² Text in Handwerkerpost (1:5), 15 Aug. 1950, 34 (emphasis in original). By contrast, note the comments of one artisanal newspaper in 1931: ‘It is not certain whether the power of artisanal proprietors will be sufficient in the long run to carry out a two-sided struggle both against the competition of other forms of economic organisation and at the same time against the worker.’ Pfälzische Handwerks- und Gewerbezeitung, 1 Oct. 1931; quoted in Lenger, Friedrich, Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Handwerker seit 1800 (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1988), 189.Google Scholar

³ The most important exception to the works cited below is Richard F. Hamilton who dismisses the orthodoxy of lower middle-class support for Nazism as ‘a completely unsubstantiated guess’. Looking at voting samples in Germany's fourteen largest cities, Hamilton concludes that Nazi support was strongest in the upper-class districts. Who Voted for Hitler? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). Thomas Childers has quite properly criticised these findings on methodological grounds: first, that Hamilton limited his study to major cities whereas the strongholds of lower middle-class radicalism were in the smaller towns and rural districts; second, that within his city neighbourhoods Hamilton ignores the great differences between the various occupational groups within any given income level. See the symposium on ‘Who Voted for Hitler?’, in Central European History, Vol. 17, no. 1 (1984). See also Baldwin, Peter, Social Interpretations of Nazism: Reviewing a Tradition, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 25 (1990), 5–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴ For a recent discussion of the character of industrialisation in Germany and some of its social consequences, see Herrigel, Gary, Industrial Constructions: The Sources of German Industrial Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).Google Scholar

⁵ Indeed, it was precisely during this period of greatest threat that the notion of a Golden Age of the Guilds took shape as part of the shared historical experience of German artisans. But as with most feelings of nostalgia, artisanal historical memories were quite selective; see Volkov, Shulamit, The Rise of Popular Antimodernism in Germany: The Urban Master Artisans, 1873–1896 (pPrinceton: Princeton University Press, 1978), 23.Google Scholar

⁶ For Marx on artisanal redundancy, see The Communist Manifesto (New York: Bantam Books, 1992), 27. For the position of the SPD, see Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des deutschen Reichstags, 1873–97, 24 Nov. 1891; also Kautsky, Karl, ‘Der Untergang des Kleinbetriebs’, in Das Erfurter Programm, 14th Ed. (Stuttgart: 1919), 1–29.Google Scholar

⁷ A summary of these studies may be found in Grandke, Hans, ‘Die vom “Verein für Sozialpolitik” Veranstalteten Untersuchungen über die Lage des Handwerks in Deutschland’, Schmollers Jahrbuch, Vol. 21 (1897), 1,031–88.Google Scholar The series’ editor, Karl Bücher, foresaw a number of effects on Handwerk as the result of industrial competition, among them: a squeeze on profit margins as industry took over more and more stages of production; impoverishment through shifts in demand; take-overs by larger firms; and increasing dependency on wholesalers. See his ‘Der Niedergang des Handwerks’, in Bücher, Karl, ed., Die Entstehung der Volkswirtschaft, Vorträge und Aufsätze. Erste Sammlung (Tübingen: 1919), 197–228.Google Scholar

⁸ Blackbourn, David, Class, Religion and Local Politics in Wilhelmine Germany: The Centre Party in Württemberg before 1914 (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1980), 145.Google Scholar

⁹ This resilience was noticed by Gustav Schmoller who, by the end of the century, came to believe that certain sectors of Handwerk could survive alongside industry; nonetheless, his overall view remained pessimistic. See ‘Was verstehen wir unter dem Mittelstande? (Hat er im 19. Jahrhundert zu- oder abgenommen?)’. Vortrag auf dem Evangelisch-sozialen Kongreß in Leipzig am 11 Juni 1897 (Göttingen: 1897); also Grundriβ der allgemeinen Volkswirtschaftslehre, Vol. 1 (Munich/Leipzig: 1919), 479–80. Historians today are also beginning to stress the durability of the lower middle classes during this period; see editor's introduction in Koshar, Rudy, ed., Splintered Classes: Politics and the Lower Middle Classes in Interwar Europe (New York/London: Holmes & Meier, 1990), 2.Google Scholar

¹⁰ See Volkov, The Rise of Popular Antimodernism, 85. This process of adaptation was seen not only in traditional trades like shoemaker and watchmaker, which had been undergoing a long-term transition to repair work, but in the growth of entirely new trades like machine mechanic which prospered along with industrial expansion.

