German Fordism and National Recovery

This paper examines how Fordism, the system of mass production pioneered by Henry Ford, became a model of national recovery in Germany following World War I. German industrialists and intellectuals looked to American industrial methods as a means of restoring national strength and international competitiveness.

The paper also investigates the limitations of Germany’s selective adoption of Fordism. While German manufacturers embraced assembly-line production and managerial control, they often failed to reproduce the high wages and mass consumption central to the American model. Consequently, industrial modernization frequently intensified unemployment and labor conflict. The paper argues that Fordism ultimately proved more successful as a symbol of restored national power than as a practical program of economic and social recovery.