Free to Obey cover art

Free to Obey

How the Nazis Invented Modern Management

Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 Months Free

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Get this deal
Offer ends on 15 July 2026 at 11:59 BST.
More purchase options

Free to Obey

By: Johann Chapoutot, Steven Rendall - translator
Narrated by: Cory J. Herndon
Get this deal

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £15.99

Buy Now for £15.99

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

SS Commander Reinhard Höhn 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 Höhn's vision was the concept of freedom, as freedom to obey orders from above—to carry out one's mission no matter the cost.

©2026 Johann Chapoutot (P)2026 Europa Editions (UK) Ltd.
Military Military & War Political Science Politics & Government War & Crisis World War II Management
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1

Critic reviews

"Chapoutot is one of the most gifted European historians of his generation."
"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."
"A fascinating essay about the second life of Reinhard Höhn—from one of the Third Reich's most brilliant legal minds to the founder of Germany's leading post-war business school."
"A brilliant, stereotype defying study."
No reviews yet