Les entreprises sous le nazisme : bilan intermédiaire

Abstract

Abstract The history of enterprises in the Nazi period has been a central topic of German economic historiography in the last fifteen years. Meanwhile, monographs and journal articles have been published aplenty, providing us with a nuanced description of numerous German companies' involvement in the armament and war economy of the Third Reich and portraying in considerable detail the persons acting during that time. These studies show that opportunistic adaptation to the changed political and economic conditions was the rule, whereas there is little evidence for reluctance or even resistance on part of entrepreneurs. This opportunistic adaptation, however, was the predominant characteristic of the greater part of German society, and no specific of enterprises and entrepreneurs. This article resumes the exisiting research and further asks for the reasons of that opportunistic adaptation. In contrast to most studies, which presume that mercenary motivations incited the management to opportunistic behaviour, the assumption appears more plausible that National Socialism successively altered the formation of expectations within the enterprises. Expectations seem to have shifted away from the market and towards politically motivated allocation processes. The survival of companies became a function of their capability to adapt — regardless of the motives of individually acting persons. Only by placing entrepreneurial behaviour within this conceptual frame, such forms of behaviour take distinct shape which canot be called anything else but criminal.