26/01/2016

  History  Essay   Nirantar  Yakthumba  

 
How were economic circumstances and pertaining policies adopted by Nazi Germany
influential on the declaration of the Second World War?

The role of the economic circumstances of Nazi Germany can be argued in terms of
its practice as a cause of the Second World War. There are many angles through which it can
be assessed, among them some of those that provide thorough historical context can be
defined as: the deficiency of economic means and the policies adopted by the Nazi Party as a
means of compensation.

Historian T. Mason states the creation of a “flight into war” (Mason p780-781) in
1939 due to tensing economic condition during the 1930’s. Mason formulates his opinion
around two points of historical focus: primarily, an unreliable recovery plan for the German
economy, which was eventually destructively coupled with an unaffordable rearmament
plan, and resultantly an ensuing domestic crisis due to overpowering economic strain that
eventually restricted all options for Germany but to launch war (Mason p780-781). There is
an abundance of common historical evidence to support this claim. The set-up for the
economic strain began when WWI ended, German loss and the Treaty of Versailles imposed
policies on Germany that resulted in a period of hyperinflation in Germany during the
1920’s. As a following disaster: The Wall Street Crisis in 1929 led to German economic
collapse as the Western-bloc underwent the Great Depression and large-scale
unemployment. In 1934: H. Schnacht: Minister of Economics of the Reich formulated the
Mefo Bills which served the purpose of allowing the Reich the right to rearmament without
the sole expenditure of Reichmarks but also with Mefo Bills. Throughout 1933-1939, while
the gross revenue summed up to 62 billion marks, the expenditure rose above 100, leading to
a huge deficit and national debt: occurring just before the outbreak of war as Mason argues.

Furthermore, Mason postulates that the “flight into war” was propelled by solely
internal political pressure, i.e. economic circumstance and not out of primary Nazi
preference additionally equating the notion that the Nazi’s feared 1918’s November
Revolution and its occurrence in Nazi Germany if the quality of life of the working class
fell: they would go to a war of expansion to avoid such a scenario (Kershaw p88, Kaillis
p165-166). In the 1933, Hitler was appointed as Chancellor and he established Nazi
Germany as an autarky: as a result the German agricultural economy saw a boost due to
tariff placements on related imports, general unemployment due to the Great Depression was
overcome, and wages boosted by 10.9%. However, this nationalisation meant that
international trade would be ceased, leading to a shortage of resources and supply rationing
by the general public resulted in a gradual drop in the quality of life of the public. During the
1930’s H. Schnacht highlighted the prime gravity of rearmament and militarisation, a
successful emphasis which heavily compensated agricultural and consumer-related
productions which resultantly also compensated the quality of life of the citizens further. In
1936, expenditure on militarisation was 10% of the G.N.P. — the highest in all of Europe —
exceeding the expenditure on civilians. The state intervention in economy, Nazi rearmament
policies, and state economic ‘stabilisation’ policies: i.e. full employment, led to a striking
25% drop in wages by 1938. Tax rates obtained a maximum of 98% of all profits and
severely inhibited private firms. By 1939, it was evident that Hitler had to declare a war of
expansion if no more civilians’ living standards were to be compensated by the state to be
able to sustain Nazi Germany by plundering what Germany would go to annex (Kaillis
p166). Mason states that Hitler’s signing of the German-Soviet Non Aggression Pact and the
expansion decision to occupy Poland even if it meant war with Britain and France indicates
a forced move on Hitler’s part as an apparent, forced change of his desired foreign policy
26/01/2016   History  Essay   Nirantar  Yakthumba  
 
structures adumbrated in Mein Kampf due to the necessity to prevent German economy from
collapsing and hence also the lives of his civilians through ‘plundering’ territories seized as
compensation (Kaillis p165-166).

As a counterpart to Mason, Historian R. Primarily, Overy argues against that even if

economic pressures were apparent in 1939, these tensions are not nearly enough to be able to
define the sole reason for why Germany launched its war of expansion against Poland and
states that it is in fact due to the decisions taken by Nazi leadership (Mason and Overy
p102). Overy faults Mason on his reasoning that national economic pressures as a result of
the clauses of the Four-Year Plan and the decision to boost national economy and the
process of the Plan were different concepts altogether (Overy p117-118). Overy also states
that Mason doesn’t take into consideration the magnitude oppressive quality of the Nazi
regime pertaining to the living standards of civilians, a highlight characteristic of the rule
itself (Mason and Overy p102). As a conclusive argument, Overy also establishes the
confidence of Nazis regarding their militarisation program and the amount of consistent
evidence of economic policy that would establish said confidence on the economic factor of
militarisation during the Nazi rule: i.e. consistent militarisation until war and expectedly
consistent of stronger militarisation policies such as the Mefo Bills and the Four-Year Plan
(Overy p108). As a more conclusive follow up on the counterargument, Historian A. Tooze
contributes to the argument saying that Nazi Germany had grown dependent on Soviet
imports after 1939 which could be a very possible reason to Nazi Germany launching war on
the USSR as to not have any dependence on the USSR that “Britain now occupied in
relation to the United States” (Tooze p420-422). This clearly suggests that Nazi ideology
came before the economy, the economy was probably considered less than penultimate by
Nazi Germany. This is strengthened by Hitler’s outlining of the unimportance of economy
as he began to rise in power, a possible clause that the Nazi party constantly stood by:
“World history teaches us that no person has become great through its economy but that a
person can very well perish thereby” and concluding that “the economy is something of
secondary importance” (Hitler 1922). It is of interest to notice that Nazi economic policies
were primarily always centred around militarisation, the matter of civilians depended on the
economic circumstance: i.e. in the 1920’s it was given importance and saw gain as per
evidence provided previously, however in the 1930’s as economic pressure grew and the
Four-Year Plan of 1936 demanded preparation within 4 years, civilians’ living quality was
easily compensated and almost disregarded.

Through arguments by Mason one could state that economic factors played the largest or
even the sole role in the decision to go to war by the German front, and on the contrary,
arguments by Overy and Tooze provide an insight into a possible bias by Mason and regard
the decision not solely decided by economic factors but also as almost pure ideological
exercises by the Nazis as they approached militaristic readiness. In conclusion, we could
extract from the evident historical context that Nazi Germany launched war in 1939
primarily out of economic strains but also due to the launch being partially — even if not
perfectly — in favour with their central agenda of superiority and domination.
26/01/2016   History  Essay   Nirantar  Yakthumba  
 

Bibliography  
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Mason,  Tim;  Overy,  Richard.  The  Origins  of  The  Second  World  War.  London:  Edward  
Arnold,  1997.  
Overy,  Richard.  The  Third  Reich.  Ed.  Christian  Leitz  Blackwell.  1st  Edition.  Oxford:  
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Perry,  Matt.  The  Encyclopedia  of  Historians  and  Historical  Writing.  Ed.  Kelly  Boyd.  Vol.  
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Tooze,  Adam.  The  Wages  of  Destruction:  The  Making  and  Breaking  of  the  Nazi  Economy.  
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