¹¹ Wernet, Wilhelm, Handwerkpolitik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1952).Google Scholar¹² For example, Geiger, Theodor, ‘Panic im Mittelstand’, in Die Arbeit, Vol. 7 (1930), 637–54.Google Scholar

¹³ August Winkler, Heinrich, Mittelstand, Demokratie und Nationalsozialismus: Die politische Entwicklung von Handwerk und Kleinhandel in der Weimarer Republik (Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1972), 66–7, 70, 74.Google Scholar

¹⁴ While it cannot be demonstrated conclusively that artisans suffered disproportionately from the inflation/stabilisation, as a whole having fewer capital goods they must be counted among the losers. In any case, subjectively the experience intensified their antagonism to the Republic. For a summation of the effects of this crisis on artisans, see Lenger, , Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Handwerker, 168–9.Google Scholar For the electoral reaction, see Childers, Thomas, The Nazi Voter: The Social Foundations of Fascism in Germany, 1919–1933 (Chapel Hill/London: University of North Carolina Press, 1983), 66–80.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Martin Lipset, Seymour, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1960).See alsoGoogle ScholarParsons, Talcott, ‘Some Sociological Aspects of the Fascist Movement’, in Parsons, Talcott, Essays in Sociological Theory (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1954).Google Scholar For one critical view of these ideas, see Burris, Val, ‘The Discovery of the New Middle Class,’ Theory and Society, Vol. 15, no. 3 (1986), 324–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁶ Winkler, Mittelstand; idem, ‘Vom Protest zur Panik: Der gewerbliche Mittelstand in der Weimarer Republik’, in Mommsen, Hans,Petzina, Dietmar and Weisbrod, Bernd, eds, Industrielles System und politische Entwicklung in der Weimarer Republik (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1974), 778–91Google Scholar; Childers, , The Nazi Voter, Kater, Michael H., The Nazi Party: A Social Profile of Members and Leaders, 1919–1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Noakes, Jeremy, The Nazi Party in Lower Saxony, 1921–1933 (London: Oxford University Press, 1971).Google Scholar

¹⁷ Saldern, Adelheid von, Mittelstand im ‘Dritten Reich’: Handwerker-Einzelhändler-Bauern (Frankfurt/New York: xynCampus Verlag, 1979); andGoogle Scholaridem, ‘The Old Mittelstand 1890–1933: How “Backward” Were the Artisans?’, Central European History, Vol. 25, no. 1 (1992), 27–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁸ For examples see Sheridan Allen, William, The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town, 1930–1935 (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1965), 103, 132–3.Google Scholar The relationship between the economic position of any individual artisan (master or journeyman, big shop or small, traditional trade or modern) and his or her inclination to Nazism is a complex one, and it is not my intention here to reduce it to a simple economic determinist model. Thus, while Handwerk was (and is) a tremendously variegated economic sector, containing within it enormously differing material interests, such was the strength of its corporate identity that the perception of threat to it may have been of more direct importance in determining political choice than a clear recognition of any individual's ‘real’ interests. For a provocative discussion of artisanal corporatism and Nazi manipulation of (economically) non-rational fears and anxieties about the future of the estate, see Frank Domurad, ‘The Politics of Corporatism: Hamburg Handicraft in the Late Weimar Republic 1927–1933’, in Bessel, Richard and Feuchtwanger, Edgar J., eds, Social Change and Political Development in Weimar Germany (London: Croom Helm, 1981), 174–206.Google Scholar

¹⁹ For example, Schweitzer, Arthur, Big Business in the Third Reich (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1964), chs 3, 4Google Scholar; August Winkler, Heinrich, ‘Der entbehrliche Stand. Zur Mittelstands-politik im “Dritten Reich”’, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, Vol. 17 (1977), 1–40Google Scholar; Schoenbaum, Hitler's Social Revolution, 129–32.Google Scholar Von Saldern is the exception here; see her comments on Winkler in ‘“Alter Mittelstand” im “Dritten Reich”’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, Vol. 12 (1986), 235–43.

²⁰ This set of demands Schweitzer labels ‘artisan socialism’. Big Business in the Third Reich, ch. 3. ²¹ See Winkler, ‘Der entbehrliche Stand’.

