The Politics of Business in the Economic "Grossraum": The Example of Belgium

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to consider the experience of occupied Belgium in light of the extraordinary success of Hitler's attempt to harness the European economy to the nazi war effort. Stated baldly: industry in northern and western Europe became a vast engine for the transformation of raw materials from the Balkans into the artifacts of war needed to conquer the East. The immense material yield from the Grossraum, 80.1 billion RM by March, 1944, enabled the Reich to sustain warfare even after the military setbacks in the Russian Winter of 1941-1942. The eventual defeat of the Third Reich occurred in spite of it.