Notesale: Turn your study into money

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How far did Nazi economic policies improve the lives of the German people between 1933
and 1945?
The success of the Nazis economic policy is often viewed in two different lights
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However life is rarely so black and white and I shall
be exploring both the successes and failures of the Nazi economic policy
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Germany hadn’t
recovered from the First World War
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There had been
hyperinflation which meant that the German people struggled to buy basic necessities
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He promised that if he was appointed chancellor, he would bring an end to
unemployment
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He had no clear ideas to fix the
economy but had many economic goals, such as reducing the levels of unemployment and
preventing a repeat of the hyperinflation of 1923
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This meant that all the wages were fixed by the government in an effort to prevent
a repeat of hyperinflation
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Why work hard
if it would not affect your pay? Hitler used the memories of hyperinflation to his advantage
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There was little chance of a repeat of hyperinflation but he continued to use the fear
to his advantage
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One month later trade unions were banned
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In September the work on the autobahns (motorways) started
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It was also an odd choice as few Germans owned cars
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In November a worker described his new working life compared to being
on the dole as “that was a lot better than what I am doing now
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Source B has a very different view of the work creation schemes
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This was an attempt at motivating the workers and showing that Hitler was just
one of the people
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One
worker describes his job as ‘shovelling dirt’ and mentions that his wages are extremely low
(‘51 Pfennigs an hour’) which shows that although jobs were created, many jobs were
poorly paid and had poor working conditions
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However this source may not be entirely reliable as the

book was published in 1988 and the conversation was overheard in 1936
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Source B is possibly even more
unreliable as it is obviously a photo taken for the purpose of propaganda
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The Nazis also
introduced Strength through Joy (KDF) and the Beauty of Labour (SDA)
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However a
large part of these schemes’ success was due to propaganda as shown in source I
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It shows people lying on deckchairs but few Germans
actually went on the cruise ships leading to rumours that they were just for the elite
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This source is propaganda, aimed to show
how far the Nazis were improving everybody’s lives without any proof
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This was part of
rearmament and it gave many young German men jobs
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The main aims of the plans
were to achieve autarky and to make sure that the German economy was ready for war in 4
years’ time
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This meant that imports were reduced
and factories that used to make public commodities now made guns and armoured vehicles
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It is Nazi propaganda referring to the fact
that there was a sacrificing of consumer goods for the sake of rearmament whilst source F is
a quote by David Lloyd George, published a short time after, describing how he thought that
Hitler had ‘achieved a marvellous transformation in the spirit of the people’
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This suggests that the German people were being kept in the dark about the truth
of the economic situation
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Because of this, they gave farmers high priority but many
disliked the new policies
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This new law was made to preserve Germany’s medium size farms by making
sure they could not be sold and to prevent famers from getting into debt
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This prevented farms from reaching their full potential which was one of the factors
influencing the food shortages in later years
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Combined
with the fact that certain labour saving machines were banned to reduce unemployment,
this meant that there was a shortage of workers
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At the same time Darre also issued the ‘Reich Food Estate’
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Although this meant that all stocks
were guaranteed to be sold, it also eliminated competition
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However there were benefits to the Nazi policy
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Luise Essig, a farmworker, described the harvest festivals, in Source K, like so: ‘we
all felt the same happiness and joy
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It kept famers happy and encouraged
them not leave to go to the city
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’ This suggests that farmers liked Hitler despite his
policies
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’ By making farmers
feel important for the success of Germany Hitler managed to reduce the retaliation against
new policies
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The working class benefited from the rapid drop in unemployment but it was by no means
perfect
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The
ban on labour saving machinery meant that some workers were doing jobs that could be
easily done by machines
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Due to their (often) low wages the standard of living dropped
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However there were
benefits to having increased government interference, one of these was the fact that
employers had to seek government permission before reducing the size of the work force
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However to the factory owners and employers it was another government policy that made
their job harder
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Also the KDF was funded through yet another set of compulsory wage deductions
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This lead to Hitler introducing a scheme which meant every German could own an
affordable, practical car- the Volkswagen Beetle
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This scheme had two main focuses, creating jobs in
factories and showing the Germans how much better off they were
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All of the above show that in actual fact life did not improve for the
working class Germans
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Between 1927 and
1937 the average consumption of beer dropped by almost 60%
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This suggests that although the majority of Germans now had jobs their lives
had not actually improved much
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One policy Hitler
created to help small businesses was to ban hairdressers in department stores
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Some small business owners profited from rearmament
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However many struggled especially after the
four year plan came into effect
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However the Aryanisation programme enabled some business
owners and retailers to take over jobs from their Jewish rivals
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However it also reduced competition among small businesses
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Many middle class
people also resented the fact that there was an increase in state interference and higher
taxes
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Women were dismissed from their jobs and encouraged to stay at home and raise their
children
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Although this seems both radical and
offensive today, the women did not protest
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In
fact he saw women as an essential part of creating the new Aryan Germany
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This meant that women didn’t feel guilty for staying at home as it
was an important job and left their jobs willingly
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Another policy Hitler introduced was the mothers’
cross, an award women got for having a certain number of children
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They felt valued and an important part of helping to create a better Germany
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However just because they may have been happy it didn’t necessarily mean that their lives
had improved as they were still being exploited
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They were
valued and treated like queens yet they lost many of their rights they had gained in the
Stresemann years as well as most of their jobs
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The sheer amount of propaganda
and meaningless rewards like the mother’s cross prevented them from realising this
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This gave mothers and incentive to have
children and made the feel like they were helping their country
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For the young people of Germany life radically changed after the Nazis came to power
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Later women had to work as well in

