[PEN-L] Nazi Economics - a useful article

[Paul]

Thanks to Jim D. for his suggested references.

For a different perspective, this paper might be useful to those interested in pursuing the issue:
"Deficit Spending in the Nazi Recovery, 1933-1938: a critical reassessment" by Albrecht Ritschl
http://www.wiwi.hu-berlin.de/wg/ritschl/pdf_files/ritschl_dec2000.pdf
[Ritschl is a very mainstream economic historian, a sometime co-author with Barry Eichengreen of Berkeley, he is one of the standard people found in the Cliometric Society or HES.]

(One might also explore: Turner, H. (1979), German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler, New York: Oxford University Press.)

Ritschl has recovered the statistical data from the German archives that the Nazis had classified.  Until now authors had relied on reconstructions or estimates.  He makes two main points:
        - Nazi budget deficits were relatively small and show little Keynesian impact. [I find Ritschl's statistical evidence interesting, his orthodox econometric modeling of those numbers is another matter.]
        -  The economic planning efforts were just a show (in the economic recovery period) and the autobahn and work programmes were too small to have had an economic impact.

Ritschl doesn't address the Nazi incomes policy and its restrictive effect.  He concludes that the recovery was largely a "rebound" effect.

I think there are two points for our time:
        - we have a little bit less evidence of the effectiveness of Keynesian policies in a depression than we might have thought.
        - we do have an example of self-proclaimed right wing "rebels" who had neither a program nor a political base to do other than implement orthodox conservative policies using extreme methods.

Paul