Free to Obey: How the Nazis Invented Modern Management

(Paperback)

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

SS Commander Reinhard Hohn was one of Nazi Germany's most brilliant legal minds, an archetype of the fervid technocrats that built the Third Reich. Gone into hiding after 1945, he survived unscathed and re-emerged in the 1950s as the founder of a management school.

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 post-war business leaders were educated at his school. Is this a coincidence Or is there a link between the forms of organization of Nazism and the principles of corporate management

At the core of Hohn's vision was the concept of freedom, as freedom to obey orders from above-to carry out one's mission no matter the cost.

Reviews

'Chapoutot is one of the most gifted European historians of his generation.' - Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny

'"Johann Chapoutot is one of the great historians of Nazism. Time and again, his work has shown that the Third Reich was not an accidental aberration of history."' - France Culture

'A fascinating essay about the second life of Reinhard Hohn-from one of the Third Reich's most brilliant legal minds to the founder of Germany's leading post-war business school.' - Le Figaro Magazine

'"A brilliant, stereotype defying study."' - Les Temps

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Author Bio

Johann Chapoutot teaches Contemporary History at the Sorbonne, Paris. He is the author of The Law of Blood: Thinking and Acting as a Nazi (Belknap Press, 2018) and Greeks, Romans, Germans: How the Nazis Usurped Europes Classical Past (University of California Press, 2016). Steven Rendall has translated ninety-six books from French and German, four of which have won major translation prizes. His translations for Europa Editions include Disturbance by Philippe Lanon (2019) and The Tyranny of Algorithms by Miguel Benasayag (2021). He is professor emeritus of Romance Languages at the University of Oregon. He lives in France.