The War Within World War II: The United States and International Cartels (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780275962746)

This encompassing study traces the issues of international cartels from the early days of World War II through the occupation of Germany and Japan. It focuses attention on the Justice Department's Economic Warfare Section as it utilized its resources in uncovering economic and strategic information that could be used in the war effort, such as the selection of economic bottlenecks for bombing. Maddox examines how cartels such as I. G. Farben, Carl Zeiss, the Steel Cartel and others worked to harm U.S. strategic interests, and he details how cartel agreements allowed the Japanese to acquire critical technologies and strategic materials. Using newly released Justice Department records, this thorough investigation of decartelization captures the debate over implementation of the policy issues.

These exposures by both the Justice Department and the Kilgore Committee ultimately helped stimulate debate over the economic treatment of enemy nations in the postwar period. Despite an Allied decision in Potsdam to apply decartelization and deconcentration policies to Germany and Japan, the decartelization policy ran into difficulty in Germany with blatant attempts by the American Military Government to subvert it. Events in Japan followed a similar path. After first taking on the zaibatsu and other cartel-like business practices, policy would be reversed.

Author: Franklin Maddox
ISBN-10: 0275962741
ISBN-13: 9780275962746
Publisher: Praeger
Language: English
Published: 09/30/2001
Pages: 252
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.27lbs
Size: 9.56h x 6.42w x 0.93d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 03/01/2002 pg. 1298
Reference and Research Bk News 02/01/2002 pg. 25