Jacques R. Pauwels

"Based on official government documents and extensive secondary literature, this book revises several old assumptions on the periods of peace and war. For the 1930s, Pauwels demonstrates that declining female university enrollments were caused neither by Nazi rhetoric nor antifeminist campaigns but by the drastic drop in university-age population and the Depression. Despite their alleged egalitarianism, Nazi social and economic policies favored the access of middle- and upper-class women to higher education. The Third Reich was unsuccessful in creating an auxiliary female vanguard to serve in its leadership or welfare programs and failed to stop women from flocking into law, medicine, and engineering. It was WWII, not Nazism, that gave German women a dramatic improvement in higher education; increased numbers of women for a short time achieved unprecedented freedom and professional advancement though at war's end, these dramatic gains were lost"--Choice.

"A fresh interpretation of the causes and consequences of the First World War. This book demonstrates how the war was an event welcomed by European elites as a way to stop democratization and socialist reforms, but with unexpected and unwanted consequences."--

"For big business in Germany and around the world, Hitler and his National Socialist party were good news. Business was bad in the 1930s, and for multinational corporations Germany was a bright spot in a world suffering from the Great Depression. As Jacques R. Pauwels explains in this book, corporations were delighted with the profits that came from re-arming Germany, and then supplying both sides of the Second World War. Recent historical research in Germany has laid bare the links between Hitler's regime and big German firms. Scholars have now also documented the role of American firms--General Motors, IBM, Standard Oil, Ford, and many others--whose German subsidiaries eagerly sold equipment, weapons, and fuel needed for the German war machine. A key roadblock to America's late entry into the Second World War was behind-the-scenes pressure from US corporations seeking to protect their profitable business selling to both sides. Basing his work on the recent findings of scholars in many European countries and the US, Pauwels explains how Hitler gained and held the support of powerful business interests who found the well-liked one party fascist government, ready and willing to protect the property and profits of big business. He documents the role of the many multinationals in business today who supported Hitler and gained from the Nazi government's horrendous measures."--