Respectable Career of Fritz K.

Hartmut Berghoff is Director of the German Historical Institute in Washington D.C. and Professor of Economic History at the University of Gottingen in Germany. In 1998 he won the ABB-Wissenschaftspreis for his book on the harmonica manufacturer Hohner, Zwischen Kleinstadt und Weltmarkt. Most recently he co-edited Business in the Age of Extremes: Essays on the Economic History of Germany and Austria (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Cornelia Rauh holds the Contemporary History Chair at the University of Hanover. She is the author of Katholisches Milieu und Kleinstadtgesellschaft (Thorbecke, 1991) and Suisse Aluminium for Hitler's War? The History of Alusuisse from 1918 to 1950 (Beck 2009), which won the Gesellschaft fur Unternehmensgeschichte (GUG) prize. She has also published biographies of entrepreneurs and other books on 20th-century German and French history.

• List of Figures Foreword Abbreviations Introduction Chapter 1. Kiehn's Rise to the Middle Class: A Traveling Salesman Becomes a Factory Owner Chapter 2. Rapid Ascent through the Nazi Ranks: From Local Party Leader to Reichstag Delegate Chapter 3. Fritz Kiehn, "Leader of the Wurttemberg Economy" Chapter 4. Riding Nazi Party Coattails: Kiehn's Industrial Ambitions Chapter 5. Between Corruption and Camaraderie: The National Socialist Campaign to Curb Abuses Chapter 6. Kiehn and Gustav Schickedanz in the Race for Aryanization Chapter 7. Wartime Deals and "Marriage Politics" Chapter 8. "The King of Trossingen": Fritz Kiehn as a Local Grandee in the Third Reich Chapter 9. From "War Criminal No. 1" to Sought-After Employer Chapter 10. "Scot-free, by the skin of their teeth" - Denazification and Compensation Chapter 11. "Ripe for Satire": Entering the Social Market Economy with Public Loans Chapter 12. "Kiehn left no one behind"? The "Factory Community" as a Network of "Old Comrades" Chapter 13. Honorable Citizen Again: Kiehn and the "Economic Miracle" Chapter 14. The Twilight Years of an Honored West German Chapter 15. Coming to Terms with the Past in the 21st Century Conclusion: The (A)Typical Life of an Industrialist? Bibliography Index

"By outlining Fritz Kiehn's career both in a rational-academic but also lively manner, the authors have succeeded in creating an unusually insightful and astute book on what was 'normal' in Germany in the twentieth century." * Die Zeit "The documentation and interpretation of what was usual makes [the book's] presentation interesting and worth reading. It is also worth reading, of course, because of the writing talents of both its authors [who] have not only penned a rich socio-historical study; they have, quite simply...written a good book." * Vierteljahrschrift fur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte "A historiographical masterwork, a successful example of how fruitful interdisciplinary historical research can be. It is about structures, milieus, mentalities, and microhistory. But it is also just as much about grand politics, economic history, and a very particular person whose contradictions the two authors managed to describe with brilliance." * Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung