Talk:Economy of Nazi Germany/Archive 1

Comment from 2008

"However, Hitler's interpretations of this idea produced two separate and almost incompatible conclusions: On the one hand, Hitler believed that history was shaped by a violent struggle between nations and races, and that a nation needed to be united under a strong, centralized state led by an heroic leader in order to succeed in this struggle. On the other hand, Hitler also believed that individuals within a nation battled with each other for survival, and that such ruthless competition was good for the health of the nation, because it promoted "superior individuals" to higher positions in society.[13]

[edit] Pre-war economy: 1933-1939"

i dont think those ideologies are incompatible, and infact thats how life has been for a very very long time.. why would someone write that this idea is incompatible?? imagine a family of 5 brothers, they are all united as a family, but always competing with each other for school marks, sports attention. etc etc i insist this be edited to a NPOV or less PC POV please — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.175.1.253 (talk) 13:54, 27 June 2008‎ (UTC)

intro paragraph

I have removed the following from the first paragraph of the article: "...and when every German knew that he or she had to begin life all over again." It merely contributes no new information and seems way too theatrical and sweeping for an encyclopedic writeup. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.246.208.193 (talk) 12:31, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Unemployment

The article said "including Jews and Women" ... why "Jews and Women"? If a person is available to the labour market and is unable to find unemployement, then that person is unemployed. So I deleted "Jews and Women" because I don't think it's relevant who the unemployed actually were. AadaamS (talk) 11:15, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's totally irrelevant, but the passage was wrong, misplaced, illogical. Germany (and even more Italy) eased women out of the workforce and into the home. Women's participation in war industries was rather limited until Speer really put Germany on a total-war footing similar to what the UK had done at least 3 years earlier - including round-the clock production where only 1 or 2 shifts were the norm. Use of slave labor was comparatively limited in the early was years. Also, selective unemployment played a big part in the pre-war anti-Jewish campaign. Spamhog (talk) 20:11, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

This texts are contradictory, without entering in polemic either one or other is truth, the first considers them infrahuman the second superhuman: The Nazis considered Jews an inferior race Vs Hitler and the Nazis held a very strong idealist conception of history, which held that human events are guided by small numbers of exceptional individuals following a higher ideal and many members believe that these are Jews — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.210.27.150 (talk) 00:59, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

The part of women and Jews is absurd and irrelevant. Unless you got a quote for it. But then it is still stupid. --41.150.55.223 (talk) 21:22, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

i see a general agreement on this obsession for the jewish question being irrelevant to the paragraph, which is about employment not the holocaust but the texts remain there, i guess the 'police' would come to place them so we are all aware how much victims these people are (-; — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.58.182.241 (talk) 21:51, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Trade Unions

I thought the trade unions were essentially Nazified not abolished. I read that they became organs of the party and state propaganda machine and lost their independence but not outright abolished. A similar policy employed by Communist dictatorships.Stamos1981 (talk) 14:10, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

German Labor Front

The Nazis created the German Labor Front that did control workers and prevent strikes but also had some form of heavily beaurocratic collective bargaining (essentially not directly elected representatives) that made the workers dismissal much harder and created various workers benefits. So this article needs to be edited at some point. If you type in German Labor front on wikipedia there is even an article there about that organization.Stamos1981 (talk) 14:09, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect

"The proportion of military spending in the German economy began growing rapidly after 1942, as the Nazi government was forced to dedicate more and more of the country's economic resources to fight a losing war. Civilian factories were converted to military use and placed under military administration. By late 1944, almost the entire German economy was dedicated to military production. At the same time, Allied bombings were destroying German factories and cities at a rapid pace, leading to the final collapse of the German war economy in 1945 (Stunde Null)."

This isn't right. Allied air raids did not cause any significant damage on the German industry. It actually grew, not collapse. It's generally agreed that strategic bombing was a failure in pretty much every aspect. So how about some sources to back that statement up, yeah? >_>

...although, I could be wrong. Either way, I want a source. Astroview120mm (talk) 06:56, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Allied bombing campaign of industry targets didn't hurt production that much, but the "Oil Campaign" (bombing of fuel supply) and "Transportation Campaign" (crippling logistics) did hurt production. AadaamS (talk) 11:18, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm writing my A2 History coursework on this topic and found some relavent statistics in an article by Richard Overy defending the Allied bombing campaign which I've put in, along with references. This is supported by Adam Tooze, who gives the Allies credit for having "halted Speer's armaments miracle in its tracks" for six months in 1943.--Iain92 (talk) 14:01, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

True! When Albert Speer took over economic management he found a huge production of nonessential consumer goods, and lots of factories running on one shift. The German economy was BIG compared to other European powers and had still slack in the early 40's. Also true that the economy grew as all factor inputs were ratcheted up, incl. women in the factories, slave labor, voluntary or semivoluntary paid immigrants from occupied countries, and improved "procurements" of was materials from abroad through the Todt organization. Efficiency also vastly improved and in the last few years. Spamhog (talk) 20:20, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

This article should have an infobox

i think this article desrves a infobox, as it was a country, can someone please make one :),- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.206.36.40 (talk) 23:21, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Lots of repetition

Just reading through the article you can see many sentences are written twice (perhaps in slightly different forms) and many are directly copied from http://econ161.berkeley.edu/TCEH/Slouch_Purge15.html. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.185.109.87 (talk) 17:36, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I tried to fix the bit about the currency crisis of 1936. I think I roughly cut it by half. Clearly someone was copying, editing, and pasting back as additions instead of editing. Spamhog (talk) 20:03, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

This is absurdly biased.

"Hitler did not see the economy as top priority he did see its importance in his consolidation of power and used it to his advantage."

"therefore Germany were not gaining money while Hitler was in power but in fact losing money"

Yes, Wikipedia, we get it. Hitler was a bad dude. 24.224.148.27 (talk) 19:57, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

"The doctrine of keynes was based on the nazis policies, this is obvious because in Keynes' book The General Theory of employment money and interest, Keynes simply copied all the policies used by Hjalmar Schacht who was the economic dictator of Germany from 1933–37 and Keynes book wasn't published until 1936. Three years after Schacht's policies were implemented" - This statement is just an opinion, not a fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.171.86.18 (talk) 06:33, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Keynes was deeply impressed by the Nazi regime's economics, crediting Fascism as potentially being the best way to employ Keynesian economics. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4401913?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7F:8A4D:7500:81C0:B207:B8B3:DFC9 (talk) 12:02, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Subheadings, please.

