Reviews for Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State

The average rating for Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-10-09 00:00:00 Dean Donaldson I was absolutely thrilled with this book. Recommended by Allison by way of Caldwell, this book delighted me for three main reasons: 1. The figures on the economies of Nazi allies and Nazi-occupied countries were staggering and incredibly enlightening. It is amazing what the bureaucrats, especially those in the finance ministry of the Third Reich, were able to get away with. 2. Albeit rather trite, I appreciate that Aly looked at the "socialism" part of national socialism, rather than adding another work on the rabid nationalism of the NSDAP to the field. 3. The book addresses the topic/question that I find most helpful when I think about how the third (and fourth) generation of Germans can think of their relationship with the war: how have I benefitted from what happened? How did my family benefit? Through conversations with professors and other second-generation Germans during my time there, I found a growing sense of dismay that the third and fourth generations are "sick of" learning about and hearing about the Holocaust. They say, "We weren't even alive, how can we possibly be responsible?" The best response to that that I heard, and, the point of this rant that makes it relevant to the book: "Of course you aren't personally criminally responsible. Of course, you weren't alive. But how have you or your family benefitted from what happened? Where did your furniture come from? Whose apartment did you move into? What foodstuffs and amenities were you able to get during the war, that weren't available during peacetime?" A fantastic read for anyone interested in the period and the people who lived in it.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-12-03 00:00:00 Linda Clark You don't know much about the Nazis. That's because we don't get much about the Nazis in school and most of the "common knowledge" about them is wrong. For example, many people are under the false impression that the Nazis were "right wing" or conservative, yet the term "Nazi" is short for "National Socialist German Workers Party." That doesn't sound like a right wing party to me. This book, while it is not entertaining, will teach you that the Nazis were a left wing group that gained and kept power in Germany for so long because they provided a plethora of social entitlements and then invaded and looted their neighboring countries and plundered their undesirable minorities to pay for them. This is an important book to read, not only to understand history correctly, but to see the similarities between developments in Nazi Germany and those happening now in the US, and to remember that when the government starts providing entitlements, somebody has to pay for them.