²² Handwerk during this period was still strongly segregated by sex, with most women limited to the clothing and health trades. See Brodmeier, Beate, Die Frau im Handwerk in Historischer und Moderner Sicht (Münster: Handwerkswissenschaftlisches Institut, 1953).Google Scholar

²³ Chesi, Valentin, Struktur und Funktionen der Handwerksorganisation in Deutschland seit 1933 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1966), 46–7, 73–80; see alsoGoogle ScholarKeller, Bernhard, Das Handwerk im faschistischen Deutschland (Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein Verlag, 1980), 71–85.Google Scholar

²⁴ Hamerow, Theodore, ‘The German Artisan Movement, 1848/49’, Journal of Central European Affairs, Vol. 21 (1961), 135–52.Google Scholar

²⁵ The ease of ‘co-ordination’ in the case of artisans – who were well disposed towards the regime and whose desires conformed to the particular form it took – may be contrasted with that of the working class whose hostility had led the Nazis to disband the unions altogether before replacing them with their own workers’ organisations. See Meusch, Hans, ‘Das Handwerk im neuen Reich’, Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, Vol. 141 (1935), 301–31Google Scholar; Schüler, Felix, Das Handwerk im Dritten Reich: Die Gleichschaltung und was danach folgte (Bad Wörishofen: 1951).Google Scholar

²⁶ For details, see Schweitzer, Big Business in the Third Reich, chs 3, 4, who interprets this period as one during which the artisanal movement was defeated and subjected to big business. For a more balanced assessment, see von Saldem, ‘The Old Mittelstand’ 44–5.

²⁷ Besides the certificate of competency, which some hoped would restrict the supply of artisans, other demands made by reactionaries – and refused by the regime – included a whole series of tax, credit, insurance measures designed to limit competition from big business. See Schweitzer, , Big Business and the Third Reich, 113–17;\Google ScholarSaldern, von, Mittelstand im ‘Dritten Reich’, 31–56.Google Scholar

²⁸ See works cited in note 19 above. ²⁹ See, for example, Petzina, Dietmar, Die Deutsche Wirtschaft in der Zwischenkriegszeit (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1977), 142.Google Scholar It is perfectly true that thousands of shops were closed during the great ‘combing out’ actions of the late 1930s and the war. But, as I argue below, these were carried out finally according to principles of economic rationality, and since the stronger firms were left intact, the overall effect of wartime policy was to make the Stand economically healthier.

³⁰ For the economic vitality of West German artisans, see Beckermann, Theo, Das Handwerk – Gestem und Heute, Schriftenreihe, New Ser., No. 15 (Essen: Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, 1959).Google Scholar For their conservative voting habits, see Heidenheimer, Arnold J., ‘La structure confessionnelle, sociale et régionale de la CDU’, Revue Française de Science Politique, Vol. 7, no. 3 (1957), 626–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³¹ Bormann to Reichswirtschaftsministerium (Reich Economics Ministry, RWM), 30 Sept. 1938; Bundesarchiv Koblenz (BA), R7/4106, Item 73–74. See also Göring's emphasis on productivity. Göring (Ministerpräsident Generalfeldmarschall, Beauftragter für den Vierjahresplan) to the Reichsminster für Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung, 14 Dec. 1938; BA, R7/2116, Item 355–357.

³² ‘Das deutsche Handwerk im Aufschwung’, Völkische Beobachter, 1 July 1939; cited in Schoenbaum, Hitler's Social Revolution, 143. The same article praised the artisanal organisations for their commitment to modernising Handwerk: ‘The strong side of the Reichsstand des Handwerks [the official artisans’ organisation] was that it succeeded in resolving misunderstood traditional ideas, and understood how to adjust to advancing technological developments.’ The activist role of the artisanal leadership in instituting change through their organisations will be considered below.

³³ See Mason, Timothy W., Sozialpolitik im Dritten Reich: Arbeiterklasse und Volksgemeinschaft, 2nd Ed. (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1978), 270.Google Scholar

³⁴ For example, the Stadtspräsident der Reichshauptstadt Berlin in ‘Lage der Berliner Industrie und des Handwerks’, 12 Oct. 1937, reported that in the building and metal trades it was impossible to acquire labour for the regulation wage; BA, R41/151, Item 2.

³⁵ See ‘First Quarterly Report of 1939 of the Sicherheitshauptamt’, 18; BA, R58/717, Item 156–159. For Bavaria, see Kershaw, Ian, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich: Bavaria 1933–1945 (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 316–17.Google Scholar

³⁶ Baugewerks-Innung Berlin to Handwerkskammer Berlin, 22 Nov. 1938; BA, R41/155, Item 70–73. ³⁷ See RWM to Handwerkskammern, 2 Feb. 1939; BA, R7/4103, Item 31–35.