I feel this article would benefit a lot from having subheadings and a more reader-friendly layout. It's tough to read and stay focused on such large amounts of text on a computer screen. If someone knowledgeable about the subject could reorganize it a little, and divide it into more practical chunks, that would be great. Perhaps it would also be easier to read with a few images, tables and diagrams, eg. comparing Nazi Germany to other countries at the time, showing the various sectors of production, finance ministers, etc. Unfortunately, I'm not good enough at these things to do it myself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.224.222.17 (talk) 04:33, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

BIG BUMP! This article is 90% "Pre-war economy: 1933–1939" without any sections. Spamhog (talk) 20:00, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Hitler and the trade unions

I waded through a morass of redundancy to discover the following gem:

“…the Nazis replaced the corrupt Weimar trade unions with what many Germans saw as the new and improved unions called the German Labour Front and banned strikes.”

Is this a cited passage? Probably not – there’s no reference provided. If it had been, we’d know the neo-Nazi screed it was lifted from. Looks like anti-Wikipedia is at work, or perhaps just the wiki-tyrant presiding over this site.

The entry asserts that “many Germans” regarded the German Labour Front as an improvement on the old “corrupt” unions. This is equivalent to the advertising claims that “many doctors recommend…” or “many satisfied customers agree…” Joseph Goebbels had much to do with what Germans “regarded” as truth through his massive propoganda campaigns.

Hitler did not “replace” the Weimar trade unions, however corrupt they might – or might not – have been. In fact, he unleased the Gestapo in a systematic campaign of intimidation and terror to “liquidate” union membership (declaring non-Nazi unions illegal), and incarcerting thousands of members at the notorious Dachau concentration camp – the work/death camp designed to hold political prisoners. Franz Ludwig Carsten (1911 – 1998), German surgeon and historian, reported that “It has been reliably estimated that the KPD (the German Communist Party) between 1933 and 1935, lost 75,000 of its members through imprisonment and several thousands of them were killed.”. In other words, about 25% of its membership was lost to attacks by Hitler in the process of “replacing” the union organizations with a phony Nazi “labor union”.

Is this a typical Wiki dumping ground for POV with the old formula, "please provide citations and references to support our opinion if you want to participate in the collaboration".

What say you, Wiki-tyrant? --Califa (talk) 19:10, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

The nazis and the economy

"Hitler did not see the economy as top priority he did see its importance in his consolidation of power and used it to his advantage."

I have deleted this sentence as it's (a.) extremely misleading and (b.) completely wrong. The nazis viewed the dreadful "post-crash" German economy as an extremely important facet of their political platform and it was for the majority of their voters the prime mandate for which they sought to elect. In a huge number of Hitler's pre-election (and post-election) speeches, employment was the turning point within the speech. The importance of the economy in Germany, to Hitler and the nazis, is born out by the fact that extremely high unemployment rates of 1932 were completely quashed by 1938. Hitler's "early view" that an economy was of secondary concern (if ebtirely true), is only because he believed that the "Volk" and the "State" should come before material matters. It's doubtful that this "early view" was held into the 1930's.

I also deleted this "This was part of Hitler's war preparations: Germany needed a state-of-the-art highway system for the mobility of its motorized land forces..." as it's quite contentious. There is little to suggest that Hitler's continuation of an already existing autobahn program had anything to do with a possible future war. This opinion coincides largely with the myth that the Wehrmacht was, generally, a motorised force. It wasn't. Even in 1941, a major percentage of the land forces were horse drawn. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.203.75.48 (talk) 18:29, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

The Role of Confiscated Jewish money and property before and after KristallNacht

one needs a chapter or a few paragraphs on "confiscated" jewish money and property; i read somewhere that the nazi "state" "confiscated" ~10 billion RM from jewish people; the bulk must have come from jews in germany and mainly after the Kristallnacht; this was big time money and property for the nazis to "re-inject" into the economy in 1939, e.g., to pay for ongoing state work (the total tax revenue in 1928 was about 12 billion RM...) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.117.2.51 (talk) 16:11, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

This system had also been attempted in America with little success.

Referring to autarky, this is an unsupported declaration. My first impulse was to dispute it outright. But, with no reference to support this claim, either directly or through a link, I can't even do this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.238.214.48 (talk) 09:50, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Is deficit figure including MEFO?

The article currently says the following: "Between 1933 and 1939, the total revenue was 62 billion marks whereas expenditure (at times made up to 60% by rearmament costs) exceeded 101 billion, thus creating a huge deficit and national debt (reaching 38 billion mark in 1939) coinciding with the Kristallnacht and intensified persecutions of Jews and the break-out of the war."

Does the expenditures of 101 billion include the obligations created by the MEFO bills of which there were 12 billion outstanding at 4.5% interest at the end of this period? If not, the MEFO figure significantly adds to the German government's obligations and should be included. TMLutas (talk) 06:50, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Woolly writing / non-sequiturs

What does this even mean? -

'the spending rate of Hitler was far greater than the growth of the economy.'

Apart from the inaccuracy of attributing the whole of government expenditure to Hitler personally, it seems to be comparing two things of different types.

Furthermore, remarks connecting the national debt with Kristallnacht and the Holocaust are unsupported and make little sense. Many states have contracted large national debts without it leading to massive racial persecution. --Tdent (talk) 00:13, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Citation needed?

"The Nazis considered Jews an inferior race[citation needed]". Seriously?--5.146.177.201 (talk) 02:09, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Interesting, and yeah, maybe. Not sure inferior is the correct word. They considered the Jews as something akin to the 'illuminati' of today. A hidden hand, controlling the banking, and money, and media. Not sure "inferior" is a correct description of the anti-semitism of the Weimar Republic and leading on into National Socialism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7F:8A4D:7500:81C0:B207:B8B3:DFC9 (talk) 12:09, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Citation

Some of the citation needed in the first paragraph of the article, concerning unemployment etc, can be found here however I'm not sure if this site is widely considered to be a valid one.-- Alien ^? 12:07, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Adding Balance

This article overall portrays a rosy view of the Nazi Economy. But Professor Richard J. Evans, who wrote "The Third Reich In Power", argues at length that the Third Reich suffered from rationing and fuel shortages. I made several small changes to reflect his work. I maintained the wording of the original article, but added some sentences explaining this rationing and the hardships that German citizens suffered under the Nazi regime. The end result aims to be more balanced and to take into account Professor Evans' seminal work. Any changes I made have a citation to X or Y page of Evans' book. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.33.126.30 (talk) 19:20, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Citations for Jews

