The Economy And War In The Third Reich 1933
Schacht was replaced in 1937 by Hermann Goering. Goering introduced the 4-year plan whose aim was to make Germany self-sufficient to fight a war within 4 years. Under Goering imports were slashed. Wages and prices were controlled–under penalty of being sent to a concentration camp. While the state intervention into the economy almost led to full employment during the 1930s, real wages dropped by roughly 25%. Government financing came to the investment process, which the proportion of private securities issued falling from over half in 1933-1934 to 10% in 1935-1938.
Another goal was to expand the 100,000-strong German army into a force of millions under the 4-Year Plan. The war came and although the 4-Year Plan technically expired in 1940, Hermann Goering had built up a power base that effectively controlled all German economic and production matters.
This collection is based on these economic publications:
- Monatliche Nachweise-ber den Auswartigen Handel Deutschlands
- Der Aussenhandel Deutschlands Monatliche Nachweise
- Sondernachweis der Aussenhandel Deutschlands – is particularly important as it provides a thorough breakdown of German foreign trade by commodity, volume and value on a monthly basis. The December issue of each year gives a final listing of annual figures.
Public Works And The National Labour Service
Hitlers first Economic Minster, Dr Hjalmar Schacht, expanded the public works schemes of the Weimar Republic and set up the National Labour Service .
RAD used unemployed men between the ages of 18 and 25 to build government-funded motorways , hospitals, schools and other public buildings such as the 1936 Olympic Stadium, and to work as groundskeepers.
The men spent six months in camps, wore uniforms and received a small amount of pay to send back to their families.
RAD became compulsory for men in 1935. It was extended to women in 1939.
To create as many jobs as possible, manual labour was favoured over the use of machines.
RAD was beneficial to the Nazis because it provided them with cheap labour, reduced the numbers on the unemployment register, led to a network of motorways which could be used for the mobilisation of the army during the war and kept young people occupied.
Changes In The Standard Of Living
Despite the loss of freedom, life improved in Germany for many ordinary people who were prepared to conform and look the other way.
Nazi economic policies had different effects on different groups in society:
Big businesses – When trying to get into power, the Nazis had promised to tackle monopolies the tendency of one company to hold all the interests in one area of business and dominate the market. By 1937 monopolies controlled over 70 per cent of production and the Nazis had links to major companies such as Krupp steel and IG Farben . Both of these areas would be important for rearmament, and from 1935 onwards major industrial companies definitely benefited. Profits rose by 50 per cent between 1933 and 1939.
Small business – Rules on opening and running small businesses were tightened, which resulted in 20 per cent of them closing.
Farmers – Having been one of the main sources of their electoral support during their rise to power, farmers benefitted under the Nazis. The Hereditary Farm Law of 1933 prevented farms from being repossessed from their owners, which gave farming families greater security. By 1937, agricultural prices had increased by 20 per cent and agricultural wages rose more quickly than those in industry. However, historians do disagree somewhat about the levels to which life in rural regions improved under the Nazis not all of their promises were met.
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How Hitler Tackled Unemployment And Revived Germany’s
It created 42 new agencies designed to create jobs, allow unionization, and provide unemployment insurance. They help safeguard the economy and prevent another depression. Many argue that World War II, not the New Deal, ended the Depression. However, if FDR had spent as much on the New Deal as he did during the War, it would have ended the. Strict control over prices and wages so to prevent inflation. However the strict control over prices and wages helped to prevent any major inflation. He had improved the economy and reduced unemplyment- however had not suceeded in the aim of rearmament and preparing Germany for war. Subsequently, Schacht resigned in 1937 and althoough Walthar. The learned professor stated that ”Hitler reduced the unemployment rate to 1 percent by 1936 without significant increases in rearmament.”. I am quite certain that we too, in the United States.
What Happened After Kristallnacht
The Jews were blamed for having provoked the attacks and this was used as an excuse to increase further persecution against them.
Hitler decreed the following:
- Jews were fined one billion Reichmarks as compensation for the damage caused.
- Jews were no longer allowed to own or manage businesses, shops or employ workers.
- Jewish children were no longer allowed to attend Aryan schools.
Further persecution continued in 1939.
The Reich Office for Jewish Emigration was created with Reinhard Heydrich as its director.
The responsibility for driving the Jewish people out of Germany became the responsibility of the SS by forced emigration.
The following months saw the following measures put into place to drive the Jewish people out of Germany:
- Jews were required to surrender precious belongings such as metals and jewellery.
- On 30th April, Jews were evicted from their homes and forced into designated Jewish accommodations or ghettos.
