Nazi Steel: Freidrich Flick and German Expansion in Western Europe, 1940-1944
Marcus O. Jones
Language: English
Pages: 192
ISBN: 1591144213
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
This study explores an exemplary instance of the close interaction between private and official interests in planning and executing the programs of the Nazi government, namely the acquisition in 1941 of the Rombach steel works by the German industrialist Friedrich Flick. The industrial concern headed by Flick was among the largest and most influential steel producers and manufacturers of war material in the German economy during World War II. Its activities in the occupied territories of western Europe centered on control of the Rombach works, a large operation established in Lorraine in the late nineteenth-century by German industrialists and expropriated by France, along with the entire region, in the aftermath of the First World War. After successful military operations against France in 1940, the Nazi regime actively sought the collusion of the German industrial community in mobilizing the productive capacity of occupied territories for the war effort, and numerous private German businessmen advanced claims on the lucrative assets in Lorraine and adjacent regions. In his bid to gain control of the Rombach works, Flick was successful for reasons specific to his position within the Nazi German economic system and the character of his interests. This account of his activities, then, serves as a fine example of Nazi economic and occupation policy and its response to party, business, and bureaucratic influences.
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Ministry, the Four-Year Plan organization, and the Reichswerke. In his approach he sought to exploit the Reichswerke’s need for a supply of hard-coal, with which the latter hoped to bypass the collective pricing of the Ruhr coal syndicates.80 Flick had a controlling interest in two-hard coal operations and was willing to exchange parts of them for a reliable central German supply of lignite.81 Accordingly, he reached an agreement on 9 December 1939 that provided for an exchange of reserves from.
Price to be paid at an indeterminate future date, which could well be years in advance.64 The regime’s position on this point was an eminently reasonable one. Much could happen in the intervening time to enhance or degrade the value of the assets, not the least of which would be substantial investment by trustee firms to boost their competitiveness. However, it also meant that the trustee had a strong interest in ensuring that investment would not actually work against his interests in the.
1944 to suppose that in any plausible postwar environment he could reasonably expect to defend the asset-ownership arrangements he had won in 1940–41. Infrastructure and production were not the only targets of Flick’s investment. Measures required to keep the works running during the early renovation process consumed large amounts of capital that in more normal times would have been spread out over many years. A listing of pending investment programs as of August 1943 not subject to the.
1939.” In Friedrich Forstmeier and Hans-Erich Volkmann, eds., Wirtschaft und Rüstung am Vorabend des Zweiten Weltkrieges. Düsseldorf: Droste, 1975. ———. “Autarkie, Großraumwirtschaft und Aggression. Zur ökonomischen Motivation der Besetzung Luxemburgs, Belgiens und der Niederlände 1940.” In Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen 14, 1976. ———. “L’importance économique de la Lorraine pour le IIIe Reich.” In Revue d’histoire de la deuxième guerre mondiale 120, 1980. Wagenführ, Rolf. Die deutsche.
Industry: administration of industry, 57–58; assessment of and report on, 60, 73–76; coke for, sources for and transport of, 67, 144n16; compensation to German owners of plants, 50, 55–56, 94–95, 141n59; condition of plants, 64–65, 95; damage to and reconstruction of, 52; distribution of to German steel industry, 51–61, 66, 70–71, 73–85, 140n52, 140–41n55, 141n59, 144n15, 146n48; distribution of to individuals, 79–80, 81–82; economic policies of Nazi regime and exploitation of, 115–19; French.