Does anyone know of a good source on Biebow and other uses of Jewish forced labour in ghettos? MPCaton (talk) 13:43, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

MEFO bills were not government debt

MEFO bills were debt of a shell corporation (Metallurgische Forschungsgesellschaft) and not government debt at all. That was the whole point, to get the rearmament done without it showing up on government books. It was a form of fraud on a massive scale for the time. This fraudulent aspect needs to be covered. TMLutas (talk) 15:34, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Earwig's Copyvio Detector

Economy of Nazi Germany

Copyvio search:

• 82.1% confidence http://rebrn.com/re/percentage-of-nazi-votes-in-and-percentage-of-catholics-in-x-203985/
• 72.3% confidence http://blogs.denverpost.com/eletters/2011/12/27/congressman%e2%80%99s-comparison-of-democrats-to-nazis/16040/
• 63.2% confidence https://web.archive.org/web/20080511190923/http://econ161.berkeley.edu/TCEH/Slouch_Purge15.html
• 32.9% confidence http://www.ub.edu/graap/nazi.pdf
• 20 URLs with lower confidence hidden.

Poeticbent talk 05:15, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Please note, some websites do copy text from Wikipedia, but it is not the case for example with article created 2 March 1997 by J. Bradford DeLong from University of California at Berkeley among similar others. I am removing all duplications as a result, because the suspicion of mass WP:COPYVIO action is overwhelming. Poeticbent talk 05:51, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Good point. Very problematic. K.e.coffman (talk) 05:58, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Good work. Kierzek (talk) 13:32, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Copyvio search 2:

Edit @348435527 01:04, 8 March 2010 by User:A.S. Brown (+7,438)‎ (+2,549)‎

• 95.5% confidence. Likely source: DeLong, J. Bradford, “Slouching Towards Utopia?: The Economic History of the Twentieth Century, XV. Nazis and Soviets,” University of California at Berkeley and NBER, February 1997 (taken off line in 2010)

Edit @348437283 23:21, 14 March 2010 by User:A.S. Brown (7,667)‎

• 100% confidence. Source Adolf Hitler Rearmament and new alliances in Wikipedia (lift without attribution), since March 2010 the original-copytext already edited severely with major improvements.

Please click on the diff provided above. If you see anything in your view essential to the understanding of the subject, please copy the selected paragraph and rewrite it using your own words. The text was added by User:A.S. Brown in March 2010 by copy-pasting material found online either with or (perhaps) without knowledge of what WP:COPYVIO means. The rest was borrowed from Wikipedia, but before major improvements were made to the original article; the improvements which are no longer followed in here. I intend to revert these edits manually per our core policy guidelines. Poeticbent talk 20:30, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Summary, nuanced overview

This site gives a different overview from the introduction to our article. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazi-germany/the-nazis-and-the-german-economy/ 64.53.191.77 (talk) 16:58, 12 March 2016 (UTC) from Glenview, Illinois

• Wikipedia does not have anything on the school teacher who created historylearningsite.co.uk ... but regardless, if you wish to contribute about the “economic miracle” of Adolf Hitler after Mein Kampf make sure to supersede all literary ruminations about Nazism based on lemons. — Poeticbent talk 19:35, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

text contradicts source

under the section "war time policies", the following sentence: "Due to state control, business had little entrepreneurial freedom[34] in a regime that has been described as "command-capitalism".[60]" Is actually not consistent with source paper [60] (titled "the role of private property in the nazi economy"). In fact, the primary point of that paper is that entrepreneurial freedom was left largely intact under the nazi regime. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.50.145.179 (talk) 17:39, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Economy of Nazi Germany. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20111012030036/http://pl.auschwitz.org.pl/h/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30&Itemid=42 to http://pl.auschwitz.org.pl/h/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30&Itemid=42
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120828100525/http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/gcpolint.htm to http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/gcpolint.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 22:19, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Cleanup and expansion

Well, I've been reading a lot on the economic history of Nazi Germany recently, so I decided to dive into this article, checking the prose and verifying the sources. It quickly became apparent that it was in need of major cleanup. For one thing, it was severely disorganized, sometimes switching between several topics within the same paragraph (my favorite example: "Rationing was introduced in 1939. Britain immediately put their economy on a war footing, Germany resisted equivalent measures until later in the war. They were ideologically opposed to women participating in the work force." - supported by a source which talks about taxation), and very often changing topics from one paragraph to the next. Besides the division into pre-war and wartime sections, nothing else seemed to be in any particular order whatsoever. The wartime economy section even began in 1942 before returning to the start of the war further down. Secondly (and more worryingly), a lot of the sources failed verification. One source was from 1921 (!?) and obviously said nothing about the not-yet-existing Nazi economy. Another source, used to support the statement that "the government in Berlin banned many types of vehicles and allowed the production of only 19 different models of cars and trucks" pointed to page 424 from The Third Reich in Power. That page is a map (!) of farmland in 1939, and the surrounding chapter is about agriculture. There's nothing about cars and trucks around it, so I had to remove the statement as having failed verification. The same happened to several other plausible-sounding statements that were simply not what the source was talking about. I feel like there must have been an editor or editors at some point who was very sloppy about their use of sources. Another bizarre aspect was that the paragraphs about the NSV seemed extremely sanitized to carefully avoid any mention of its deeply racial and eugenic goals. The Nazis were even credited with providing "disability benefits" with no mention of things like Aktion T4. Finally, the article was full of direct quotes from Hitler (and a few from other Nazis) purporting to explain their economic ideas (not even policies, in most cases, but rather vague ideological claims). The first two sections of the article were almost entirely composed of such quotes. I think this is borderline original research. Although the quotes were (in most, but not all cases) from reliable secondary sources, none of the commentary of those secondary sources was actually reproduced in the article. So, for all intents and purposes, the article relied extensively on primary sources, often spliced together to imply a certain conclusion that isn't found in any of the secondary sources. Not only that, but these primary sources were in many cases open propaganda - such as Hitler speeches or Nazi pamphlets - and cannot be considered in any way acceptable for an article on the economy of the Third Reich (although they may be acceptable in an article on Nazi propaganda). What the Nazis said about their economy and what actually happened in reality are two very different things.

So my cleanup consisted of re-ordering much of the text to follow a coherent structure, removing unsupported claims and those with sources that failed verification, and cutting out most of the direct Hitler quotes. Then I expanded the resulting text with material largely drawn from Evans and Tooze, but also to a lesser extent from Shirer and other sources previously present in the article.

