Nazi Germany: The Economy Ayah Alnahwi Kais Khoury

Background  Hitler faced three major problems when coming to power:  Industrial Unemployment  Agricultural Stagnation  International Debt  He had promised the people “Work, Freedom and Bread” and he needed to deliver  Long before he came to power Hitler declared economy as unimportant; in 1922 he claimed that “the economy is of secondary importance”.

Hitler’s Views on Economy  Nobody really know Hitler’s views but these are the claims he made about the Economy  Hitler proclaimed to be an enemy of today’s capitalistic economy, and then he claimed to be a socialist, but then said that he doesn’t know what socialism really means, however he condemned communism as a Jewish economic theory but he encouraged private property, later on he said that the government must regulate private property for the good of the people.

Goals  Eliminate unemployment  Increase production of goods to improve lower- and middle- class living standards  Eliminate hyperinflation  Rapid and substantial rearmament  Autarky: economic independence or self-sufficiency

Methods  To eliminate the unemployment and increase production, the Nazi party in 1935 employed many young men to work at weapon-producing factories, and the military.  They eliminated hyper Inflation by signing the “Dawes Plan” in 1923, and then again by signing the “Young Plan” but then both pacts were dramatically affected when the Wall street crash occurred in  In 1935 Hitler made several speeches and started “Rearmament” and said that he would revise the “unjust” terms of the Versailles Treaty, which was the first step to rearmament

Methods (continued)  Jobs were created; men who were part of the National Labor Service were employed to dig ditches, build new autobahns (highways), planting new forests...etc.  The German Labor Front was set up to protect the workers, it took the role of trade unions which had been banned earlier. However working hours increased from hours by 1939, and the average factory worker was earning 10 times more than ever before, therefore few complained (also, because they were under threat of the Gestapo). Strikes were outlawed.  The German government gave many jobs to miners to go to the Ruhr in West Germany to mine iron ores and coal to help them improve their industrialization as well as help them gain an income to improve their nations economy during that time.  To improve the living standards for the lower middle class, Germany sold coal they had mined from the Ruhr and put the money to help gain their machinery and to gain new technology, which then helped create a better living place for the German society.  The Four Year plan: a series of economic reforms to prepare Germany for war in four years. It sought to decrease unemployment, improve infrastructure, and military defense. this was in direct violation of terms set by the Treaty of Versailles.

Methods (continued…)  Herman Goering was put in charge of the Four Year Plan in October 1936, he favored both agricultural and economic independence of Germany. Goering had complete control over the economy, including the private sector. Germany began building refineries, aluminum plants and factories for development of synthetic material.  The four year plan officially expired in 1940, but much of the success of the four year plan was accomplished in the years  The German economy during world war two was based on what they were able to exploit from the territories they had conquered during the war.

Results  in the Nazis succeeded in raising living standards; their GNP went up by approximately 9.5% annually, the rate for industry rose 17.2%  According to the historian Richard Evans, prior to the outbreak of war the German "economy had recovered from the Depression faster than its counterparts in other countries”.  In 1919, Anton Drexler (political advisor in early days of the party), Gottfried Feder (Hitler’s mentor in finance and economics, inspiration for Hitler’s opposition to “Jewish finance capitalism”) and Dietrich Eckart (drug addict) formed the German Worker Party in Munich, and by doing so they helped create jobs for unemployed German People  The unemployment figures went from 6million in 1933 to 300,000 in 1939  Government spending had gone from 12billion Reichsmarks in 1928 to 30billion Reichsmarks in 1939.

Works Cited     Lee, Stephen J. (1996), Weimar and Nazi Germany, Harcourt Heinemann, page 28  Henry A. Turner, German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler, Oxford University Press, p.62  tm  