Business Collaboration within the Nazi War Machine: Corporations and the State in the Austrian Semiperiphery

Abstract

The military strength of German National Socialism was based on the collaboration of large corporations with the Nazi state. Business provided capital, loans, taxes, managerial expertise and production for war industries. I elaborate four ideal-typical modes of business collaboration. Each mode is illustrated by a case study of a German corporation that acquires an Austrian firm: Krupp (traditional mode); the Reichswerke state conglomerate (coercive); Deutsche Bank (managerial nationalist); and IG Farben (competitive investment mode). The first and the last modes occurred when the state was highly dependent on large businesses for the economic requisites of war. The acquired firms in the Austrian semiperiphery contributed to Nazi war mobilization, as they exploited labor and resources from the peripheral regions of southeastern Europe. Patterns of the state's resource dependency on business led to bargaining interactions between state and business, over time shaping the mix between state and private ownership of war industry.