"Even today, the slogan remains: Cannons instead of butter," Rudolf Hess emphasized to the Germans in October 1936, coining a phrase that soon took on a life of its own. "Otherwise, it must be said that cannons do not satisfy the empty stomach of any people," wrote Bertolt Brecht in exile. In his brilliantly written book, Tim Schanetzky offers a compact introduction to the economic history of the Third Reich - as accessible as it has not been for decades. The focus is on the experiential history of the Germans. How did the "fellow countrymen" experience the pressures of rearmament? To what extent did they benefit from the regime's racist policies? How did German entrepreneurs behave under the dictatorship? How deeply were they involved in the large-scale plunder economy of the world war? And finally: How significant were the promises of consumption?.