Matt Bera is not the first scholar to reflect on domestic economic adaption to the National Socialist regime. But by examining two important managers who held intermediary positions in German industry, he makes a valuable contribution to the ongoing debate about the extent to which industrialists had room to maneuver under the Third Reich. Jakob Reichert, chief business manager of the Verein Deutscher Eisen- und Stahlindustrieller (VDESI), and Karl Lange, who held the corresponding position in the Verein Deutscher Maschinenbau-Anstalten (VDMA), were both key figures in the organized war economy who represented important elite groups within industry and lobbied for the interests of their respective industries. As chief business managers of major industrial associations, their adaptation—or reluctance to adapt—to the exigencies of the regime is of enormous relevance for understanding the relationship between state and industry during the Third Reich. Faced with different options, Reichert refused to embrace National Socialism, which resulted in the state simply sidelining him, whereas Lange, a long-time proponent of a liberal economic order, gradually developed into a strict advocate of National Socialism.

Reichert, a deeply conservative nationalist, was helped into his position in 1912 by Paul Reusch, the powerful manager of the Gutehoffnungshütte, one of the biggest steel companies in the Ruhr Valley. Supporting Reusch's position thus became a matter of loyalty for Reichert, which may help explain his subsequent political attitudes and actions. Reichert worked to promote the interests of an industry that was remarkably united and directed by a small number of powerful firms. Like most members of the VDESI, he did not trust democracy, and as a representative of the iron and steel industry, he strongly believed the economic order to be an issue for industry only. He argued in favor of industrial self-regulation and saw no need for the state to intervene. Deeply conservative and antidemocratic, sitting in the Reichstag for the Deutschnationale Volkspartei (DNVP) from 1920 onward, he helped to bring down the Weimar Republic.

Reichert's ideas were thus reactionary, but they were also irreconcilable with National Socialism. He remained conservative after 1933; but whereas older research has underlined his continuing adaptation to National Socialism, Bera demonstrates that, in fact, Reichert tried in vain to push the National Socialist government to adapt to the needs of the industry—on the assumption that iron and steel were indispensable to the regime. When the VDESI was transformed into the Wirtschaftsgruppe Eisenschaffende Industrie in 1935, the organization was supposed to play an active part in the German economy. Reichert maintained his position in the Wirtschaftsgruppe but was unable to centralize authority in his own hands: he did not react to the Gleichschaltung enthusiastically and refused to join the NSDAP.

The introduction of Hermann Göring's Four Year Plan had significant consequences for the Wirtschaftsgruppe. Since the capacities of the steel industry did not increase as Göring had hoped, the minister set out to establish a state-owned steel works, and his subsequent announcement of the establishment of a Reichswerke in July 1937 prompted some leaders of the iron and steel industry to attempt to prevent its creation. Intending to change Göring's mind, Reichert and Ernst Poensgen, the head of the Wirtschaftsgruppe, started working on a Denkschrift that was intended to convince Göring that a state-owned steel works was not necessary. It soon became apparent, however, that the Wirtschaftsgruppe was not arguing with one voice. When influential opponents of the Denkschrift in the iron and steel industry started to work in close cooperation with the regime, Reichert's ability to serve as an agent of the industry was undermined and the VDESI was pushed to the periphery. By the time war broke out in 1939, he was confronted with the influential North-West Group of the Wirtschaftsgruppe, which had become active without his support. Because Reichert did not succeed in a dispute over the disposition of commandeered firms in Lorraine and Luxembourg, he lost the ability to influence decisions. And after Göring and Albert Speer changed the organization of the iron and steel industry by introducing the Reichsvereinigung Eisen in 1942, Reichert was completely excluded from processes relating to the iron and steel business. Arrested in August 1946 and released in October 1947, Reichert committed suicide in 1948.

As chief business manager of the VDMA since 1923, Karl Lange, for his part, lobbied for the German machine-building industry, which was characterized by a very different set of approaches and interests. Lange's reaction to the Great Depression of 1929 was to promote the self-regulative power of his industry—here his position was similar to that of Reichert—but without favoring associations and cartels, as Reichert did. Instead, Lange emphasized the need to boost exports. As the machine-building industry was hit harder by the Depression than the iron and steel industry, he watched the seizure of power in January 1933 from a weaker position than that of Reichert, which explains why Lange adapted more actively to the demands of the new regime. In the summer of 1934, at the latest, he started to integrate the VDMA closely into the National Socialist economy. Its later transformation into the Wirtschaftsgruppe Machinenbau was successful in the eyes of the Nazis, not least because Lange helped to cultivate antisemitism, giving instructions to exclude Jewish firms from the organizations’ membership, for example. Lange had become indispensable by the time war broke out: the regime relied on him to “coordinate” the fractious machine-building industry, and the members of his organization depended on him to make a profit. In 1939 he was appointed “commissar for machine-building” in the Four Year Plan. And unlike Reichert, he managed to extend his influence beyond the borders of the Reich. Lange was able to maintain his position even when Albert Speer appointed him as head of the new “Main Committee for Machines” in 1942, and he quickly returned to a position of power after the war: when the VDMA was reestablished in 1949, he almost immediately reassumed the post of chief business manager.

In selecting Reichert and Lange, Bera has chosen two players who have not previously been the subject of much research. By comparing the careers of these two managers, the author emphasizes the organizational aspect of the German economy with its vast network of associations. In this context, it was especially the gradual exclusion of Reichert that demonstrates how the polycratic Nazi administration could use coercive means to shut out an important industrialist. But, as the case of Lange proves, there was also room for maneuver and successful adaptation to the system.