teaching and domestic services
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They had no choice in taking part in the RAD which oppressed
them
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Whilst this created many jobs, plenty of
young men didn’t want to join the army
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Although strictly not an economic policy, the
sheer amount of propaganda forced upon the children and teenagers at school shows why
very few of them stood up to the Nazis or questioned their ideology
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Hitler
ordered a one day boycott of all Jewish shops
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This was the start of the
Nazis war against the Jews and many other minorities that lead to many of them losing their
jobs and some fleeing the country
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Many Jewish businesses were sold for extremely low prices to Germans
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As they were not officially unemployed they could not
receive any state benefits
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There were international factors and
unemployment in all European countries fell
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However many economic experts believe that
using public money to create jobs doesn’t actually bring any long term economic benefits
and can cause inflation
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Women who were now housewives, Jews, Slavs etc
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This is shown in source D were a historian
describes the ‘one and a half million invisible unemployed’ describing how women and Jews
were not officially unemployed
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It showed that between 1932 and 1939 nearly all of the counties in the table
experienced a fall in unemployment
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It is
also a much more reliable source than source D as it is an official document from the League
of Nations rather than the opinions of one man
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Doctoring unemployment statistics was certainly not unique but most
countries did not go so far as Germany
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Due to the amount of
doctored statistics it is hard to work out the exact number of unemployed in Nazi Germany
but they are certainly higher than those the Nazis published
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The freezes were bad however as they lessened the incentive and
performance of workers
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In other words the
dictatorship was essential to Hitler’s success as without it there would be a ‘rise in wages or
prices’
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Another reason why the Nazi economic policy was deemed to be successful was due to the
amount of propaganda
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Everything from newspapers to music
was censored so the public was only ever exposed to positive images of the Nazis
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For example
Source J shows a graphic published by the Nazis in 1934
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The graphic was presented by the Reich Ministry for
Unemployment which means that it may be unreliable
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Surely it is better for people to be happy and poor than sad and poor? However it is
also a sign of exploitation
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This is especially true when propaganda is aimed at children
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Whilst life in Nazi Germany was unpleasant to say the least for those who were Jews,
Gypsies, Communists, homosexuals or Slavs most Germans were none of these
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Although many people thought that they were better
off in Nazi Germany than they were before this is mainly due to propaganda
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Also minority groups such
as the Jews, those that the Nazis didn’t considered true Germans, were considerably worse
off than they had been before
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This lead to many Jews and
other minorities losing their jobs and sometimes they even fled the country
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