Industries producing abundant welfare goods were used exclusively for destruction

Evidence

There exists a fundamental antagonism between the productivity of German industry, its capacity for promoting the welfare of the people and its actual achievements, and this antagonism is steadily deepening. For the past eight years huge industrial machinery in continuous expansion has been set to work exclusively for destruction. The promises given by the regime to the masses are certainly sweet, but many of them have been broken and every essential point of the party programme has been sacrificed. This antagonism must be felt by the masses, which are not simply babes in the woods but have a long tradition behind them, a tradition that imbued them with a critical spirit and made them aware that the primary fact of modern civilization is this very antagonism between an economy that can produce in abundance for welfare but does so only for destruction. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1204

Categorization

• XREF: Directly extends Neumann’s analysis from earlier — the deepening contradiction between productive capacity and destructive use as the engine of Nazi society.