Source: Harper Collins Journalist and historian David de Jong started work at Bloomberg just shortly after Zucotti park was violently cleared of protestors, on the orders of Mike Bloomberg, his new boss. As he describes it: In the wake of the previous years’ financial crisis, the tension between the 1 percent and the 99 percent was palpable around the globe. Though I was hired to cover American business dynasties such as the Kochs and the Waltons (who control Walmart), I was soon asked to add the German-speaking nations to my beat …
Thank you for your always very insightful newsletter. As someone who was part of a research team regarding the Quandt family, I stumbled this time over a common mistake in this paragraph:
"The Quandt’s tick both boxes most emphatically. As owners of BMW - though that is not how their money was made - they are amongst the wealthiest people in the world. The current generation are descendants of Magda Goebbels who killed herself and all but one of her children in the Führer bunker in 1945."
The owners of BMW Stefan Quandt and Susanne Klatten aren't descendants of Magda Goebbels. Magda was Günther Quandts second wife and mother of Harald Quandt. His descendants are also extremly rich, but not BMW-Quandt-rich. Stefan Quandt and Susanne Klatten are the children of Herbert Quandt, who was the second son of Günthers first marriage with Antonie Ewald, who died 1918 of the Spanish flu.
This doesn't mean that the Nazi-past of the family is less important. I would rather argue that the opposite is the case. While Harald Quandt was a soldier - which safed his life, when his mother killed his half siblings, because he wasn't in Berlin - and was among the Quandts the one with the least responsibility, Herbert was a leading figure in the company of his father and responsible for the employement of forced labour including concentration camp prisoners. In my experience, the shadow of Magdas prominence often leads to mistakes in these details, but I think they matter.
Wow! Reminds me of how lucky I was to have had two amazing political science professors in college who elucidated much of this framework and started the lesson with a little puzzle: How was the Nazi Party able to arise from one of the most liberal democratic states of the time? I don’t think any of us realized that was the environment from which the Nationalist Socialist Party arose! They also mentioned that this was why the Nazis used the term “socialist” in naming their political party—cause everyone was a democratic socialist at the time (Haven’t fact checked this, but wouldn’t be surprising). Thank you for another stimulating conversation.
It reminds me of the recent press coverage of slaveholders' wealth after the Civil War. They had most of their property expropriated with the Fifteenth Amendment, but regained their social status and power within a generation. The class coherence of the wealthy is always a thing to behold.
Have the top 0.01 percent income share and the composition accounted MEFO? Some historians claimed that those bills were never exchanged for Reichsmarks and were never paid off. If the factories cannot pay the workers with or or used those MEFO income. It might reduce the validity of your argument of increasing inequality, as the purchasing power of the controlled wage of those workers should not be diminished by the top 1%'s MEFO capital income.
Thank you for your always very insightful newsletter. As someone who was part of a research team regarding the Quandt family, I stumbled this time over a common mistake in this paragraph:
"The Quandt’s tick both boxes most emphatically. As owners of BMW - though that is not how their money was made - they are amongst the wealthiest people in the world. The current generation are descendants of Magda Goebbels who killed herself and all but one of her children in the Führer bunker in 1945."
The owners of BMW Stefan Quandt and Susanne Klatten aren't descendants of Magda Goebbels. Magda was Günther Quandts second wife and mother of Harald Quandt. His descendants are also extremly rich, but not BMW-Quandt-rich. Stefan Quandt and Susanne Klatten are the children of Herbert Quandt, who was the second son of Günthers first marriage with Antonie Ewald, who died 1918 of the Spanish flu.
This doesn't mean that the Nazi-past of the family is less important. I would rather argue that the opposite is the case. While Harald Quandt was a soldier - which safed his life, when his mother killed his half siblings, because he wasn't in Berlin - and was among the Quandts the one with the least responsibility, Herbert was a leading figure in the company of his father and responsible for the employement of forced labour including concentration camp prisoners. In my experience, the shadow of Magdas prominence often leads to mistakes in these details, but I think they matter.
Wow! Reminds me of how lucky I was to have had two amazing political science professors in college who elucidated much of this framework and started the lesson with a little puzzle: How was the Nazi Party able to arise from one of the most liberal democratic states of the time? I don’t think any of us realized that was the environment from which the Nationalist Socialist Party arose! They also mentioned that this was why the Nazis used the term “socialist” in naming their political party—cause everyone was a democratic socialist at the time (Haven’t fact checked this, but wouldn’t be surprising). Thank you for another stimulating conversation.
It reminds me of the recent press coverage of slaveholders' wealth after the Civil War. They had most of their property expropriated with the Fifteenth Amendment, but regained their social status and power within a generation. The class coherence of the wealthy is always a thing to behold.
This gave me chills, AT. The faces in the mirror—different names, same game plan across history.
Have the top 0.01 percent income share and the composition accounted MEFO? Some historians claimed that those bills were never exchanged for Reichsmarks and were never paid off. If the factories cannot pay the workers with or or used those MEFO income. It might reduce the validity of your argument of increasing inequality, as the purchasing power of the controlled wage of those workers should not be diminished by the top 1%'s MEFO capital income.
See Eric Villard "L'ordre du jour" (Prix Goncourt 2017) - starts with the 1933 Feb. 20 meeting
„small minority“? I checked one of the first ones on the list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuehne_%2B_Nagel
The Marshall Plan had no impact on postwar wealth accumulation?
Apparently the English are pretty good at "keeping it in the family" themselves ...
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jan/31/inheritance-britain-wealthy-study-surnames-social-mobility