually all phases of the domestic and foreign activities, for
which the Nazi government is justifiably infamous. Fearing business collusion,
many American commentators were aghast at the tightly knit industrialgovernmental
organizations that they saw in Germany, even before the Nazis
took over. For them, this was a sign of an inappropriate business control of
government, or at least the absence of checks and balances that could help
block a monolithic concentration and abuse of power. 10
Europeans tended to prefer a more ‘structural approach’ to the question.
According to many European scholars, Germany’s ‘monopoly capitalism’ brought
Hitler to power in order to exploit the working class and facilitate international
expansion. Structuralist arguments take several forms, the most prevalent
probably being that the contradictions in the capitalist economic system and
political hierarchies became so unwieldy that Germany’s ruling elite had no
recourse but to bring to power an authoritarian party with roots in the lower
classes to resolve the contradictions by totalitarian means. 11 With falling profits
due to weak domestic demand and international competition, German big
business’s only option was to push its government towards war to expand its
markets. 12 Drawing on Lenin’s views on imperialism, this point of view dominated
orthodox Marxist interpretations of National Socialism, especially those
emanating from East Germany and the Soviet Union, but it also had many
adherents in the West.
Certainly, after the Second World War, some German historians avoided
discussions of the role played by business in the Nazis’ rise to power and maintaining
them there. Many German historians considered German industry’s
attitude to National Socialism, but their focus was mainly on the ‘economic
policy’ of the Third Reich and the organization of business during the war
(Kriegswirtschaft). 13 Dealing with individual enterprises was not part of their
agenda. German scholars found that the Reichsverband der deutschen Industrie
(RdI), unlike other interest groups, for example, was put under less pressure by