The Deutsche Bank and the Nazi Economic War Against the Jews; The Expropriation of Jewish-Owned Property

Oxford, England: Cambridge University Press, 2001. First published 2001 [stated]. Presumed first printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. xi, [1] 268 pages. Illustrations, Notes. Bibliography. Index. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Harold James (born 19 January 1956 in Bedford) is a renowned historian, specializing in the history of Germany and European economic history. He was a Professor of History at Princeton University as well as a Professor of International Affairs at the University's Woodrow Wilson School. At Cambridge University he received the Ellen MacArthur Prize for Economic History. In 2004 the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C. awarded him the Helmut Schmidt Prize in Economic History. Among his major contributions is a detailed study of the Deutsche Bank, an examination of the role of the Reichsbank in seizing Jewish financial assets during the Nazi era. In 1992 he was appointed a member of the Independent Commission of Experts which was set up by the Swiss parliament to examine Swiss refugee policy during WWII as well as its relationships with Germany. Deutsche Bank, Germany's largest financial institution, played an important role in the expropriation of Jewish-owned enterprises during the Nazi dictatorship, both in the existing territories of Germany, and in the areas seized by the German army during World War II, particularly Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. Drawing on new and previously unavailable materials, including branch records, and many from the Bank's own archives, Harold James examines policies that led to the eventual Genocide of European Jews. How much did the realization of the Nazi ideology depend on the acquiescence, the complicity, and the cupidity of individuals and economic institutions? Contradicting the traditional view that businesses were motivated by profit to cooperate with the Nazi regime, James closely examines the behavior of the bank and its individuals to suggest other motivations. James' unparalleled access and unusual perspective distinguishes this work as the only book to examine one company's involvement in the economic persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany.