Description: This collection of essays explores the impact that nationalism, capitalism, and socialism had on economics during the first half of the twentieth century. Focusing on Central Europe, contributors examine the role that businesspeople and enterprises played in Germany's and Austria's paths to the catastrophe of Nazism. Based on new archival research, the essays gathered here ask how the business community became involved in the political process and describes the consequences arising from that involvement. Particular attention is given to the responses of individual businesspeople to changing political circumstances and their efforts to balance the demands of their consciences with the pursuit for profit.
Brief description: Dieter Ziegler holds the chair in Economic and Business History at the Ruhr University, Bochum. His numerous publications include studies of European industrialization during the nineteenth century, of the banking industry and of business elites in modern Germany. The Nazi era and the economic disenfranchisement of the German Jews is another focal point of Ziegler's research.