Then there was the matter of the lead. As it stood, the lead consisted of two paragraphs: the first was a good overview of Nazi economic recovery policies, while the second focused on the oddly specific topic of Mefo bills and Hjalmar Schacht's financing of government debt. That was clearly undue weight - we should obviously not dedicate half of the lead to arcane funding schemes. So I moved the information from that second lead paragraph to the body of the article (actually to the opening paragraph of the pre-war section). I kept the first paragraph of the lead as it was, and added three others: one about rearmament and the war economy (arguably the most important aspect of the Nazi economy), one about business relations, and one about forced labor especially during the war. With the war taking up half of Nazi Germany's existence, and with the Holocaust being such a prominent feature of the Nazi regime, I felt that was appropriate. I also kept my edit of the lead separate from my edit of the article itself. -- Amerul (talk) 15:50, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Hitler quotes paragraph

A new user, Rjkj18, has re-inserted one of the paragraphs made up entirely of Hitler quotes that I talked about above. I strongly believe this does not belong in the article, and I wish to reiterate my reasons for holding this stance. The paragraph is a collection of Hitler quotes picked at random and listed without context and without commentary from secondary sources. There is no indication as to why we should consider these quotes, as opposed to any of the other numerous things that Hitler said about economic topics at various times, as representing "Hitler's views on economics". None of the sources report these quotes as being particularly significant. They simply report them as things that Hitler has said. Several of the quotes are taken from public speeches in which Hitler said many other things in addition to the words quoted - so why were these particular sentences quoted and not others? Furthermore, given the overtly propagandistic nature of those speeches, simply quoting what Hitler said and taking it at face value is absolutely not acceptable. His speeches don't reflect his views on economics, they reflect his views on what he thought his audience wanted to hear. Quotes from private conversations are slightly better, but not by much. Hitler is a primary source and an extremely unreliable one at that. Building up an entire paragraph out of Hitler quotes selected by wikipedia editors according to their own preferences, and calling this paragraph "Hitler's views on X", without any reliable secondary sources saying that those quotes are representative of Hitler's views on X, is original research. -- Amerul (talk) 01:10, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

@Rjkj18:

1. The paragraph Amerul removed is indeed a bunch of random trivia.
2. The paragraph also really does fail to distinguish between speeches made for public consumption on the one hand and actual policy on the other hand, and also really does fail to acknowledge that Hitler made different promises to different audiences. The Nazi regime was extremely insecure about its popularity but also kept feeling dependent on support among industrialists. This lead to all kinds of apparent contradictions that would have to be put in context and explained.
3. Nazi economic policy was in fact shaped significantly by industrialists, by initiatives and commentary from the rank and file that filtered upwards, and by several top Nazis other than Hitler. Hitler's commitment to social Darwinism lead to a leadership style that actively encouraged this. He purposely created posts and entire bureaucracies with ambiguous and overlapping responsibilities with the intention that they should fight each other. The Nazis in general never meant for Germany to be a command economy and encouraged personal initiative and innovation on all levels. To the limited extent to which there was methodical, long-term economic strategy, many of the big decisions − during the late 1930s, possibly most of them − were driven by Göring and not by Hitler. A paragraph that suggests it was Hitler and Hitler alone who called all the shots is just bad historiography. Damvile (talk) 05:48, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

You want to remove the paragraph because it shows Hitler has socialist tendencies. What about the quote with Hitler saying he does not need to seize the means of production if he can socialize human beings. Apparently you think that is worth removing...

Funny how "clean ups" usually have blatant bias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rjkj18 (talk • contribs) 23:35, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Please keep your suggestion focused on changes to the article, or they will be deleted per WP:NOTAFORUM. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:56, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Rjkj18, Hitler said many contradictory things at different times - generally because he was speaking to different audiences and told each audience what they wanted to hear, but sometimes because Hitler was genuinely confused and had no clear thoughts on a given matter. Even the sample of quotes in your paragraph shows this. Right alongside the quote showing "socialist tendencies", there were other quotes in which Hitler said he supported private property and private initiative. We removed those quotes as well. The point is that Hitler quotes (and Nazi propaganda in general) are not a reliable source. Hitler made false promises and false statements on a regular basis, including to his friends and allies, let alone to the general public. Hitler said in 1938 that he was not going to demand anymore territory if the Allies gave him the Sudetenland. What would you think if a wikipedia article reported that kind of quote without commentary, making it seem as if Hitler really meant it? See, that's the problem with Hitler quotes (and any kind of primary source quotes in general). We can't just pluck them out of context, treat them all as accurate, and put a bunch of them together to make a claim that reliable secondary sources (i.e. in this case, historians) do not make. And besides, if you think it's okay to just list any quotes by Hitler or other Nazis on economic topics, where do we stop? I could go through the German history books on my shelves and probably find hundreds of Nazi quotes vaguely related to the economy. It would be ridiculous to include them all. So who decides which ones get included? You? Me? Someone else? That would be inserting our personal biases into the wiki, wouldn't it? On wikipedia, we call this sort of thing "original research", and we're not supposed to do it.

Not to mention the fact that, like Damvile said, Hitler was not personally in charge of all Nazi economic policy. It's misleading to quote him as if everything he said was immediately done in practice.

If you are interested in learning more about the subject of this article, I'd strongly recommend the book The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze, as well as The Third Reich in Power and The Third Reich at War by Richard J. Evans. Those are a very good start. -- Amerul (talk) 18:42, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Adding to Amerul's comment:

It would be trivial to compile a list of Hitler quotes about how much he hates Socialists, loves entrepreneurs, and believes in personal responsibility and independence. Would you want this kind of compilation in this article? You would not. You would say it's meaningless quote mining and you would be correct.

If Hitler did have "socialist tendencies" (and I'm not saying he did; it's an assumption for sake of argument) then the place to discuss those would be an article about Hitler, not an article about the German economy. The German economy was co-shaped by different ideologial factions with radically different agendas, by different schools of bankers and researchers with different ideas about monetary policy, and by different industries competing for national resources. To an even larger degree, it was shaped by rapid industrial, educational, and legal modernization, which started having significant sociological fallout long before the war kicked off – and as always, the unintended consequences were at least as material as the intended consequences announced in speeches.

