Siemens, 1918-1945

"Wilfried Feldenkirchen continues the examination of the House of Siemens that he started in his previous work, Werner von Siemens: Inventor and International Entrepreneur. This new volume covers the period during the two world wars." "Taking as his point of departure the situation following World War I, Feldenkirchen describes the cyclical movements that characterized the period of high inflation, the subsequent so-called Weimar boom, the Great Depression, the period of economic recovery under National Socialist rule, and World War II. Drawing on a wide range of previously inaccessible and unpublished sources, Feldenkirchen analyzes the company's actions and reactions in a period in which its success was determined extensively by outside influences. Siemens's policy decisions are evaluated in the context of the German economy as a whole as well as within the company's own field of engineering. Feldenkirchen also probes Siemens's involvement in the National Socialists' wartime economy and discusses the issues of rearmament and forced labor from a judicious academic perspective." "This book makes an important contribution to an assessment of the company's role in this period of history and at the same time provides important insight into the social and economic history of the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich."--Jacket.