'Jewish assets seized by Nazis funded 30 percent of WWII expenses'

[Behind the Aegis]

Historians have uncovered evidence leading to the estimation that the Nazis' wartime confiscation of wealth from Europe's Jews financed about 30 percent of the expenditure of the German armed forces during WWII.

The official study of the German Finance Ministry under the Nazis from 1933 to 1945 was conducted by historian Hans-Peter Ullmann.

Last month a similar study of the German Foreign Ministry under the Nazis established that its diplomats and bureaucrats played a key role in the Holocaust.

Ullmann, a Cologne history professor, said the German Finance Ministry under the Nazis actively worked to "destroy Jews financially" and to loot wealth in the nations the Germans occupied.

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[CJvR]

1. That sounds incorrect.

The maximum effort of a major industrial power to wage war is hardly something that can be funded by pillaging a small minority even if they are rich. I have never seen anything that suggest Jews owned and controlled 1/3 of Europe (outside of Nazi propaganda perhaps) and that is roughly what would be needed for that figure to be accurate.

That general looting, contributions and state credits of occupied Europe might have reached and even exceeded those levels I don't doubt. But that was hardly something hitting the Jews exclusively.

[The Magistrate]

2. Something Off About That, Sir: Probably A Very Strained Definition Of Armed Forces Expenses

[eridani]

3. The numerator is probably accurate--not sure I believe the denominator n/t

[NobleCynic]

4. I gotta agree here, the numbers seem off.

German population going into ww2 was ~70 million, of which ~500 thousand were jewish. Less than 1% of the population.

If you account for the 6 million the nazis eventually murdered, that is still a tremendous amount of financial wealth for an underprivileged and abused population to have available to be taken. Even assuming the Germans didn't also loot from non-Jewish populations in occupied lands, which would be foolish, this number seems absurdly high.

Are we using an absurd or arbitrary definition of armed forces expenditures?

Is this just a backhanded way of trying to reinforce the rich and greedy Jewish banker stereotype? I don't get the purpose of a study like this unless the author is trying to claim that pre-WW2 Jews were hoarding all of Europe's wealth.

[Demeter]

5. When I think of the life insurance policies the Nazis collected on

when they killed the insured, my blood runs cold. There wasn't any scruple at all.