Blood Money: Inside the Nazi Economy on SBS – June 1940. Hitler launches tanks and troops across France, Belgium and Holland.
Yet Germany is impoverished, has few raw materials, and no oil or currency.
How did the Nazis manage to set off the cataclysm of WWII with little money and a weak economy?
Based on the work of a new generation of French, British and German historians, this two-part documentary series takes an economic, industrial and financial approach to the Third Reich, exploring the inner workings of the Nazi system through key characters who have been overshadowed by history, including Hjalmar Schacht, Dr Georg Von Schnitzler, Fritz Sauckel, and Erich Müller.
Thanks to 3D animation and rare archive footage, Blood Money: Inside The Nazi Economy will reveal how the Nazis were able to weave their violent, racist views into every thread of the German economy, from large-scale industry to small businesses to agriculture and research, creating a model whose main management tools were theft and mass murder, and whose ultimate goal was war and the destruction of Europe.
Series One, Episode One: A World War On Credit
As soon as he came to power in 1933, Hitler wanted to go to war. Warfare was central to Nazi ideology; the strong had to crush the weak.
To go to war, he needed weapons and an army, but Germany had neither. A far cry from the fake images of prosperity, years of adversity had worn the country down.
The Nazis launched themselves into an extraordinary operation of financial manipulation and managed to revive the economy by producing enormous quantities of weapons.
That was the Nazi economic miracle of the 1935-1936 period – an overheated economy that needed a war to continue its mad race. In 1939, Hitler embarked on a war financed on credit, enormous credit using spoliation and upcoming appropriation as collateral.
Blood Money: Inside The Nazi Economy – New Series Premiere – Saturday, 8 July at 5.35pm on SBS and SBS on Demand (2 Parts)
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