“Hitler and the monopolists aim to construct a new order in Europe – the order of Nazi tyranny, a system designed to place German monopolists at the head of the world economy…”. The Economics of Barbarism: Hitler’s New Economic Order in Europe by J. Kuczynski and M. Witt. Published by Frederick Muller Ltd., London, 1942 – first edition.
“Hitler and the monopolists aim to construct a new order in Europe – the order of Nazi tyranny, a system designed to place German monopolists at the head of the world economy. They are using all the experience humanity has gained in every scientific field. They are distorting science into a tool for calculated oppression and exploitation – on a vast scale and over an extended period… We must all understand that while we are fighting for a new and better world, German fascism is already beginning to construct a new and far more terrible one. Out of the ruins of the old world, they are already laying the foundations of a world in which freedom and culture are unknown, and in which terror and repression flourish. It is against this ‘new’ world that we are fighting – a world they seek to build from the worst elements of the old. This vile ‘new order’ is not a flimsy structure cobbled together by ignorant schemers. It is the work of craftsmen in the architecture of evil…”. (From the introduction).
A booklet distributed during World War II, intended to expose the true nature of the Nazi economic order in occupied Europe. The authors both German economists with insider knowledge of the German economy, who opposed Nazism and emigrated from Germany demonstrate how the overarching goal of German economic policy was the production of ever more instruments of destruction at the expense of all other industries. They show that behind the slogans of a “New Order” lay a system of brutal economic exploitation, modern slavery, war profiteering, and the systematic plundering of Europe’s resources a diabolically well-planned program for world domination. The authors provide evidence of how the Nazi economy was fully structured around the war effort, carrying out a systematic economic looting of the occupied countries (including raw materials, machinery, and labor), the enslavement of workers from across occupied Europe, including forced labor with the ultimate aim being the improvement and refinement of the tools of mass extermination.
The authors further reveal how, between 1933 and 1939, the Nazis looted the Jews as part of an effort to reduce what they considered an “excess population.” Various methods of plunder were tested directly on the Jewish population in what the Nazis themselves referred to as “extortion.” Under this system, Jews were forced to pay for permits to continue operating their businesses, while being denied access to raw materials and government contracts. When, inevitably, Jewish business owners collapsed under these impossible conditions, the Nazis conscripted them into forced labor, using them to build the German armaments industry in preparation for war.
A special chapter in the book is devoted to the “revival of slavery”, the reduction of the “worker” from the status of a free person to that of a slave devoid of liberty. The authors describe the employment of thousands under conditions of severe malnutrition (at that time, the existence of concentration and extermination camps was not yet widely known to them, but they had extensive information on the Nazis’ methods of oppression), as well as systematic psychological degradation. In the final pages, the authors issue a call to the peoples of the world to unite against Nazi tyranny: “All nations must join this struggle and give their utmost. The sooner this enemy of humanity is defeated, the better for all of us. Any hesitation now means tens of thousands of deaths tomorrow and immense suffering for those still alive. Let us all fight together against those who are the common enemy—enemy of the German people and the occupied nations of Europe, enemy of the Soviet peoples and the peoples of the British Empire, enemy of all humanity…”
63 pages. Good to very good condition.