³⁸ Of the 7.5 million drafted out of the labour force in the first 2½ years of the war, Handwerk seems to have been hardest hit; see Milward, Alan S., The German Economy at War (London: Athlone Press, 1965), 46–7.Google Scholar The Labour Ministry reported that, in the last six weeks of 1939, 11.9 per cent of all Handwerk owners and nearly 25 per cent of all non-family help had been drafted either into the Wehrmacht or into labour service. Especially hard hit were tailors, shoe-makers, carpenters, bakers and butchers. See Reichsarbeitsministerium (Labour Ministry, RAM) memo, 19 Aug. 1940; BA, R41/144, Item 214–216; and Meldungen aus dem Reich, 17 Nov. 1939, 10–11; BA, R58/144, Item 243–244.

³⁹ See Meldungen aus dem Reich, 14 Feb. 1940, 14–15, BA, R58/148, Item 90–91; 3 April 1940, 16, BA, R58/150–1, Item 35. Also RWM Lagebericht excerpt, 28 Sept. 1939; BA, R7/4103, Item 286. The Meldungen of 14 Feb. 1940 reported that these abuses had abated somewhat.

⁴⁰ The main beneficiaries of government contracts were electrotechnics, machine building and optics, with 97.7 per cent, 94.3 per cent and 92.5 per cent respectively, going to industrial firms. At the lower end were musical instruments, copying devices, stove building and paper industries, with 42.9 percent, 44.8 per cent and 45.1 per cent, respectively. In the latter trades, then, Handwerk production still dominated and received the bulk of government contracts. See ‘Die Bedeutung der öffendichen Aufträge für die Berliner Wirtschaft’, Statistisches Amt der Reichshauptstadt Berlin, 27 April 1940, 19–22; BA, R41/157, Item 104–108.

⁴¹ The Stadtspräsident Berlin, ‘Auswirkungen der öffentlichen Aufträge auf die Berliner Wirtschaft’, 15 Jan. 1940, 29–36; BA, R41/157, Item 41–47. For a discussion of the post-war debate on the role of state projects and war preparation as the motor of the German recovery, see Siegel, Tilla and Freyberg, Thomas von, Industrielle Rationalisierung unter dem Nationalsozialismus (Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag, 1991), 137–51.Google Scholar

⁴² For example, the Labour Bureau Berlin had no sympathy with Handwerk complaints about manpower and raw material shortages, because, the Bureau wrote, they came from older Handwerker unable or unwilling to adapt to modern, more efficient methods. Arbeitsamt Berlin to Präsidenten des Landesarbeitsamts Brandenburg, 20 Dec. 1937; BA, R41/151, Item 11–14. On Nazi shop-closing policy in the late 1930s, see von Saldern, Mittelstand im ‘Dritten Reich’, 140–6. Von Saldem argues, as I do here, that the shop closures, while they obviously hurt the individuals directly affected, ultimately strengthened Handwerk as a whole because they encouraged principles of efficiency, and for this reason were supported by the artisanal leadership. She thus opposes Schoenbaum and Winkler who, looking at the matter strictly politically, interpret the closures as an indication of Handwerk's loss of influence in the regime. See Winkler, ‘Der entbehrliche Stand’, 31. Schoenbaum argues that the ‘Relative position [of small business to big] deteriorated directly and irreversibly from a point of initial strength’, but pointing to the imposition of various rationalisation measures including the certificate of competency(!). Handwerk, he says, ‘was being hustled into the industrial age’. This is true, but Schoenbaum overlooks both the longer-term benefits of these measures to Handwerk as a whole and that a progressive Handwerk leadership supported rationalisation (including the certificate of competency which all Handwerker, progressive and conservative, favoured). Hitler's Social Revolution, 129–32, 140.

⁴³ Meldungen aus dem Reich, 17 Nov. 1939, 11; BA, R58/144, Item 244 (my emphasis).

⁴⁴ Meldungen aus dem Reich, 5 Feb. 1939, 11; BA, R58/148, Item 30.

⁴⁵ See Der Stellvertreter des Führers, ‘Die Auswirkungen des Handwerkermangels’, 12 Dec. 1940; BA, NSD3/19. Reichsverteidigungsminister für den Wehrkreis III to the Generalbevollmächtigen für die Wirtschaft, 27 Oct. 1939; BA, R41/154, Item 92. Melungen aus dem Reich, 3 June 1940, 21–2; BA, R58/151, Item 76–77. The political effect of this in a regime already unsure enough of the reliability of its own people as to keep the production of consumer goods at pre-war levels, until 1942, and to refuse to introduce second and third shifts in the factories should not be underestimated. The first to point out this peculiar feature of German war mobilisation was the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1945), ch. 1; see also Milward, , The German Economy at War, 7–9.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ RWM memo, ‘Berücksichtigung des Handwerks bei der Umlegung der Erzeugungspläne’, 8 Jan. 1940; BA, R7/4103, Item 269–271.

