this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2026
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After industrialization, selling industrial products was frequently far more profitable than the expensive and uncertain spoils of war. Even colonialism was frequently a net loss for the governments.
And there wasn't really a likely reality where Nazi Germany fought their war in a way that was actually winnable, their overconfidence was only matched by the idiocy of many of their tactic and strategic decisions.
You're right about colonialism being a net loss for the government. In the Netherlands the NSB (Dutch Nazi Party) based a lot of their messaging around the idea that if the Netherlands were to join up with the allied forces, they would be forced to relinquish their colonies.
This was absolute nonsense but it spoke to people at the time because the idea of giving the colonies their independence had become a popular talking point during the recession because they were no longer profitable (fuckery involving the united fruit company).
During the second world war the Dutch colonies would become profitable but for completely different reasons. Basically a lot of the fosfate used in bombs came from Curacao and the aluminum to craft airplanes came from Suriname.
noteworthy the british empire never turned a profit for england at all. it was losses all the way through. the english wikipedia article mentions it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire
edit: nvm i can't find it anymore rn. probably i remembered badly
this article (Economy of the British Empire) mentions that it was profitable.
Also, duckduckgoing it, there are quite a few sources that still claim that the British Empire wasn't profitable for the government in Britain, or regular British people, e.g.:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2598015
https://iea.org.uk/media/empire-and-slavery-did-not-make-britain-rich-finds-new-iea-book/
(I'm not that knowledgable about the quality of these particular sources, just demonstrating that the claim isn't rare)
TBH the "Economy of the British Empire" article is poorly sourced, especially for the claim that Britain profited from its colonies - the linked source is a Fortune article (even if it has help from an economic historian from Stanford), with only one paragraph on the British empire, and the relevant sentance seems to be this:
"At the height of the British Empire, about 6% of its total output came from its colonies, more than any other Western power."
I don't really understand what this is supposed to mean, since according to the table in the Wikipedia article, British India's GDP was higher than the UK's. 6% certainly doesn't sound impressive. But even then, GDP =/= profit, and being the worldwide dominant power is not really a status that most colonial powers can hope to achieve.