WAS NAZI GERMANY EFFICIENT?

I received the following email from a reader:

I am having trouble seeing Hitler as a socialist when it comes to the economy. We all know that socialism is a failed economic model, yet how could Nazi Germany have been so economically successful if it was socialist state? If Nazi Germany had "a centralized collectivist economy just like the Soviet Union," how could it have been economically successful? Also, if Nazi Germany was socialist, and had a good economy, why was this success not seen in the other socialist/communist states?

There are a number of answers to that question but the first thing to note is that the Nazi and Fascist economies were more like the economies championed (and partly implemented) by "Third Way" Leftists of today (e.g. by Bill Clinton, Tony Blair et al.) than they were like the Soviet economy. In other words, the major German firms were subjected to tight political supervision and control but were still left at least nominally in private ownership. So the economy was not rendered totally inflexible. And just as today's pervasively regulated USA and Britain are still reasonably productive despite their bureaucratic load so Nazi Germany put in a middling performance too.

But there is another dimension to Nazi economics too -- as the example of the former East Germany shows: Why was the former East Germany so much more economically successful than other Communist States? I am afraid the answer has to be: Because it was German. Germans (and other Teutonic people such as the Dutch and the Scandinavians) tend to work hard even in economic systems that do not encourage it much. That is why Germany and Scandinavia are quite prosperous to this day despite their very high levels of taxation.

But the Reich did still suffer to a significant degree from its politically-controlled economy. It was not in fact nearly as efficient as it might have been. At the height of the Battle of Britain, for instance, the capitalist British economy was manufacturing twice as many aircraft as Germany. And even Stalin's Russia outproduced Germany in tanks by about 1943.

Where Germany WAS efficient in WWII was militarily. They overcame enormous odds right from the outset but eventually got crushed by weight of numbers. The Germans have been a warrior race for 2000 years. It was they who defeated the Roman Empire, after all. And the great military genius of WWII was undoubtedly Feldmarschall von Manstein. It is usually only military historians who have heard of him but it was he who was the architect of the Blitzkrieg through France. At the outset of the French campaign, von Manstein faced heavily entrenched French and allied forces that were in no way inferior to the German forces but his bold and innovative Panzer-led strike through the Ardennes outflanked the French and British forces and routed them completely. And later in Russia, von Manstein destroyed two Russian armies even AFTER Stalingrad. And his conquest of the Crimean peninsula is legendary among military historians: a frontal assault against superior forces who had nearly every advantage: a fortified position, command of the sea, the air, and tanks, while his army had not one tank. Compare that with the very high equipment level that characterizes the more capitalistic American forces going into battle.

So what success Nazi Germany had reflected the fact that they were German rather than the fact that they were socialist.

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