ABSTRACT
Historical research holds many answers to the question of how National Socialist rule worked and how it was legitimized before the people. The range of views is as multifaceted and often contradictory as are the various aspects of the history of National Socialism itself. As German research on contemporary history looks more closely at corruption within the Nazi regime it faces hitherto unfamiliar problems and difficulties of historical corruption research in general. Corruption in the Third Reich was not only an important element in securing the grip on power but it was also an essential concomitant feature of the crimes against the Jews. Even through the measures the principle causes for corruption in the "Third Reich" could hardly have been eliminated, for corruption had been a structural and propping element of the Nazi regime, its politics, and its polycratic structures.
