Doing Business with the Nazis: Britain's Economic and Financial Relations with Germany 1931-1939. - Review - book review

Doing Business with the Nazis: Britain's Economic and Financial Relations with Germany 1931-1939. Neil Forbes. Frank Cass. [pound]35.00/US$49.50. 250 pages. ISBN 0-7146-5101-X. Britain and Germany, while economic rivals since the end of the nineteenth century, were also economic partners. The Great Depression and then the rise of the Nazis upset all this but even so, British trade with an increasingly Nazi Germany continued. This book is concerned with 'how financial and economic policy towards Germany was made, how it was executed and what it achieved'. In the event the City and civil servants fought to keep open trade channels with Germany during the 1930s, in part because they realised that the Versailles peace treaties had helped to bring about the crises in international trade. In the 1930s Britain needed a prosperous Germany but the Depression undermined all efforts and then the rise of Hitler added a new dimension that was beyond Britain's ability to cope. Mr Forbes has surveyed every aspect of this co mplicated field and given readers a clear analysis that will help them the better to understand how trade and finance played vital roles in the collapse of European civilisation in 1939. (T.B.)

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