⁴⁷ Ibid. (my emphasis).

⁴⁸ Ibid.

⁴⁹ Ibid. Many of these changes had been advocated within the RWM even before the war began; see RWM to Reichstand des deutschen Handwerks (RdH), 8 Jan. 1939; BA, R7/4103, Item 282.

⁵⁰ 2 & 3 Verordnung über den vorläufigen Aufbau des deutschen Handwerks; Reichsgesetzblatt I (RGB1), 14, 15. See also Chesi, , Struktur und Funktionen der Handwerksorganisation, 45–7.Google Scholar

⁵¹ On this issue, see the references in note 19 above. I contend here that artisanal influence was not political but rather economic and emerged first in war.

⁵² For example, the artisanal leadership strongly supported a 1938 law which made bookkeeping required by every shop. Although resented by masters as a way of increasing tax revenues and state control (which it was), the leadership saw bookkeeping as a way of giving traditionalists (whose customary method of keeping accounts had been to toss their receipts into a cigar box) managerial tools for running a small business. See Chesi, , Struktur und Funktionen der Handwerksorganisation, 84.Google Scholar Artisanal organisations took the position that state help like cheap credit and tax relief should be offered only to artisans who showed the greatest willingness to adapt to modem production methods; see memorandum from the Landeshandwerkmeister für Saarpfalz to RWM, et al., 29 Sept. 1939; BA, R7/4106, Item 29–41. Likewise, the leadership applauded the shop closures of the late 1930s as a salutary weeding out of the inefficient that made the Stand as a whole healthier after its ranks had been artificially inflated during the Depression. See RdH report, ‘Der Standort der Handwerkszweige am 1. April 1937’; BA, R7/4115.

⁵³ Reich Handwerk Master Schramm later attributed the turn-around in Handwerk's war fortunes to the need for them after the bombing began. See Schramm's ‘Denkschrift über Probleme der Handwerkswirtschaft und der Handwerksorganisation’, 28 April 1944; BA, R7/4107, Item 75–100.

⁵⁴ See Speer to Schramm, 6 Sept. 1941; BA, R3/1600, Item 15. RdH memo to all local artisan organisations, 2 Aug. 1941; BA, R7/4118, Item 18–21. On the organisation of these co-operatives, see RdH to Minister für Bewaffnung und Munition, 9 May 1941; BA, R7/4118, Item 72–79. RAM to Landesarbeitsämter, 8 July 1941; BA, R7/4118, Item 22–24. The regime, due to concern about political reliability and productivity, was often reluctant to demand too much of artisans. Thus, it ordered that artisans who had to travel for bomb damage repair not be kept away from home too long. See RAM to Schramm, 3 June 1941; BA, R7/4118, Item 48. ‘OKH Merkblatt’ (Oberkommando des Heeres, Supreme Command of the Armed Forces, OKH), 15 June 1941, Item 193–204; also OKH to RAM, 3 Dec. 1941, Item 15; both in BA, R41/167.

⁵⁵ See McKitrick, Frederick L., ‘Old World Craftsmen into Modern Capitalists: Artisans in Germany from National Socialism to the Federal Republic, 1939–1953’, PhD thesis (Columbia University, 1994), 208–13.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ See RWM memo, May-June 1943; BA, R7/4199, Item 210–213. ⁵⁷ For Handwork's contribution to war production, see the speech of Chef des Heereswaffenamtes, General der Artillerie Leeb, 8 June 1942; BA, R7/4106, Item 327. And Deutscher Handwerks- and Gewerbekammertag, Report for 2nd Quarter 1941; BA, R7/4106, Item 371–377.

⁵⁸ For documents on garment cleaning, see RWM memos dated 27 Oct. and 10, 13, 18 Nov. 1942; BA, R7/4119, Item 101–108.

⁵⁹ Mühlenbauer Innungen Frankfurt/Oder to RWM, Oct. 1, 1939; BA, R7/4106. Meldungen aus dem Reich, Jan. 12, 1940, 12–13; BA, R58/147, Item 47–48. For more examples of artisan applications to settle in the East, see R9711/51. For preparations for settlements, see Reichsstand des deutschen Handwerks (RSdH) memo, 2 Dec., 1940; BA, R7/4117, Item 96–97.

⁶⁰ As one of countless examples, see ‘Bedeutung and Zukunft des gewerblichen Mittelstands’ by Economics Minister Walther Funk in Deutsches Handwork, No. 29/30/31, 6 Aug. 1943.

