"Free to Obey: How the Nazis Invented Modern Management ", a book by young historian Johann Chapoutot

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Brigitte DEMEURE

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May 27, 2022, 1:28:23 PM5/27/22
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Hi all,

This book is fascinating (as all his books are in fact) :

"What if the rules of modern management were written during the Third Reich?

Reinhard Höhn (1904-2000) was a commander of the SS, one of Nazi Germany’s most brilliant legal minds, and an archetype of the fervid technocrats and intellectuals that built the Third Reich. Gone into hiding after 1945, he managed to survive unscathed the denazification process and reemerged in the 1950s as the founder and director of a management school in Bad Harzburg, Lower Saxony.

His story wouldn’t be too different from that of other prominent Nazis, if not for the fact that the great majority of Germany’s postwar business leaders—more than 600,000 executives from 2,600 companies—were educated at his school. Is this a coincidence? Or, as explains Johann Chapoutot, a brilliant historian of Nazism, is there a profound link between the forms of organization of Nazism and the prevailing principles and practices of corporate management?

As this illuminating study shows, at the core of Höhn’s vision was a specific conception of freedom, which had deep roots in German history and which found expression in the role of the manager and the administrator. In this illiberal tradition, freedom is not just intended exclusively as freedom to act, but also as freedom to obey orders from above—to carry out one’s mission no matter the cost."

“One of the most gifted European historians of his generation.”—Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny

Ken Fuchsman

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May 27, 2022, 2:23:54 PM5/27/22
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Brigitte,

In 1940, James Burnham authored a book entitled The Managerial Revolution. 

In 1977, Harvard historian Alfred Chandler Jr. published The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business.  This classic history traced modern business management to the 1840s and the Pennsylvania Railroad then to other 19th century mammoth American  businesses. If accurate, this certainly predates the Nazis. 

Ken. 

Sent from my iPhone

On May 27, 2022, at 1:28 PM, Brigitte DEMEURE <brigitt...@wanadoo.fr> wrote:


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Brigitte DEMEURE

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May 27, 2022, 2:43:05 PM5/27/22
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Thanks for this info Ken - Chapoutot takes into account that management started well before Hitler and national socialism, his focus is how the Nazis developed

this before and after the war. Reinhard Höhn (1904-2000) was former SS General and founded the Bad Harzburg Institute, which trained hundreds of thousands of managers in Germany.

Brigitte

envoyé : 27 mai 2022 à 20:23
de : Ken Fuchsman <kfuc...@gmail.com>
à : clios...@googlegroups.com
objet : Re: [cliospsyche] "Free to Obey: How the Nazis Invented Modern Management ", a book by young historian Johann Chapoutot

Brian D'Agostino

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May 27, 2022, 3:18:50 PM5/27/22
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Of course it depends on what we mean by "modern management."  Another classic history from 2003, by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge (The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea), also takes a broader view of the subject than Chapoutot.  One of their chapters is entitled, "The Rise of Big Business in Britain, Germany, and Japan, 1850-1950."  I have no doubt that the Nazis made their own contribution to modern management, but to say that they invented it (as Chapoutot does in his title) seems to overstate the case, which authors today are under pressure to do in order to build value into their research and to sell books.  

I also wonder if the Nazi paradigm of management survived the Third Reich in Germany itself.  According to Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, German management today is generally more collaborative than the American version; where American managers try to break unions, the German capitalists (at least the most successful ones who practice co-determination) enlist the input of unionized workers in management decision making.  Maybe the Americans today are the real heirs of the Nazi paradigm.  They adopted a union-busting paradigm beginning in the 1970s, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if they borrowed some ideas from the Nazis.   

Brigitte DEMEURE

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May 27, 2022, 3:29:12 PM5/27/22
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Indeed the problem is the translation of the French title into English. The French title  is  " Free to obey - management from NS to today", which is different.

The Third Reich said that it was in the nature of the German "race" that it was free - but free to obey... Yes, the paradigm of the NS management survived in the form of that Bad Harzburg Institute.  The book is short (in French 142 pages) and very interesting.


envoyé : 27 mai 2022 à 21:18
de : Brian D'Agostino <bdagost...@gmail.com>
à : Clio's Psyche Forum <clios...@googlegroups.com>

Ken Fuchsman

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May 27, 2022, 3:47:55 PM5/27/22
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Does he detail how Nazi management advanced over the specific management revolution American corporate enterprise instituted. Does he specifically mention the works to which Brian and I refer. Does he have a comparative approach that shows how Nazi management initiatives compare to what other major powers were doing managerially during World War II? Without a comparative approach how can he have the evidence to back up the claims. Do you think he can make his case in 142 pages. 

