this introduction to the essays collected in Angst, Belohnung, Zucht and Ordnung does not conform to any standard pattern or formula. It is not an editorial preface, for the collection has no editor, but is the product of individual and collective work by its four authors. The Introduction is not a brief guide to, or historiographical scene-setting for, these four monographic essays, since they do not need an introduction of this kind. They can all stand on their own, as rounded and critically self-aware contributions to the study of Nazi labour and social policies. My introduction has a different function. It aims to furnish both a counterpoint to and one possible interpretative framework for these four exact analytical studies of labour law, wage policies, leisure organizations and factory welfare: to suggest one general context (and it is not the only one) in which these four essays, together with some other recent research and criticism, may be read; to suggest possible approaches for new research; and to think out loud about whether I and other historians have been asking all of the right questions concerning the political economy of National Socialism in the past ten years.

What follows is thus long and essayistic. Unlike the four contributions, it is not a scholarly study; references have been kept to an absolute minimum. It is a product of uncertainty and reflection, rather than of sustained and purposeful work. It is as much a response to the work of these four historians as an introduction to it.

The contributions to Angst, Belohnung, Zucht und Ordnunghelp to advance and to systematize our understanding of the social policies of the Nazi regime.