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Measures To Reduce Unemployment
Unemployment was a major problem in Germany, with at least 6 million Germans unemployed. During the 1932-33 election campaigns Hitler had promised the people Work and Bread. Hitlers intentions:
The person responsible for implementing these ideas was financial expert and President of the Reichsbank, Hjalmar Schacht.
He was sacked in 1936, and Herman Goering replaced him, with the Four Year Plan .
The Boycott Of Jewish Shops
Upon becoming Chancellor, Hitler began to take incremental steps against the Jewish people of Germany.
Germans were persuaded through propaganda to boycott Jewish shops and businesses.
The boycott was a reaction to the stories in the international press which heavily criticised the Nazi regime.
The Nazis claimed these stories were instigated by Jews living abroad and in control of the press.
On Saturday 1st April 1933, the boycott of Jewish shops began and lasted only this day.
Members of the SA stood outside Jewish shops, department stores and other Jewish owned businesses to try and discourage entry from customers.
The image above shows members of the SA holding signs that read Germans! defend yourself! dont buy from Jews!
The SA painted a Star of David outside many of the businesses doors and windows and the Police were somewhat complicit as they did not intervene even when there were acts of violence.
Most Germans ignored the boycott and as it occurred on a Saturday, the Jewish day of Sabbath, many Jewish shops were closed.
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Nazi Germany: Aims And Results Of Policies Flashcards
Unemployment went from 8.5 percent in 1929 to 14 percent in 1930, to 21.9 percent in 1931, and, at its peak, to 29.9 percent in 1932. This was partly owing to Hitler’s rearmament policy, but. The experiments created jobs but did not reduce the amount of imported goods. 1. 2. 3. In your own words explain how rearmament and increasing the size of the German Army would help Why is the apparent drop in unemployment deceiving? What was the primary cause for the fall in unemployment? How did Hitler pursue his goal of a self. By January 1933, unemployment had reached 6,000,000. No one would loan Germany any money and the Weimar Government couldn’t do anything to help the unemployed. Hitler was elected on a promise to give the German people ‘Bread & Jobs.’ Germany 1933 LO: Evaluate how effective Nazi economic policies were between 1933-1939 6 Other countries were conscripting to reduce unemployment. 11. Cost Rearmament meant high taxes, which made democratic leaders unpopular. 12. League of Nations Many people believed in the League, and that quarrels could be ended by negotiation. 13. Moralit Ramsay MacDonald was the ambitious, illegitimate son of a farm labourer who became the first Labour prime minister. Lady Margaret Sackville was the youngest child of the seventh Earl de la Warr, a poet and a society beauty who became his lover. They were separated not only by class but by religion
Why Is Full Employment Bad
When the economy is at full employment that increases the competition between companies to find employees. This can be very good for individuals but bad for the economy over time. If wages increase on an international scale, the costs of goods and services would increase as well to match the salaries of employees.
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Unemployment In Nazi Germany
After the First World War Germany suffered from inflation. In January, 1921, there were 64 marks to the dollar. By November, 1923 this had changed to 4,200,000,000,000 marks to the dollar.
Some politicians in the United States and Britain began to realize that the terms of the Versailles Treaty had been too harsh and in April 1924 Charles Dawes presented a report on German economic problems to the Allied Reparations Committee. The report proposed a plan for regulating annual payments of reparations and the reorganizing the German State Bank so as to stabilize the currency. Promises were also made to provide Germany with foreign loans.
These policies were successful and by the end of 1924 inflation had been brought under control and the economy began to improve. By 1928 unemployment had fallen to 8.4 per cent of the workforce. The German people gradually gained a new faith in their democratic system and began to find the extremist solutions proposed by people such as Adolf Hitler unattractive.
The fortunes of the National Socialist German Workers Party changed with the Wall Street Crash in October 1929. Desperate for capital, the United States began to recall loans from Europe. One of the consequences of this was a rapid increase in unemployment. Germany, whose economy relied heavily on investment from the United States, suffered more than any other country in Europe.
The Global Great Depression
The United States was a central part of the international economic system, and its national economic disaster could not be contained. It spread across the globe. It hit particularly hard in Europe where multiple nations were indebted to the United States. During World War I, the Allies had bought a great deal of military weapons and products using loans from the United States. When the United States called for those loans to be repaid to stabilize its own economy, it threw foreign economies into economic depression as well.
In Germany, depression hit in a different but no less powerful way. The new Weimar Republic had weathered a period of intense inflation in the 1920s due to reparations required by the Versailles Treaty. Rather than tax German citizens to pay the reparations, Germany borrowed millions of dollars from the United States and went further into debt. American demands for loan repayment had disastrous repercussions for an already fragile German economy, with banks failing and unemployment rising. As in the United States, the Weimar Republic decided to cut spending rather than increase it to spur the economy, further worsening the situation.