⁶¹ ‘The development of our [living] space in the East will … render this struggle illusory.… [It] will offer German Handwerk in the construction trades a bigger and more attractive sphere of activity than it has ever known in its history.’ This issue of the hope of Eastern settlement is also treated in Herbst, Ludolf, Der Totale Krieg and die Ordnung der Wrtschaft: Die Kriegswirtschaft im Spannungsfeld von Politik, Ideologie und Propaganda 1939–1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1982), 154–5Google Scholar; Saldem, von, Mittelstand im ‘Dritten Reich’, 207–10Google Scholar; and Winkler, , ‘Der entbehrliche Stand’, 36–8.Google Scholar All correctly point out that the function of Nazi policy here was to offer the expectation of Eastern settlement as compensation to those artisans whose shops at home had been closed for reasons of efficiency – especially von Saldem, who stresses that the policy acted to alleviate and displace the contradictions of the artisan and industrial modes of production. However, all miss a crucial distinction: that is, they fail to differentiate between those artisans for whom this policy had a function and those for whom it did not. Most extreme is Winkler, who sees the expectations raised by Himmler as merely another false hope in a general Nazi wartime policy which amounted to a complete neglect of Handwerk interests and their subordination to industry (see also his Mittelstand, Demokratie and Nationalsozialismus, 183). My argument here is that for those inefficient ‘losers’ at home, the attempt to remove the capitalist-Handwerk conflict was certainly no more than an illusion. But because the overall effect of Nazi policy during the war was to make Handwerk economically stronger in a capitalist context, such pre-industrial utopian fantasies held little real interest for those remaining, more successful Handwerker at home. In other words, there was no longer any capitalist-Handwerk contradiction to displace.

⁶² (Reichssministerium für Rüstung and Kriegsproduktion, RMRK). On Speer's contribution to building up Germany's war economy, see Milward, , The German Economy at War, ch. 4Google Scholar; Herbst, , Der Totale Krieg.Google Scholar

⁶³ Most studies of the war economy pay little attention to artisans. East German studies also ignore Handwerk, treating the war economy as an expansion of monopoly capitalism; see Eichholtz, Dietrich, Geschichte der Deutschen Kriegswirtschaft 1939–1945, 1: 1939–1941 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1984). Even Speer in his memoirs refers explicitly to Handwerk only once, and that in a footnote.Google ScholarSpeer, Albert, Inside the Third Reich, (New York: Macmillan, 1970), 216, n. 4.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ RMRK memo, late 1943; BA, R3/1770, Item 37–38 (my emphasis).

⁶⁵ Speer, , Inside the Third Reich, 214.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ RMRK memo, late 1943; BA, R3/1770, Item 37–38.

⁶⁷ Ibid. For background on this issue, see Tim Mason's essay, ‘Women in Germany, 1925–1940. Family, Welfare and Work’ (1976), repr. in Tim Mason, Nazism, Fascism and the Working Class (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

⁶⁸ ‘Reichsminister über verstärkten Einsatz in der Rüstungswirtschaft’, in Deutsches Handwerk, No. 29/30/31, 6 Aug. 1943; in BA, R7/4106, Item 465. See also ‘Nachrichten des Reichsministers für Rüstung and Kriegsproduktion’, No. 36, 3 April 1944, 368; BA, R9711/30.

⁶⁹ For an explanation of Speer's main rings and main committees, see below.

⁷⁰ See ‘Nachrichten des Reichsministers für Rüstung and Kriegsproduktion’, No. 36, 3 April 1944, 368; BA, R97/30.

⁷¹ Stadtspräsident Berlin, report for Jan.-March 1939, 24 March 1939; BA, R41/156, Item 40.

⁷² Gurland, A. R. L., The Fate of Small Business in Germany, Senate Committee Print, 1943, 105.Google Scholar

⁷³ ‘Musterrahmenvertrag für die Einschaltung von Handwerksbetrieben in die Rüstungsfertigung’ (RMRK), 1 March 1944; BA, R3/1770, Item 4–5.

⁷⁴ ‘Entwurf einer Anordnung des Chefs des Rüstungslieferungsamtes’ (Walter Schieber, Chief of the Supply Department, RMRK), Oct. 1943; BA, R3/1770, Item 29.

⁷⁵ Gurland, , The Fate of Small Business in Germany, 106.Google Scholar In the same vein, Gerhardt Brandt, in the post-war period, characterised this new relation as ‘quasi-feudal’; see ‘Der “Mythos des Mittelstandes” – Okonomisch and Politisch’, Frankfurter Hefte, Vol. 14 (1959). 881–9.

