Business History meets... Hein Klemann

Business History meets... Hein Klemann

What is the main contribution of your new book?

First of all, this book shows that histories of war and occupation, but also economic history in general, are often better studied from a transnational perspective. Often, a national perspective just does not give the answers because some developments are not national at all. Second, the book reckons with the often-biased conceptions of occupied economies in the Second World War. It rejects notions of all embracing depredation and deprivation, and examines instead on a-matter-of-fact basis the actual economic conditions in Europe at the time. Such examinations yield insight in economic continuity and diversity that also demands an adaptation of our understanding of the Cold War. Instead of looking at ‘East’ and ‘West’ as economic ‘failure’ and ‘success’ respectively, we should take into account the different points of departure in 1945.

Does conquest pay?

That is a question Peter Liberman tried to answer before, and I agree with him. It depends from the kind of occupation. Looting, as the Nazis did in the eastern European parts and Russia, does not pay. In fact, Russia supplied Germany with more goods when it was still a neutral country, than when it was occupied. In the west that was different, but in my opinion the Germans would have been better off when they had put their women at work. Their production would have been at least as profitable as the occupation of the western parts. Exploitation causes resistance that increases the more severe the exploitation is, and this resistance should be counted as costs.

Which country contributed most to the German war effort?

In total about 25% of the war expenses was covered by production in occupied economies. If one adds (forced) labour this percentage increases to almost 33%. This is not insignificant, but with regard to the total production of the occupied countries rather limited nonetheless, as their pre-war production was much higher than the German production. Per head of the population probably Norway contributed most to the German war effort by being active in the fortification of its western shore. Denmark was important for its agricultural produce. About 12% of Germany’s nourishment came from Denmark. France contributed most in industrial goods like airplanes and commodities like ore and cotton. 

You demonstrate that in the Western European parts the occupation did not imply economic deprivation. Still, there exists a persistent idea of people living in appalling conditions. Why is that?

People did impoverish and consumption did decline. The Germans shipped away much of the production, but they made sure no famine would break out. Yet, the people at the time did not only think they had less than before the occupation, they thought they actually had too little. I think such a feeling might be justified, but most of the time it was just less than they were used to.

Why do you call ‘economic collaboration’ a meaningless concept?

It is a meaningless concept for economic historians. In fact, one can understand all production in whatever occupied territory as collaboration. Toys that were produced in an occupied country created production capacity in Germany that could be employed in the war industry. With the benefit of hindsight, we know the allies would win the war. But at that time there was no sign this would be the case. In 1940 companies needed to deal with a situation in which a war was lost, economies stood still and government orders disappeared. The question rose, do we supply the only costumer there is, i.e. the occupier, or do we commit collective suicide? Does it matter than whether a factory decided to produce uniforms for the German army, or overalls for the farmers who in their turn produced food for the Germans? Collaboration in the sense of denouncing Jews, or transporting them to the extermination camps is a completely different and refutable matter, but I see no principal difference in producing canons or toys.

What is the title of the life work you still want to write?

A life work? I don’t think I want to write a life work, nice books I want to write. And one of these will certainly be a monograph on Dutch-German economic relations and its political consequences between 1850 and today. But let me tell you that at least as much as writing nice books, I enjoy working with my team consisting of several PhD- students and Ben Wubs in ‘the Rhine project’.