If you can read German, an interesting companion to Tooze is Hitlers Volksstaat by Götz Aly. You'll like it because it spends a lot of pages talking about Nazis with "socialist tendencies". Looks like there really were a few! The book also demonstrates, however, that if you want to understand the economy of Nazi Germany then the thing to study is the actual economy, not random Hitler sermons. Damvile (talk) 23:52, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Some additional discussion here. Not sure if important but does contain some elaboration of some of the points made above. Damvile (talk) 10:51, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Reverts

Beyond My Ken. Please explain your reverts. By claiming "OR" are you disputing that my contributions are to found in the cited papers? Major Dump (talk) 20:25, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Beyond My Ken, you have has deleted my contribution: ..."with these firms being allowed, what some scholars have said to be, "a good deal of," though not full, private property rights since the Nazi interventionist administration engaged in "extensive regulatory activity."

The source says "For despite extensive regulatory activity by an interventionist public administration, firms preserved a good deal of their autonomy even under the Nazi regime."

Where's the Original Research?

You have also deleted my contribution: " albeit with the German Banking Act of 1934 allowing the government to have "tight control" over the banks."

The source says: "In any case, the reform of banking regulation that began with the German Bank Act of 1934 allowed the government to exercise a tight control over private banks."

What are you getting the idea that I'm doing Original Research? Have you bothered to view the papers cited? — Preceding unsigned comment added by an unknown user 15:25, 23 November 2018‎

The first edit cites "some scholars" but cites only one, and "a good deal of their autonomy" is not equivalent to "full, private property rights".

The second edit is a copyvio, as it does not express the ideas of the citation in a sufficiently different way.

Please so not restore these edits until these problems are fixed. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:59, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

[Re: First edit] No, dude. The paper was written by TWO scholars, Buchheim and Scherner. That's why I wrote "some scholars." Again, it appears you haven't looked at the sources. Secondly, I agree that "a good deal of their autonomy" is not equivalent to "full, private property rights." And I'm not using those two phrases as if they are. To the contrary, I'm using them in contrast to each other. So your objection isn't making any sense. Can you elaborate? Major Dump (talk)

[Re: Second edit:] What do you mean? Why should I state the idea in a different way? It's a very basic point. How would you state that the German Bank Act of 1934 allowed the government to exercise a tight control over private banks? Major Dump (talk) 17:17, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

See above. What problems? Major Dump (talk) 17:17, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Please do not intersperse your responses into another editor's comment. This is a violation of WP:TPO. I have moved your response out of my comment and labeled what they were in response to. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:12, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Everything's a violation to you, isn't it? Do you have a response to my questions? Major Dump (talk) 13:49, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Only things that violate policy. My initial responses haven't been effectively countered, so they stand. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:52, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Your objections are wrong and incoherent. They collapse. Major Dump (talk) 20:58, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Your opinion. Where's your consensus? Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:59, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Wheres yours? Major Dump (talk) 21:01, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Beyond My Ken, you should really straighten up your act. You delete the information yet again, instead of working with me by helping me understand your complaints. You refused to clarify, so I put the information back in. Now you're claiming in your reverts that you're reverting because there is no consensus. FYI, There is no Wikipedia rule that says a person can't add information to Wikipedia unless he gets a group of people together to agree that it should be added (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Don%27t_revert_due_solely_to_%22no_consensus%22). You need to have a more substantial reason to delete information than that. And you haven't presented one. Major Dump (talk) 23:16, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

I have no obligation to "work with you". I object to your changes, my reasons have been stated, and you have been unable to get other editors to agree with you, so there is no consensus for these changes,. If you continue to restore them, against WP:CONSENSUS, I will have no choice but to take your behavior to the noticeboards to have you restrained from doing so until there is a consensus. Your next restoration will trigger that. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:00, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Are you for real? Now you're threatening me to get your way? You don't understand basics of how Wikipedia works. Read "Do Not Revert Due Solely to No Consensus" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Don%27t_revert_due_solely_to_%22no_consensus%22). Instead of engaging in discussion to helping me understand what you're talking about with your inadequately-worded objections, you keep telling me to not put information in due to no consensus. I reiterate, Wikipedia has no rule that says a consensus has to form in FAVOR of information before an editor may add information to Wikipedia. It is not a violation of any Wikipedia policy to add information to an article without first assembling a consensus. Only if a consensus has later been formed AGAINST the information, THEN you would have a case to claim I should not add information because the consensus agrees it should not be added. Furthermore, an editor threatening to report another editor to the adults isn't good enough to justification for that editor to not put information in Wikipedia either. Maybe I should report your behavior to them. You're coming across as a troublemaker, starting with harassing me about my username. And then, after you lost that case, these strange trivial objections, which you refuse to clarify, to keep such my contributions of such benign non-controversial information out of the article. Major Dump (talk) 15:11, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

I'd just like to chime in to say that I agree with Beyond My Ken.

Furthermore, Major Dump, I think I understand what you are trying to do - inserting disclaimers to clarify that Nazi privatization did not represent a reduction of the state's involvement in the economy. I just don't think such a disclaimer is needed, because the article already makes it abundantly clear that the Nazi state worked closely with German businesses and aimed to channel the German economy in the direction it desired (namely, towards increased military production and war-related investments). In fact, you yourself added a quote to the same paragraph about a month ago which further emphasized that the privatization was accompanied by state regulation and political interference. We don't need to say the same thing again after every sentence. I also agree with Beyond My Ken's objections to the wording used by your contributions. Now, granted, the wording could be improved to address those objections, but I don't think we need these additions in the first place. -- Amerul (talk) 00:04, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Agree with Beyond My Ken as far as what? What's your interpretation of what he's saying? Do you agree that I'm doing Original Research? And that if a paper is written by two scholars, that it's improper to refer to them as "some scholars" and they should only be referred to as one? And do you think I'm plagiarizing, which seems to be his claim about the German Banking Act statement? And what does he mean by his objection to the first statement. Major Dump (talk) 15:19, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

On a related note, speaking of your addition last month, Major Dump, please add a new citation when you add a new sentence, even if the source is the same as the preceding sentence. Yes, this may seem tedious and excessive, but when it comes to politically-charged topics such as anything related to the Nazis, I have often seen over-zealous editors removing sentences as being "uncited" when the citation was provided a few lines down in the same paragraph. So, please leave existing citations precisely where they are, and add new ones (even if they're repetitive) for any new material that you insert. This isn't a rule, but I personally find it to be the best practice on articles such as this one. -- Amerul (talk) 00:15, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Good point, thanks. Major Dump (talk) 15:19, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

plundering the wealth of Jewish citizens

The next step of the plundering was the Holocaust, to prevent any Jewish demands and to collect golden teeth. You use Holocaust sources without using the word. Xx236 (talk) 12:50, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Gross-Rosen

Gross-Rosen was situated in Reich, but the context suggests it was in occupied Poland.Xx236 (talk) 13:33, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

[1]. Icewhiz (talk) 13:44, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Armament

The notion that the German's prioritized armaments before the outbreak of the second world war is dubious at best. If anything it would seem that Adolf Hitler decreased production of weapons in the years leading up to the second world war.