⁷⁶ For the modernising and integrative functions of artisanal organisations in the post-war period, see McKitrick, ‘Old World Craftsmen into Modem Capitalists’, part IV.

⁷⁷ The classic formulation of the Blitzkrieg as economic strategy is Milward, The German Economy at War. The term has been the subject of revisionist debate recently, much of it concerning its validity as a clearly preconceived plan of action and the relative importance of political and economic considerations in the decision to go to war and the way it was fought in the first two years. See the work of Overy, Richard J., ‘Hitler's War and the German Economy: A Reinterpretation’, Economic History Review, Vol. 35 (1982), 272–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and idem, ‘“Blitzkriegswirtschaft”?’, Viertejahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 36 (1988), 379–435. Whatever the validity of these objections, the course of the argument presented here still stands – that Speer, as part of an overall strategy of maximising war production after 1942, completed a radical and successful restructuring of Handwerk's position in the German economy.

⁷⁸ Speer, Inside the Third Reich, ch. 15, esp. 208–9. On Speer's organisational system, see Wagenführ, Rolf, Die deutsche Industrie im Kriege 1939–1945 (Berlin: 1954); andGoogle ScholarMilward, , The German Economy at War, ch. 5.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Speer memo, ‘Einschaltung des Handwerks in die Rüstungswirtschaft’ (RMRK), 6 June 1943; BA, R7/4106, Item 444. ⁸⁰Chesi, , Struktur und Funktionen der Handwerksorganisation, 118–19.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Chesi stresses this loss of formal autonomy. Ibid., 118. And Winkler sees it as the final proof of Handwerk's ‘superfluity’. ‘Der entbehrliche Stand’, 38–40.

⁸² See Reichsgruppe Handwerk (division of RWM dealing with artisanal affairs) memo, 30 March 1944, listing Handwerk representatives at the Gau level; BA, R9711/30. Schweitzer argues that the restriction of positions in artisanal organisations to certified masters, decreed in 1935, worked to keep out the younger, radical Nazi hotheads, in effect tipping the balance of power towards big business; Big Business in the Third Reich, 144. Here I argue that, yes, the radicals were removed, but the masters who replaced them were determined modernisers of their Stand, rather than pawns of big business.

⁸³ See questionnaires in BA, R971/33.

⁸⁴ Minutes of meeting of Reichsgruppe Handwerk officials on 27 May 1943; see esp. 12–14; BA, R7/4119, Item 466–485.

⁸⁵ For a strong statement on the necessity for artisans to adapt to the technological and managerial requirements of a modern economy and their impressive success in doing so with the increased use of these devices, see RWM memo, 10 June 1943; BA, R7/4119, Item 213.

⁸⁶ For how artisan leaders expanded upon these gains in the post-war period, see McKitrick, ‘Old World Craftsmen into Modern Capitalists’, parts III & IV.

⁸⁷ See also Saldern, von, ‘The Old Mittelstand’, 42–3.Google Scholar⁸⁸McKitrick, , ‘Old World Craftsmen into Modern Capitalists’, 496–507.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ For a useful survey of the literature on the debate concerning the reactionary and modernising functions of Nazism, see Ian Kershaw, ‘The Third Reich: “Social Reaction” or “Social Revolution”?’, in Kershaw, Ian, The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, 2nd Ed. (London/New York: Edward Arnold, 1989).Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Not that active opposition was ever a serious possibility, and artisan discontent never caused the regime inordinate worry. As Kershaw has pointed out for the middle class as a whole: ‘Complaint and compliance were related characteristics of middle-class life in the Third Reich.’ Popular Opinion & Political Dissent, 155. Saldern, Von, Mittelstand im ‘Dritten Reich’, 181–82.Google Scholar

⁹¹ Personal interview with the author, Jan. 1990. Schulhoff, a Jew who survived the war underground in Düsseldorf, was perfectly well aware of the ironies of such a statement.

⁹² For comparative historical treatments of the lower middle classes which help shed light on national differences, see Crossick, Geoffrey and Haupt, Heinz-Gerhard, eds, Shopkeepers and Master Artisans in Nineteenth-century Europe (London/New York: Methuen, 1984); and Koshar, Splintered Classes.Google Scholar

⁹³ This list was made official by Gesetz zur Ordnung des Handwerks (Handwerksordnung) passed by the Bundestag on 17 Sept. 1953, which re-established the 1935 apprentice system and corporate authority of artisanal institutions after a period of (ultimately unsuccessful) attack by the American occupation authorities. See Bundesgesetzblatt, i. 1,411; for a list of trades, see Drucksache No. 4172, 1953, 28–9.

