S. Jonathan Wiesen. Creating the Nazi Marketplace:

[Attrition]

https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=32658

S. Jonathan Wiesen. Creating the Nazi Marketplace: Commerce and Consumption in the Third Reich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 288 pp. $85.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-521-76253-3; $26.99 (paper), ISBN 978-0-521-74636-6.

Reviewed by Dieter Ziegler (Ruhr-Universität)
Published on H-Judaic (June, 2012)
Commissioned by Jason Kalman

Case Studies of the Third Reich's Consumer Culture

The study of the social, economic, and business history of the Third Reich has been in vogue for the last two decades. Apart from the "Aryanization," which mainly affected retail trade and consumer goods industries, economic and business historians have largely focused on the armaments and autarky industries, that is, big industry. However, the debates about (big) business in the Third Reich have also included discussion about the standard of living of the "ordinary German." A clear conclusion has not been drawn regarding material conditions, but the majority of the participants argue that the Third Reich was a "failed consumer society." The prewar per capita income barely reached the Weimar levels, while the quality of many consumer goods fell sharply because of import restrictions and ersatz products. During the war, per capita civilian consumption declined--after one year of war by 11 percent! These findings stand in stark contrast to the observation of overwhelming support for the regime among the German population, which was real and not simply the matter of censorship and manipulation. Ctd....