One of the sources is that of A. J. P. Taylor. "The Origins Of The Second World War". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.200.127.217 (talk) 01:25, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Clarifications to writing

Article states: "The German economy, like those of many other western nations, suffered the effects of the Great Depression with unemployment soaring around the Wall Street Crash of 1929."

Didn’t the German economy suffer *more* from the Great Depression than any other economy in Europe? My recollection is reading that it was almost entirely dependent on American credit because the British and French wouldn’t allow direct investment there, so it was hit harder than other parts of Europe.

Article states: "Nazi Germany increased its military spending faster than any other state in peacetime, with the share of military spending rising from 1 percent to 10 percent of national income in the first two years of the regime alone."

Isn’t this potentially misleading, as Weimar’s military spending under the Versailles terms was artificially suppressed? Growth is always “explosive” when you start from near-zero. Historian932 (talk) 18:11, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Major Dump's edits

Conversation with a WP:SOCK. Generalrelative (talk) 00:21, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. I suggest that Major Dump engage here rather than edit warring their preferred content back into the article. As mentioned in my last revert, there appeared to be a consensus against including similar content the last time this user attempted to add it. See Talk:Economy_of_Nazi_Germany/Archive_1#Reverts. My objections are: 1) this content misrepresents the spirit of the piece it's being taken from (so represents WP:CHERRYPICKing), and 2) it does not appear to be WP:DUE since, as was pointed out in the previous discussion, these points are already covered substantively in the article. Pinging Amerul and Beyond My Ken in case they would like to pick up where the previous discussion left off. Generalrelative (talk) 00:11, 2 February 2022 (UTC) First you claimed the source was not peer reviewed. I showed you that it was. Then you had to fall back on claiming my words didn't align with what the source was saying. So, to avoid that dispute, I put in direct quotes from the source. That's not "edit warring." Now to try to keep the info out, you come up with the above. You have no legitimate reason to keep this information out that is a common mainstream accepted view. Oh, and you also claimed it's not clear that it's a mainstream view. Everyone who has even casually studied this stuff knows that the Nazis greatly increased regulations, though it may be a surprise to you. Hopefully that's clear to you now. The source feels the need to point it out throughout the article. And the source explicitly notes to the reader to not confuse privatization with the modern conception of privatization which includes deregulation, which is exactly what I'm doing. And your claim that mentioning increasing regulations in the intro of an article that is about the ECONOMY, is Undue Weight, is a just not rational. Major Dump (talk) 13:26, 2 February 2022 (UTC) 1) This material represents CHERRYPICKING because the point of the article is that everyone was increasing regulations at the time, but that Nazi Germany went against the grain by privatizing. Yet your edit makes it seem as though regulation were a defining feature of Nazi economic policy. That is misleading. 2) This material appears to be UNDUE because adding it unduly highlights one aspect (i.e. regulation) relative to another (privatization) in a way that is disproportional to the way reliable sources present it. 3) Existing consensus is against adding this material, and you knew that already when you recently reappeared to re-add it. Changing your rationale each time does not change the fact that this is edit warring. 4) Please keep your WP:ASPERSIONS off this page and off this project. Generalrelative (talk) 14:29, 2 February 2022 (UTC) Cherry picking? It's a focus of the article starting in the very first paragraph: "Privatization of large parts of the public sector was one of the defining policies of the last quarter of the twentieth century. Most scholars have understood privatization as the transfer of government-owned firms and assets to the private sector, as well as the delegation to the private sector of the delivery of services previously delivered by the public sector. Other scholars have adopted a much broader meaning of privatization, including (besides transfer of public assets and delegation of public services) deregulation, as well as the private funding of services previously delivered without charging the users. In any case, modern privatization has been usually accompanied by the removal of state direction and a reliance on the free market. Thus, privatization and market liberalization have usually gone together." Then the text goes on to distinguish this as not being the case for the Nazi economy explain: " It is a fact that the Nazi government sold off public ownership in several state-owned firms in the mid-1930s. These firms belonged to a wide range of sectors; for example, steel, mining, banking, shipyard, ship-lines, and railways. It must be pointed out that, whereas modern privatization has run parallel to liberalization policies, in Nazi Germany privatization was applied within a framework of increasing state control of the whole economy through regulation and political interference." So, your claim of cherry picking is easily dismissed. The article wants the reader know from the very start that this is no ordinary privatization. There's no reason whatsoever to not put this point in the article, and no reason whatsoever to not mention increasing regulations in the intro. Major Dump (talk) 15:18, 2 February 2022 (UTC) My points stand, as do those of the two other editors who objected to this content in the previous discussion. The body of the article adequately considers the points you've quoted here, but your addition to the lead is UNDUE for the reasons I've stated: misleadingly presenting regulation as though it were an equally defining feature of Nazi economic policy when compared with privatization. You don't have to agree, but you'll need to actually persuade others in order to keep this content in the article, and so far you haven't done so. Generalrelative (talk) 16:47, 2 February 2022 (UTC) The content was there by consensus. You're wrong. And, increased regulation is definitely a defining feature of Nazi policy, the source points out. It only makes sense that regulation be mentioned in the lead. Major Dump (talk) 17:13, 2 February 2022 (UTC) See my response below. Generalrelative (talk) 17:29, 2 February 2022 (UTC) And no, there is no existing consensus against against this material. The material has been there quite awhile now. All I did was extend the sentence to get the full meaning from the source, and then mentioned it in the intro. The sentence that was there was "However, the privatization was "applied within a framework of increasing control of the state over the whole economy through regulation and political interference." All I did was add this to the front of the sentence to complete the thought from the source: "However, unlike modern privatization which which has been aligned with liberalization," https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Economy_of_Nazi_Germany&type=revision&diff=1069330204&oldid=1067396769 Then in attempt to end dispute from you, I changed it to the exact quote from the source: "whereas modern privatization has run parallel to liberalization policies, in Nazi Germany privatization was applied..." This is a minor edit, not the big change that you're making it out to be. Major Dump (talk) 15:25, 2 February 2022 (UTC) Regarding existing consensus, see the previous discussion. The consensus is against the added emphasis you’ve been insisting upon since creating your account. Indeed, see this specific statement from Amerul: Furthermore, Major Dump, I think I understand what you are trying to do - inserting disclaimers to clarify that Nazi privatization did not represent a reduction of the state's involvement in the economy. I just don't think such a disclaimer is needed, because the article already makes it abundantly clear that the Nazi state worked closely with German businesses and aimed to channel the German economy in the direction it desired (namely, towards increased military production and war-related investments). That sounds about right to me. Generalrelative (talk) 16:47, 2 February 2022 (UTC) Wrong. The additional content I added in these edits was not objected to, by anyone, as I never tried to add them before. Again, it's just a minor completing the first part of a sentence, and then a brief mention in the intro what was talked about in the body. Major Dump (talk) 17:13, 2 February 2022 (UTC) To Amerul. Thanks for your input, but the source is not just saying that there was not a reduction in government's involvement in the economy, but that regulation and interference GREATLY INCREASED. Big difference. And, again, consensus already accepted this into the article before. It's already in the body and been there quite awhile. I just want to note the "great increase in regulations" or similar wording in the lead. Major Dump (talk) 20:41, 2 February 2022 (UTC) Well, I suppose each of us can just tell the other that they're wrong over and over. Or we can wait until others decide to chime in and add their perspectives. I favor the latter approach. In case you're unaware, per WP:ONUS, The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content. So until such time as that happens the disputed content stays out of the article. Generalrelative (talk) 17:28, 2 February 2022 (UTC) I honestly don't even care that much about the first part of the sentence, which was just an introductory. The crux of the point is in the second part. So I don't know what you think you're keeping out there. Major Dump (talk) So, who besides Generalrelative is against mentioning growth of regulation to sentence in the lead that starts with "The changes included..." ? And why? The source says "Increased control...through regulation" and "intense growth of government regulations" and "regulation and interference in the conduct of the economy affairs was enormously extended" and "more intense restrictions and controls on markets" which by the way it says is one of "the main characteristics of Nazi economic policy." The great increase in regulation is a "change." The source didn't just throw that in their article multiple times for no reason. They did because the point is essential to the whole thrust of that article/source. Major Dump (talk) 20:21, 2 February 2022 (UTC) I fully agree with Generalrelative. It would be WP:UNDUE to edit the lead of the article in the way you propose, for two reasons. First, we should note that in the stable version of the article before your edits, there are only four words in the lead related to this source and this topic in general. The words are: "privatization of state industries". That's it. More details are of course given in the relevant section in the body of the article, but not in the lead. This topic was never a major part of the lead, it only got a brief mention. It is absolutely not appropriate to add a lengthy disclaimer to explain what kind of privatization it was and how it's different from 21st century privatizations, when the thing being disclaimed was only four words to begin with. Second, you are in fact misrepresenting what the source says. It is absolutely not true that "the point [about increased regulation of markets] is essential to the whole thrust of that article/source". The word "regulation(s)" appears only 9 times in this 28-page academic article, and 3 of those instances are in footnotes while a fourth one is a quote from another source! "Restriction(s)" appears 5 times, two of which are about financial restrictions on the ability of the government to enact policies. The point about increased regulations is so minor and tangential that you have almost already quoted every single sentence in the article that mentions it. Furthermore, you have omitted the context, which makes a huge difference. For example, you claim that the source says that "regulation and interference in the conduct of the economy affairs was enormously extended". It is true that those words appear in the source, but here is the context (page 14): Guillebaud (1939, p. 55) stresses that the Nazi regime wanted to leave management and risk in business in the sphere of private enterprise, subject to the general direction of the government. Thus, “the State in fact divested itself of a great deal of its previous direct participation in industry....But at the same time state control, regulation and interference in the conduct of the economy affairs was enormously extended.” Guillebaud (1939, p. 219) felt that National Socialism was opposed to state management, and saw it as a “cardinal tenet of the Party that the economic order should be based on private initiative and enterprise (in the sense of private ownership of the means of production and the individual assumption of risks) though subject to guidance and control by state.” This can be seen as the basic rationale for privatization in Guillebaud’s analysis. So those words you mentioned are in fact quoted by this source (Bel) from another source (Guillebaud) as part of a literature review. Not only that, but Guillebaud also says that it was a "cardinal tenet of the [Nazi] Party that the economic order should be based on private initiative and enterprise". I assume you would not be in favour of adding that to the lead section of the article. In summary, the lead was fine the way it was. The proposed additions are undue and misrepresent the source. -- Amerul (talk) 00:38, 3 February 2022 (UTC) Let's go through each of your points: You say "It is absolutely not appropriate to add a lengthy disclaimer to explain what kind of privatization it was and how it's different from 21st century privatizations, when the thing being disclaimed was only four words to begin with." You're misrepresenting the length. The phrase "...while greatly increasing regulations," or similar, is not a "lengthy" disclaimer. It's short. And it's not simply a disclaimer. It's mainly just a fact. Hence, the statement doesn't even need to be tied to the mention of privatization. That the Nazis greatly increased regulations can placed anywhere in the lead. And should be. You say I'm misrepresenting what the source says, and that "the point about increased regulations is so minor and tangential." To the contrary. The source explicitly states that that there are TWO MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF NAZI ECONOMIC POLICY and that ONE of those is huge growth in government spending. The OTHER ONE is the huge growth in regulations. I quote: "In general terms, the main characteristics of Nazi economic policy were (1) the growth of government fiscal intervention in the German economy through ambitious programs that involved huge public expenditure, and (2) a tightly regulated economy, through more intense restrictions and controls on markets." There you have it. The source considers the increase of regulations to be one of two "MAIN characteristics" of Nazi policy. So you don't have justification for preventing a mention of a main characteristic of Nazi economic policy out of the lead. You say "It would be WP:UNDUE to edit the lead of the article in the way you propose..." Given that the source says it's a "main" characteristic, obviously it wouldn't by "UNDUE." "Those words you mentioned are in fact quoted by this source (Bel) from another source (Guillebaud) as part of a literature review. Not only that, but..." This is a strange objection. You seem to be saying because the author quoted someone else, that that quote can't be used as a source. That's fallacious. Just as a Wikipedia article quotes sources to make points, so does the author of the paper. If you want, we can quote Guillebaud directly. This isn't an issue. You mention something about "regulation(s)" appears only 9 times in this 28-page academic article, and 3 of those instances are in footnotes..." I'm not sure what you're talking about. I didn't quote anything from footnotes (though there's nothing wrong with that). Maybe you're not looking at a different version. I'm looking at the official version published in the The Economic History Review. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27771569?mag=the-roots-of-privatization&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents You say "Guillebaud also says that it was a "cardinal tenet of the [Nazi] Party that the economic order should be based on private initiative and enterprise". I assume you would not be in favour of adding that to the lead section of the article.I assume you would not be in favour of adding that to the lead section of the article." I don't care what you add to the lead as long it's reliably sourced as being a main or important characteristic of Nazi economic policy. I'm not here to try to prevent things from getting into the article. The more information the better. I wish you two felt the same way. Major Dump (talk) 15:40, 3 February 2022 (UTC) You just attempted to add the information to the article again, when clearly the consensus here is against doing that. I have reverted on that basis ("no consensus"), and will report you to AN/I if you attempt to edit against consensus again. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:27, 3 February 2022 (UTC) You're mistaken. I put in a new and different edit, about public spending and regulation. Making changes through actual edits after discussion is part of the consensus-building process. Major Dump (talk) 17:28, 3 February 2022 (UTC) It's abundantly clear from the above the discussion that there is no consensus for this "new" edit. You are edit warring, and editing against consensus. Please stop, and get a positive consensus before adding anything remotely related to the material you've been attempting to add for several days now. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:31, 3 February 2022 (UTC) Fine with me. I got the edit in there and the direct quote from the source in the edit summary for posterity. Major Dump (talk) 17:41, 3 February 2022 (UTC) Well guys, I've rebutted all your objections so far. What kind of objections can you come up with now to try to keep mention of increased regulation out of the lead? Major Dump (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 19:36, 3 February 2022 (UTC) nothing more is needed. Wikipedia works by WP:CONSENSUS, and the consensus here is against you. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:12, 3 February 2022 (UTC) Nothing more is needed to prevent my additions other than to revert them, obviously. Reverting itself proves lack of consensus. But more is definitely need to present a reasonable arguments that my edits are not proper. That hasn't been done, obviously. I provided a direct quote from a peer-reviewed source, which is used throughout this article, saying flat-out that increased regulation is a "main characteristic" of Nazi economic policy, in order to justify a simple mention of increased regulation, in the lead. If the two users above don't try rebut that, the obvious conclusion is that they haven't figured out a way to do so. Major Dump (talk) 22:48, 3 February 2022 (UTC) Three of us have explained to you why we disagree with your preferred edits. In doing so we have extended to you an abundance of good faith, but you are not entitled to unlimited patience. As far as I'm concerned this conversation has reached a natural conclusion. You are free to feel about that any way you choose but you are not free to continue to use this talk page as a WP:SOAPBOX. Generalrelative (talk) 23:04, 3 February 2022 (UTC) You mean two of you. The conversation is indeed reached a natural conclusion, by your lack of ability to counter the evidence of a direct quote from the source saying hat increased regulation is a "main characteristic" of Nazi economic policy. Major Dump (talk) 23:17, 3 February 2022 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Inappropriate use of a primary source