Ken



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On May 27, 2022, at 3:29 PM, Brigitte DEMEURE <brigitt...@wanadoo.fr> wrote:



Peter Petschauer

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May 27, 2022, 3:58:26 PM5/27/22
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I would date it even further back to the rulers of the 18th century who came up with modern bureaucracies; with departments, command structures, files and all that industrialists gratefully copied. 
Have a nice weekend 

Peter

Peter Petschauer, PhD, Dhc.
Professor Emeritus, Appalachian State University.
Author and poet.
Forthcoming this year in NYC another poetry book, “Listen to Rarely Heard Voices.”
In Brixen/Bressanone, IT, “Was man so Alles lernt. Südtiroler Rückhalt für die moderne Welt.“
Recently published: 
“An Immigrant in the 1960s; Becoming an American in New York City” (2020)
A book of recent poems, “Hopes and Fears. Past and Present” (2019).
Also available are “In the Face of Evil. The Sustenance of Tradition,” about my four German “mothers,” and a novel “A Perfect Portrait. A Woman Artist in Eighteenth-Century Germany.” These and other books may be purchased at peterpetschauer.com, or through amazon.com.  

On May 27, 2022, at 15:18, Brian D'Agostino <bdagost...@gmail.com> wrote:



Brigitte DEMEURE

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May 27, 2022, 4:34:34 PM5/27/22
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Ken,

It's German history, please read it and we can discuss it.

envoyé : 27 mai 2022 à 21:47

Brian D'Agostino

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May 27, 2022, 5:19:28 PM5/27/22
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Indeed, if the book is mainly a historically informed critique of the Bad Harzburg Institute, that specialized topic does not require the author to survey the entire US and other management literature, or to treat the centuries-long history of management theory and practice in any depth.  I will not criticize a book I have not read, but this is not the right book for me to be reading at this time, so I will limit myself to questions and constructive comments based on what I do know.  It is my understanding that mainstream German management practice today involves "co-determination" in which workers and managers share management decision-making.  Is the Bad Hartzburg Institute challenging this mainstream management paradigm in Germany?

By contrast, mainstream US management theory and practice today is essentially fascist.  Arguably its leading practitioner was Jack Welch, who was chairman of General Electric from 1981 and 2001 and who created a training institute in New York State called "Crotonville" which trained executives in Welch's methods.  His disciples went on to lead and destroy major American corporations, not least of all, Boeing.  It so happens that a devastating critique of Welch appeared in The New York Times last week: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/21/business/jack-welch-ge-ceo-behavior.html?searchResultPosition=1  The article is misleadingly titled, How Jack Welch’s’ Reign at GE gave us Elon Musk’s Twitter Feed; I have copied and pasted it into a Word file (attached) for anyone who cannot access the article from the link.

Brian







Jack Welch, 21 May 2022 NYT.docx

Ken Fuchsman

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May 27, 2022, 6:04:23 PM5/27/22
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Brigitte writes, 

"This book is fascinating (as all his books are in fact) :

What if the rules of modern management were written during the Third Reich?

As the claim Brigitte cites is that modern management rules were written during the Third Reich, Brian, then that claim would require a comparative approach.to have any credibility. 

Brian, you describe American management practice as essentially fascist.   It raises the question of what fascism is.  A dictionary definition is not definitive.  But Merriam-Webster says that fascism is " a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition. "  


Please provide me with competing definitions of fascism and their sources that is in accord with your interpretation.of American management theory and practice. 


Ken    


Brigitte DEMEURE

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May 27, 2022, 6:21:47 PM5/27/22
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My goodness me !

I just wanted to recommend a book that seems very interesting to me -  and now there is a huge discussion about the history of management in the US and about the definition of fascism !!! 

I should not have done this - sorry.

But for sure, a comparative study would be very interesting.

envoyé : 28 mai 2022 à 00:04

Brian D'Agostino

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May 28, 2022, 3:12:08 AM5/28/22
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Yes, I will also pass on a semantic discussion about fascism (by which I just mean right wing authoritarianism) and the broader history of management.  But Brigitte, do you agree that co-determination is the mainstream management paradigm in Germany today?  Is the Bad Harzburg Institute trying to turn the clock back?  One interesting comparative study would be Bad Harzburg compared with Jack Welch's training institute and dictatorial management paradigm.

