(PDF) (DOC) (JPG)April 25, 2007

Today, as we grapple with issues like universal health care and the high cost of Social Security, it is little known that Nazi Germany during the Second World War not only expanded, but also introduced numerous social programs that would serve as models for much of the rest of world for years to come.

Ever attuned to public sentiment, Hitler and his henchmen established a “redistributive state” on an unparalleled scale. They introduced a marriage tax credit in 1934 and health insurance for retirees in 1941. The number of public holidays was doubled in1934, and in 1940, the Nazi government the taxes on overtime were rescinded. In some ways ever more astonishing, the wives of German servicemen during the war received subsistence benefits twice that of their British and American counterparts. What is more, fearing public opposition, even though the needs of the treasury and the need of labor might have dictated otherwise, this situation was never tampered with.

Put bluntly, as the Berlin-based Aly clearly shows, to pay for their welfare state the Nazis robbed the Jews and the occupied countries. And if we are to accept his analysis, the material benefits gained through the direct seizure of Jewish property, including furniture and other household effects, made the German people less likely to oppose the Nazi regime and more than willing to turn a blind eye to physical persecution.

Aside from the fiscal incongruity that expropriations never accounted for more than 5% of the Third Reich’s budget, pointed out by a number of reviewers, the element most missing from Aly’s account is the role of anti-Semitism. Simply put, before greed and self-interest came into play for their plunder to take place, the Jews of occupied Europe had to become the “other.” It was a dynamic borne of indifference, denial and outright hatred.

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