Book Reviews : Big Business in the Third Reich. By ARTHUR SCHWEITZER. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964. Pp. vii, 739. $7.50.)
| Author | Donald Douglas Dalgleish |
| Date | 01 December 1964 |
| DOI | 10.1177/106591296401700459 |
| Published date | 01 December 1964 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
849
to
assist
the
needy
countries
-
specifically
by
offering
to
match
any
contribution
made
by
the
Soviet
Bloc
(as,
for
example,
to
SUNFED).
The
underdeveloped
countries
must
be
freed
from
the
bilateral
dilemma
of
choosing
either
the
Commu-
nists
or
the
West
as
their
friends
-
give
them
instead the third
option
of
economic
and
social
development
on
their
own
terms,
supported
by
combined
East-West
aid.
Finally,
Rubinstein
recommends
that
our
own
UN
delegates
cut
down
on
the
volume
and
frequency
of
their
denunciations
of
Communist-controlled
organizations,
such
as
the
WFTU.
Such
exercises
he
finds
to
be
&dquo;triumphs
of
dubious
merit,&dquo;
which
only
squander
our
reserves
of
goodwill
among
the
neutrals.
No
miracles
will
result
from
the
application
of
such
proposals,
the
author
con-
cedes,
perhaps
not
even
an
immediate
reduction
of
tensions.
But
he
emphasizes
that
the
Western
future
is
a
precarious
one
without
a
sympathetic
relationship
with
the
newly
emerged
countries
-
those
to
whom
the
non-political
agencies
are
of
the
greatest
consequence
-
and
that
the
game
of
bilateralism
is
much
more
congenial
to
the
Soviets
than
to
ourselves.
LOUIS
WASSERMAN
San
Francisco
State
College
Big
Business
in
the
Third
Reich.
By
ARTHUR
SCHWEITZER.
(Bloomington:
Indiana
University
Press,
1964.
Pp. vii, 739.
$7.50.)
The
period
of
&dquo;partial
fascism&dquo;
is
the
primary
emphasis
of
Professor
Schweit-
zer’s
theoretical
analysis
and
historical
description
of
the
political
role
and
economic
function
of
big
business
in
the
Third
Reich.
Hjalmar
Schacht’s
career
as
Minister
of
Economics
from
August
2,
1934,
to
November
27,
1937,
therefore,
quite
naturally
provides
this
exceedingly
well-documented
and
intellectually
masterful
study
with
its
individual
focus.
It
is,
however,
&dquo;Schachtian
devilries&dquo;
in
the
form
of
banking,
in-
vestment,
credit,
price,
trade,
currency,
and
debt
manipulations
which
here
transfix
the
reader’s
attention
-
not
Schacht’s
reign
as
an
economics
wizard
from
a
bio-
graphical
viewpoint.
The
central
political
thesis
of
&dquo;Big
Business
in
the
Third
Reich&dquo;
is
the
conclu-
sion
that
&dquo;partial
fascism&dquo;
was
the
product
of
a
bilateral
power
arrangement
resting
upon
four
complexes
of
power
and
authority:
the
SS’s
monopoly
of
the
police
and
terror
function;
the
army’s
control
of
military
policy
and
rearmament;
the
party’s
domination
of
the
educational
and
politico-ideological
sphere;
and
big
business’
pre-
rogatives
to
destroy
unionized
labor,
defeat
middle-class
socialism,
invigorate
major
capitalist
institutions,
and
extend
or
reimpose
them
upon
small
urban
business.
The
interaction
of
these
four
forms
of
power
was
governed
by:
the
principle
of
mutual
opposition,
which
functioned
whenever
one
power
bloc
tried
to
increase
its
power
at
the
expense
of
any
of
the
other
blocs;
the
principle
of
cooperation,
which
operated
when
a
particular
task
jointly
involved
the
organizations
of
two
or
more
power
blocs;
the
principle
of
coordination,
which
applied
whenever
a
policy
like
economic
and
military
rearmament
required
simultaneous
implementation
by
several
wielders
of
power;
and
the
ultimate
veto
privilege,
which
was
sparingly
employed
only
when
a
policy
of
one
pillar
of
power
mortally
threatened
at
least
one
other
pillar.
&dquo;...
the
operation
of
these
principles ...
governed
the
arrangement
of
the
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