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Hiding The Level Of Unemployment
- Level:
The economic crash of 1929 to 1933, caused huge rises in unemployment, and the Nazis were popular throughout the crash by promising that there would be large amounts of jobs for people. When the Nazis were in power, they provided jobs for the people. However, the Nazis did hide levels of unemployment in Germany.
One such way in which the Nazis hid unemployment was through the armed forces and the war economy. The war economy meant that factories needed to have large numbers of staff to produce the huge numbers of weapons which were required. In addition to this the Nazis recruited many in the armed forces. In normal economic circumstances, these roles would not have existed. The Nazis also recruited many into Nazi paramilitary organisations such as the SS and Gestapo, had the totalitarian state not been in existence, thee role would not be needed.
Another was in which the Nazis hid the levels of unemployment was through exclusions and arrests. Women and Jews were excluded from the unemployment figures, which reduced the figures significantly, and the thousands of people in concentration camps did not count in the figures either.
What Was Life Like 1933
Economic hardship caused family breakdowns. The national suicide rate rose to an all-time high in 1933. Many of these were teens who felt they had become a burden on their families and left home in search of work. Riding the railsillegally hopping on freight trainsbecame a common, yet dangerous way to travel.
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How Did The Nazis Reduce Unemployment
In six years Hitler reduced unemployment from 6 million to 0. How did he do it?
- onscription was introduced in 1935 and all young men aged 18-25 had to do 2 years military service.
- New tanks, aeroplanes, guns and battleships were ordered. Industries of all kinds, especially steel, boomed and millions of jobs were created to build these weapons.
- All men aged 18-25 did 6 months in the National Labour Service . They worked on public works schemes such as those building new motorways , schools, hospitals and houses. Members were given food and lodging, but only paid pocket money. In July 1933 membership of RAD became compulsory. It was like being in the army all men had to wear military uniform and live in camps.
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The Nuremberg Laws 1935
On 15th September 1935, two new laws were passed by the Nazi government at their annual Reich Party Congress in Nuremberg.
These two laws were known as the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law to Protect German Blood and Honour.
These would later be known as the Nuremberg Laws.
The Reich Citizenship Law decreed that only those of German blood could be German citizens.
Jewish people subsequently lost their citizenship, their right to vote and hold government office.
As the Nazis had removed their legal rights, they had effectively been pushed to the edges of society.
The Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour forbade marriage or sexual relations between Jews and German citizens.
In reality, very few did so.
Only a national of Germany or similar blood, who proves by his behaviour that he is willing and able loyally to serve the German people and Reich is a citizen of the Reich. A Jew may not be a citizen of the Reich. He has no vote. He may not hold any public office.
The Reich Citizenship Law, 1935
Privatization And Business Ties
The Great Depression had spurred increased state ownership in most Western capitalist countries. This also took place in Germany during the last years of the Weimar Republic. However, after the Nazis took power, industries were privatized en masse. Several banks, shipyards, railway lines, shipping lines, welfare organizations, and more were privatized. The Nazi government took the stance that enterprises should be in private hands wherever possible. State ownership was to be avoided unless it was absolutely necessary for rearmament or the war effort, and even in those cases âthe Reich often insisted on the inclusion in the contract of an option clause according to which the private firm operating the plant was entitled to purchase it.â However, the privatization was “applied within a framework of increasing control of the state over the whole economy through regulation and political interference,” as laid out in the 1933 Act for the Formation of Compulsory Cartels, which gave the government a role in regulating and controlling the cartels that had been earlier formed in the Weimar Republic under the Cartel Act of 1923. These had mostly regulated themselves from 1923 to 1933.
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How Did Hitler Improve German Economy
4.5/5HitlerGermanyimprovingeconomyabout it here
Germany After the WarIndustrial output was down by a third. The country’s housing stock was reduced by 20%. Food production was half the level it was before the start of the war. After the war, the Allies continued this food rationing policy and limited the population to between 1,000 to 1,500 calories per day.
Subsequently, question is, why is Germany so economically successful? German workers were simply willing to work fewer hours, knowing that they would keep their jobs because of it. They were all the more willing to do so due to the stronger bond that exists between workers and employers compared with many other countries.
Keeping this in consideration, how did Hitler rebuild Germany?
On March 16, 1935, Adolf Hitler announced that he would rearm Germany in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler revealed that Germany had begun to construct an air force, and unveiled plans to reinstitute conscription and create a German army of more than half a million men.
How did Hitler reduce unemployment in Germany?
The use of oil, iron and steel all tripled, creating a variety of different jobs. Hitler passed the Unemployment Relief Act in June 1933. This helped establish an important organisation, the National Labour Service ) which aimed to reduce unemployment and indoctrinate the workforce.