⁹⁴ The juridical arbitrariness of such classifications may be illuminated by looking at the French example. There, any artisanal shop which grows to more than 10 employees is automatically reclassified as industry and moves to their interest organisations. Thus, artisan corporations lose their most successful members. On French artisans, see Zdatny, Steven M., Politics of Survival: Artisans in Twentieth-century France (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

⁹⁵ The only exceptions to this trend have been the Great Depression and the years following the Second World War, when great numbers of the unemployed attempted to get by by setting up their own artisan or retail shops, a phenomenon known as the ‘flight into independence’. In each case, with the return to better times the numbers of shops fell back to ‘normal’ levels.

⁹⁶ The exceptions are the same as noted above.

⁹⁷ Siewert, Wolfgang, Strukturwandlungen des Handwerks im Rahmen der Wirtschaftsentwicklung, Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (Berlin: Drucker & Humblot, 1954), 8.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ Beckermann, Auslese, Wachstum und Differenzierung, 18. Wernet gives a higher figure for 1895 and he shows the number of Handwerk employees dropping sharply after 1875 before recovering steadily in the twentieth century, but otherwise his data correspond with Beckermann's: in 1875, 76 persons were employed in Handwerk per 1,000 of the population; in 1895, 57; in 1926, 60; in 1947, 66. Both Wernet and Beckermann make the same point, however, that the drop in the number of firms was more than made up for by the increase in total employees, and that this concentration process has been economically healthy for Handwerk. See Wemet, Wilhelm, ‘Strukturbild und Strukturwandel der modernen Handwerkswirtschaft’, Deutsches Handwerksblatt, Vol. 2, no. 11, 15 June 1950, 165.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Siewert, Strukturwandlungen des Handwerks, 8. Beckerman, Auslese, Wachstum und Differenzierung, 17. Heinrich August Winkler, ‘Stabilisierung durch Schrumpfung: Der gewerbliche Mittelstand in der Bundesrepublik’, in Conze, Werner and Rainer Lepsius, M., eds, Sozialgeschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1983), 188–9.Google Scholar In each case, pre-1945 figures are for the area of the German Reich, and those post-1945 for the area of the Federal Republic.

¹⁰⁰ Beckermann, Theo, Das Handwerk-Gestem und Heute, Schriftenreihe, New Ser., No. 15 (Essen: Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, 1959), 12, 131.Google Scholar ‘Bericht über die Lage der Mittelschichten’, Deutscher Bundestag 7th Wahlperiode, Drucksache 2012, 13 July 1960, 12. For a discussion of the differences between industrial and artisanal productivity gains, see ‘Der Mittelstand in der deutschen Wirschaft’, Bundeswirtschaftsministerium Report, 18 March 1952; BA, B102/14652, 17.

¹⁰¹ Winkler has also documented the stronger position of the artisanal sector in the post-war economy, but explains its political stability by what he calls a decline in ‘political significance’ (which he attributes to the decrease in the absolute numbers of independent proprietors), by the fact that, being more satisfied, those remaining tend to be less politically disruptive, and by arguing that it has been ‘westernized.’ By the latter he means that artisans in the post-war period have forsaken ‘continental European internal protectionism’ in favour of modernisation on the American, British and French model(s). Winkler, ‘Stabilisierung durch Schrumpfung’, 208–9. Without attempting to enter into the minefield of the ‘Sonderweg’ debate, I would respond that, while artisans have embraced modernisation, they have done so in a very non-‘Western’ corporatist context by using their institutions (whose authority had been conferred in 1953 by the special juridical status of ‘corporations of public law’ and by the certificate of competency) to push modernisation forward and to provide a continuity in cultural identity. This corporate authority has no counterpart in the ‘West’ (except for Luxemburg) or, as far as I know, in Eastern Europe. That the US attempted to demolish artisanal corporatism in its zone of occupation in 1948 by introducing ‘freedom of trade’ (that is, anyone could open an artisanal shop, not solely qualified masters) surely speaks to this issue of Westernisation. The Americans considered such restrictions on business to be incompatible with both economic and political freedom, and that ‘The willingness with which the German people submitted to this interference furnishes an important explanation for the success of totalitarianism in the Reich’. The market, not a board of ‘experts’, they argued, is the best mechanism with which to measure a tradesman's qualifications. House of Representatives ‘Report to the Herter Committee on the Decartelization Program in Germany’, 22 Sept. 1947, 23; Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Dom Collection Box 17. For a fuller treatment of the structural position of artisans in the post-war German economy, see McKitrick, ‘Old World Craftsmen into Modem Capitalists’, 394–415.