An editor is attempting to use the 25 Points - a historical Nazi document - as a source for this article. Although the 25 Points does include several economic positions, and was never amended or abrogated, it is also well known to historians and other scholars that they did not, in fact form the basis for Nazi economic policies. Rather, the manifesto was designed to attract wavering socialists to the the Nazi cause, and none of the economic points in the platform were ever aactually followed - although Hitler forbade the document from being changed.

The editor has also done something similar on Anton Drexler, where they quoted from Drexler's pamphlet to support the inaccurate statement that Drexler was a socialist. This is, of course, related to the idea that the Nazis were socialists because the name of their party was the "National Socialist German Worker's Party". In reality, the Nazis were no more socialist than the various authoritarian communist "Democratic People's Republics" were democratic.

Use of the 25 Points in this article -- and Drexler's pamphlet in the other -- are obfuscatory and create an inappropriate and inaccurate impression unless they are joined with secondary sources which provide the necessary interpretation of the primary sources, which the editor failed to do. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:26, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Yup. Context-free inclusion of the 1920 program in a discussion of the actual German economy under Nazi rule is untenable. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:51, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

But still happening. Same on Anton Drexler. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:54, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

I'll write up the 3RR report, unless one of you is already working on it? Generalrelative (talk) 23:27, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Please do... AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:30, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, please. I thought about it, but hadn't started (was watching the Packers/Bucs game). Incidentally, I previously requested PP for this and Anton Drexler. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:35, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

It looks like I arrived after it's all over, but I just wanted to add my voice to the consensus above. Primary sources have to be used with caution, and primary sources that are Nazi documents can't be simply taken at face value. With regard to the 25-point program in particular, as noted before, the demands and slogans of that program have little in common with the economic policies adopted in Nazi Germany 13 years later. Beyond My Ken is correct, quoting the 25-point program as if the Nazis actually did the things listed in it is inappropriate and inaccurate. -- Amerul (talk) 07:01, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

Now I also want to make a more general comment about the "the Nazis were socialists" idea that tends to get pushed here by a brand new editor or an IP editor once or twice per year. As far as I can tell - and this most recent example is a case in point - the people who hold that idea usually make an argument that goes more or less like this:

1. Socialism means government intervention in the economy.
2. The Nazis supported government intervention in the economy.
3. Therefore the Nazis were socialists.

This is wrong because statement #1 is false. Socialism is not a term referring to any and all government intervention in the economy. Yes, many socialists support extensive government intervention in the economy, but many non-socialists do so as well. Ancient Egypt, the Kingdom of France under Louis XIV and present day Saudi Arabia had/have largely state-driven economies, but they were/are not socialist. It is possible to support a highly interventionist state without being a socialist (in fact, if we look at the entire span of human history, it's very common). And the inverse is also possible - it is possible to be a socialist and oppose the idea of a government entirely. There is some overlap between socialism and government intervention, but that's all it is: overlap. They are not the same thing, they are separate concepts, in the same way that being a singer and being a songwriter are separate concepts even though many people do both.

The "socialism = government action" misconception seems to lie at the root of the "the Nazis were socialists" misconception, at least in those cases where it's an honest mistake. When dealing with new editors who make this error, we usually emphasize the importance of sticking to the sources and the fact that all scholars classify the Nazis as far-right. That is all true, but I get the impression that many of those editors walk away without understanding why their thinking was wrong. So I think that if we assume good faith, we should also explain to them that "socialism = government action" is a false idea, and it's probably that false idea that makes them misunderstand the Nazis. -- Amerul (talk) 07:13, 26 September 2022 (UTC)