tenant contributions toward reuilding work. Renovation funds held in escrow provided a tempting target. Several gauleiters proposed an across-the-board reduction in rents and set about popularizing the idea in the press. But the finance minister blocked the proposal, arguing that such a move would create excess demand and thus inflation. In the end, it was decided instead to levy the special tax on property owners. 117
The spirited negotiations over how much the state should demand in advance payments illustrate the emphasis segments of the Nazi state placed on social policies that appeared just and equitable. Initially, in December 1941, officials at the Finance Ministry suggested that the advance payment should be five times the normal annual property tax assessment. That would have raised about 4 billion reichsmarks. But at a subsequent interministerial conference, Interior Ministry representatives pleaded for a “somewhat” higher rate. The Prussian Finance Ministry proposed raising the rate to eight times the normal annual sum, prompting the Reich commissioner for price controls to complain of “a massive handout to property owners.” Representatives of the Labor Ministry and the Wehrmacht, on the other hand, warned against making the burden too great. In January 1942, Finance Ministry officials said they would agree to a contribution of seven times the annual norm, but the representative of the German Labor Front, Paul Fleischmann, insisted on nothing less than a ninefold levy. The discussions dragged on through the winter, with representatives from Hitler’s Party Chancellery continuing to warn against “giving too much away to property owners.” At the end of March, Prussian finance minister Johannes Popitz, secretly a member of the anti-Hitler resistance, proposed bumping up the contribution to twelve times the annual norm. The Party Chancellery let it be known that Martin Bormann “would be in agreement with a tenfold contribution,” whereupon Schwerin von Krosigk put the matter to rest: “The proposal is adopted.” 118 The additional money taken in from property owners amounted to 18 percent of domestic war-tax revenues in the fiscal year 1942–43.
The process of deciding this matter is a good example of what the historian Hans Mommsen calls the cumulative radicalization of the Nazi state. Mommsen sees the character of the Third Reich as being shaped by competition among officials in various government bureaucracies. Civil servants, in effect, pushed one another to become more radical. The Nazi leadership exploited this dynamic by defining only what they did
not
want and putting pressure on their subordinates to achieve maximum results in the shortest possible time. Civil servants were encouraged to use their administrative imagination—they neither needed nor were given concrete instructions. In the case at hand, the Nazi leadership at no point even considered legislation that would have placed a comparable burden on working people. On the contrary, discussions of the property tax were framed by the general principle that materially better-off Germans were to bear a considerably larger share of the burden of war than poor ones. In this, the decision makers were following the lead of Göring, who as early as November 1938 had suggested financing the arms buildup with the help “of a one-time contribution from the wealth” of affluent German citizens. 119
A SIMILAR hostility toward the wealthy can be seen in the Nazis’ stance on stock market profits. As of January 1, 1941, earnings from stock transactions were subject to a windfall profits tax. 120 A short time later annual dividends together with all other forms of payments to shareholders, were limited to 6 percent. The limit was adopted, above all, for its “propagandis-tic significance.” 121 Stock values had appreciated on average by around 50 percent during the first two years of the war, with some performing far better. Decision
The spirited negotiations over how much the state should demand in advance payments illustrate the emphasis segments of the Nazi state placed on social policies that appeared just and equitable. Initially, in December 1941, officials at the Finance Ministry suggested that the advance payment should be five times the normal annual property tax assessment. That would have raised about 4 billion reichsmarks. But at a subsequent interministerial conference, Interior Ministry representatives pleaded for a “somewhat” higher rate. The Prussian Finance Ministry proposed raising the rate to eight times the normal annual sum, prompting the Reich commissioner for price controls to complain of “a massive handout to property owners.” Representatives of the Labor Ministry and the Wehrmacht, on the other hand, warned against making the burden too great. In January 1942, Finance Ministry officials said they would agree to a contribution of seven times the annual norm, but the representative of the German Labor Front, Paul Fleischmann, insisted on nothing less than a ninefold levy. The discussions dragged on through the winter, with representatives from Hitler’s Party Chancellery continuing to warn against “giving too much away to property owners.” At the end of March, Prussian finance minister Johannes Popitz, secretly a member of the anti-Hitler resistance, proposed bumping up the contribution to twelve times the annual norm. The Party Chancellery let it be known that Martin Bormann “would be in agreement with a tenfold contribution,” whereupon Schwerin von Krosigk put the matter to rest: “The proposal is adopted.” 118 The additional money taken in from property owners amounted to 18 percent of domestic war-tax revenues in the fiscal year 1942–43.
The process of deciding this matter is a good example of what the historian Hans Mommsen calls the cumulative radicalization of the Nazi state. Mommsen sees the character of the Third Reich as being shaped by competition among officials in various government bureaucracies. Civil servants, in effect, pushed one another to become more radical. The Nazi leadership exploited this dynamic by defining only what they did
not
want and putting pressure on their subordinates to achieve maximum results in the shortest possible time. Civil servants were encouraged to use their administrative imagination—they neither needed nor were given concrete instructions. In the case at hand, the Nazi leadership at no point even considered legislation that would have placed a comparable burden on working people. On the contrary, discussions of the property tax were framed by the general principle that materially better-off Germans were to bear a considerably larger share of the burden of war than poor ones. In this, the decision makers were following the lead of Göring, who as early as November 1938 had suggested financing the arms buildup with the help “of a one-time contribution from the wealth” of affluent German citizens. 119
A SIMILAR hostility toward the wealthy can be seen in the Nazis’ stance on stock market profits. As of January 1, 1941, earnings from stock transactions were subject to a windfall profits tax. 120 A short time later annual dividends together with all other forms of payments to shareholders, were limited to 6 percent. The limit was adopted, above all, for its “propagandis-tic significance.” 121 Stock values had appreciated on average by around 50 percent during the first two years of the war, with some performing far better. Decision
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