Brigitte DEMEURE

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May 28, 2022, 6:21:45 AM5/28/22
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To explain it in an approximate or summarized  way : Chapoutot says that for Reinhard Höhn, the best way to win a war (real or economic) is to have the generals impose the goal - for example this order to the army officers  : "take this hill - you are free to choose the means." The officers determinate the means and they are responsible in case of a defeat. The control of the results is tight, the pressure high.

Remember the Dieselgate. Ex-CEO VW Winterkorn said he knew nothing about emissions cheating, that only the engineers were responsible for it.

Being "free" to set the means, employees make of course mistakes, and if the goal is not achieved they are sacked in a most brutal way.

I translated this into English from wikipedia Germany :

"The Bad Harzburg Academy for Business Executives was a training and continuing education institution founded in 1956 by the former National Socialist constitutional lawyer Reinhard Höhn and based in Bad Harzburg.

The academy became known throughout Germany through the Harzburg Model. Introduced in 1962 as a closed management system, it had a lasting impact on the understanding of leadership in management until the 1980s. As a model, it demonstrated a way of working for companies to organize and control operational processes in day-to-day business. The model provided managers with knowledge on how to lead in the employee relationship with the delegation of responsibility and the associated job description. (The delegation of responsibility would be what is meant by co-determination, my remark) At its zenith in 1974, the Academy for Managers trained more than 35,000 managers a year.

However, when Höhn's prominent role in the Third Reich became public, it heralded the demise of both the model and the academy.[1] During this time, former SS leader Justus Beyer was also a lecturer at the academy.[2] Lecturers also included Franz Six, former SS brigade leader and committed advocate of the Holocaust, who propagated the Führer principle at the academy.[3]

In 1989, the Bad Harzburger Bildungsverbund went bankrupt[4] and was split up. Cognos AG, Hamburg took over the seminar business, began its economic consolidation and re-established it in the continuing education market under the brand name “Die Akademie”. The former Academy for Distance Learning (AFF) was taken over by another investor; it now operates as afw Wirtschaftsakademie Bad Harzburg."

According to Chapoutot this model is still applied today, especially in the retail sector.

Best

Brigitte

envoyé : 28 mai 2022 à 09:11

Brigitte DEMEURE

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May 28, 2022, 6:41:19 AM5/28/22
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Remember also the case of Hanns Martin Schleier, former SS and after the war simultaneously president of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations (BDA) and the Federation of German Industries (BDI). He was kidnapped and killed by the "Rote Armee Fraktion" in 1977.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Martin_Schleyer

envoyé : 28 mai 2022 à 12:21
de : Brigitte DEMEURE <brigitt...@wanadoo.fr>

Brian D'Agostino

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May 28, 2022, 8:41:03 AM5/28/22
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Thank you, Brigitte, this is a very helpful summary.  I find three features of Höhn's Nazi management model worth noting.  First, top management doesn't elicit input from the lower echelons in formulating the goals.  (Maybe the field commanders and soldiers, if consulted, would tell the general that "taking this hill" was not a good idea and why it is doomed to fail).  Second, and related to this, it puts the onus of failure on the field commanders (middle management) and soldiers (workers), even if the operation fails for reasons unrelated to the means chosen.  Third, it creates a culture in which the field commanders and workers compete with one another to deliver the best results to their bosses, which is the antithesis of solidarity--the essence of trade unionism.

All of this is also antithetical to German co-determination, which is a socialized way of running enterprises in which representatives of the workers sit on the corporate board and have input into goal-setting from the outset.  This generally results in better decision making, and where an operation does fail, management and workers can jointly own the failure and figure out rationally what to do better next time, rather than blame and punish individual workers, often for factors that they don't even control.

On the other hand, Höhn's Nazi management is very similar to Jack Welch's model, which empowers the CEO to make all the high level decisions, puts the onus of failure on individual lower echelon employees, and pits everyone against everyone else to please the bosses.  Welch went further than Höhn and required that even if the enterprise is succeeding (as General Electric was when he took the helm in 1981), the "lowest performing" ten percent of employees have to be fired every year, purportedly to motivate everyone to excel and compete with one another to not end up in the bottom ten percent.

Of course the contributions of individual workers to the success or failure of an operation are generally not so easy to identify and assess.  Ironically, CEOs themselves (at least in the US) are quick to point this out when the companies that they lead fail, and they use this argument to keep their obscene compensation packages independently of their own performance.  But if the success or failure of the enterprise cannot be attributed to the CEO, then why is their compensation so astronomical in the first place?

Brian


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