Overview

Hostile Takeovers revises current understanding of how German-Jewish companies were cheaply purchased. This book argues that banks earned fees by recalling loans from large Jewish firms and providing funds to non-Nazi businessmen. Because of the right-wing orientation of the courts, the original proprietors weren't defended by the law. As a bottom-up process, this 1933-1935 activity occurred due to anti-Semitism, whereas scholarship focus on the top-down elimination of smaller Jewish firms in 1938.

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9781793606822

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William M. Katin's Hostile Takeovers offers a crucial addition to our understanding of the processes by which the 'Aryanization' of large Jewish businesses took place during Hitler's Third Reich. Whereas scholars have mainly focused on the 1936-1938 period as the interval during which such expropriations--directed from above by the party-state--had occurred, Katin instead locates the period during the early years of the regime, 1933-1935. He demonstrates that these were affected privately by nonpolitical actors, who covertly colluded with some of the country's largest banks, as they exploited the rising tide of anti-Semitism for purely personal gain. This study is an important work of revisionism that seriously alters the dimensions of a considerable historiography on a compelling and fraught historical issue. --Albion M. Urdank, University of California, Los Angeles

William M. Katin's, Hostile Takeovers, offers a crucial addition to our understanding of the processes by which the Aryanization of large Jewish businesses took place during Hitler's Third Reich. Whereas scholars have mainly focused on the 1936-1938 period as the interval during which such expropriations, directed from above by the party-state, had occurred, Katin locates the period instead during the early years of the regime, 1933 to 1935. He demonstrates that these were effected privately by non-political actors, who covertly colluded with some of the country's largest banks, as they exploited the rising tide of anti-semitism for purely personal gain. This study is an important work of revisionism which seriously alters the dimensions of a considerable historiography on a compelling and fraught historical issue.--Albion M. Urdank, University of California, Los Angeles

William M. Katin's Hostile Takeovers offers a crucial addition to our understanding of the processes by which the 'Aryanization' of large Jewish businesses took place during Hitler's Third Reich. Whereas scholars have mainly focused on the 1936-1938 period as the interval during which such expropriations--directed from above by the party-state--had occurred, Katin instead locates the period during the early years of the regime, 1933-1935. He demonstrates that these were affected privately by nonpolitical actors, who covertly colluded with some of the country's largest banks, as they exploited the rising tide of anti-Semitism for purely personal gain. This study is an important work of revisionism that seriously alters the dimensions of a considerable historiography on a compelling and fraught historical issue.

Author Information

William Maurice Katin, PhD, is an independent researcher.

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