Many of the profits accumulated from the liquidation of Jewish property were used directly to fund the costs of World War II, Dr. Goetz Aly argued yesterday.
Aly claimed at his speech that much of the media, scholarly and legal attention devoted to profits that banks made off the war is misplaced, since the lion's share of property confiscated from the Jews was funneled directly into Nazi war chests.
Overall, the funds raised from the confiscation of Jewish property "didn't come close to covering war costs, but they moderated peaks of expense and slowed inflation," Aly said.
Aly examined the financing of the war in several different occupied countries to support his case.
After the widespread confiscation of Jewish property in occupied Serbia, the Serbian government collected between 3 and 4 billion dinar, enough to cover the costs of occupation for approximately six months.
Money collected from the liquidation of Jewish assets also tended to reduce the inflationary pressures on the national currency of German-occupied countries, Aly said.
In Belgium, where the Germans collected 225,000 Reichmarks from the seizure of Jewish property, these funds covered occupation costs for two months.
At a meeting between Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and Belgian officials held just before the issuing of a decree to nationalize all Jewish assets, the only issue they discussed was funding of the war, Aly said.
Germans liquidated Jewish assets in various ways. In some cases, German officials bought seized property directly. In others, objects like furniture were sold off to the public at large at large markets.
When Slovakia joined in the war against the Soviet Union in June of 1941, they took on a "considerable financial burden." The government calculated that its deficits resulting from participation in the war would reach approximately 600 million crowns.
To put itself on sounder financial footing, Slovakia imposed a 20 percent tax on all Jewish property. Aly quoted one Slovak official who said that the tax was imposed on Jews because it should not be levied on the rest of the population, as "the war wasn't their fault."
Similarly, Greek officials referred to deportations of Greek Jews as necessary for the "special stabilization of the economic situation in Greece" after the drachma dropped dramatically, Aly said.
At holding ghettos, Greek Jews had to give up all small objects of value, such as watches and jewelry. The Greek government thus acquired 12 tons of refined gold, which they eventually sold to Germany.
The profits from the sale of this gold kept the drachma relatively stable. After the depletion of these gold reserves, though, inflation reached 300 percent. The Germans then sent in eight extra tons of gold to Greece to stabilize the drachma.
