The Wages of Destruction
The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy
by J. Adam Tooze · first published 2006
72% recommend24% neutral4% critical
Why HN recommends it
Economic history of Nazi Germany showing the resource and energy limits behind its war plans, its weak prewar economy, and its inefficiency, with attention to Speer. Suits readers wanting more than the engineering myth.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
The Wages of Destruction is a non-fiction book detailing the economic history of Nazi Germany. Written by Adam Tooze, it was first published by Allen Lane in 2006. The Wages of Destruction won the Wolfson History Prize and the 2007 Longman/History Today Book of the Year Prize. It was published to critical praise from such authors as Michael Burleigh, Richard Overy and Niall Ferguson. In the book, Tooze writes that after the Germans had failed to defeat Britain in 1940, the economic logic of the war drove them to an invasion of the Soviet Union. Hitler was constrained do so in 1941 to
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…behind it is labeled as a left-winger or right-winger (or both at the same time), and called an ally of Putin. I had expected Tooze to also write about it, after all the book that made him famous, The Wages of Destruction [2] (which I heartily recommend, I've just finished reading it), touched heavily on the Nazis' quest for energy resources. This time around Europe decided to cut itself off from said energy resources…
on “The South Asian Polycrisis” ↗…that the best estimates of U.S military aircraft production were somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000 planes of all types for the year. Also, I strongly recommend a couple books here: First: "The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy" by Adam Tooze Second (truly a unique book that looks at the world's biggest war with a focus entirely on how people in different parts of the fighting countries…
on “How the War Was Won” ↗…this, and I seem to remember his book has more than a few problems, and isn't Keegan's book rather general in its scope? My current source is the relatively new economic history of Nazi Germany, The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze (http://www.amazon.com/The-Wages-Destruction-Breaking-Economy...). It's very good, and shows how economics were vitally important from beginning to end. E.g. part of the motivation in…
on “The myth of Nazi efficiency” ↗…well as it was, and e.g. being cut off from British coal directly led to the invasion of the Soviet Union (let's invade Russia during the winter to take their food, what could possibly go wrong?; see The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy for the detail, if you can stomach them https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0670038261/ Not finished, and not (yet) replaced after it was damaged by a tornado)).…
Far and away the best book on the material and energy constraints that defined Germany's warpath in WW2 - including why it recklessly struck out to open the eastern front - is Adam Tooze's Wages of Destruction. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wages_of_Destruction
on “The Quest for Fuel in World War II (1993)” ↗It's also possible to run an economy on empty for a long, long time provided there's a war on. Look at Germany, who literally ran the country on empty throughout all of WWII, books like Adam Tooze's "Wages of Destruction" cover this in great detail. There was a saying in the last few years, "enjoy the war, the peace will be terrible", and it was, because once you took the wartime tourniquet off all the toxins flooded…
on “Russia's economy has entered the death zone” ↗…It's not focused solely on the role of the firm in the Nazi's rise to power, but it covers it as part of a broader look at the company's history and what it eventually led to. Adam Tooze's excellent The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy is somewhat related, with regards to the relationship between the Nazi Party and rearmament efforts and the Nazi process of Gleichschaltung, or coordination,…
on “One-Percenters Close to Surpassing Wealth of U.S. Middle Class” ↗if you like this area, I highly recommend reading Adam Tooze's The Wages of Destruction - The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy. It takes an economics lens on Nazi Germany both pre and during the war. A lot of the book centers on Speer and other 2nd/3rd tier people in the Nazi regime.
on “The architect of the Reich: On the architectural horror of Albert Speer” ↗Really I'd recommend reading chapter 1 of The Wages of Destruction. The book is really on the economics of WWII but it summarizes the modern consensus on the Great Depression as a starting point and since it fits everything into one chapter ends up being very readable.…
on “Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B” ↗A few of my faves. Non-Fiction By Adam Tooze: Crashed, and Wages of Destruction. Both excellent economic histories, the former covering the recent financial crisis and its aftermath, the latter on the Nazi economy. Tooze does an excellent job coming up with larger trends and global…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?” ↗The economic effect of the Autobahn is massively overstated (I would actually look to Wages of Destruction by Tooze here). Public works were important but it is as important to look at how this was all facilitated. The reason it only shows 26-39 is that Nazis came to power in 1932. The worst year in the GD…
on “Schacht, Mefo Bills and the Restoration of the German Economy 1933-39 (2013)” ↗…you will .. 1. The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order describes how most of the current global financial structures were formed, through the lens of WW1 policy 2. The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy .. moves you forward to WW2/post-depression economy 3. Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World (recommended elsewhere in this thread)…
on “Ask HN: Book recommendations for understanding financial systems?” ↗…United States - as agents of World Jewry - and it's continent of resources as the ultimate opponent for a unified germanic Europe. (The best source off the top of my head for this PoV is Adam Tooze's Wages of Destruction).
on “History's deadliest air raid happened in Tokyo during World War II (2020)” ↗…when Nazi Germany went the autocratic route. They also confiscated personal stores of foreign currency, and eventually pulled the sort of financial wizardry that I'm unqualified to explain. Adam Tooze's Wages of Destruction is an incredible book if you're into economics. If I learned one thing from this book, it's that central banks have a lot of tricks up their sleeves if the situation demands it.
on “Ask HN: Why did the ruble stabilize and what's going on?” ↗I am a huge fan of Tooze and his books (Wages of Destruction is one of the best works of economic history, probably the best macro history imo, his more recent books are unfortunately terrible...but this is what happens when someone decides to become a celebrity…
on “The anti-inflation pivot of 2022” ↗