Germany and Great Depression

Germany and the Great Depression
Author(s): Dieter Petzina

Source: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 4, No. 4, The Great Depression (Oct., 1969),
pp. 59-74
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/259836
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Germany and the Great
Depression
Dieter Petzina
The world-wide economic crisis of 1929-33 marked the decisive

turning point of the inter-war period. More than any other event
during the years between 1919 and 1939 it affected people's lives
shattered prevailing social structures and the stability of the Euro-
pean and North American industrial societies, and became the
starting point for fundamental political and social upheavals. The
crisis lay not only chronologically between the wars; there was
also a causal relationship between it and the end of the first and the
beginning of the second world war. These causal relationships are
clearer to us today - after an interval of forty years - than they
were then. But even at that time there already existed an awareness
of the epoch-making character of this crisis.
In the following discussion of Germany and the world economic
crisis, no attempt will be made to investigate in detail the causes
and the course of the crisis, which have already been described
many times. Our intention is more modest: to make a few com-
ments on its economic, social, and political effects in Germany,
which were so different, in so sharp and politically dangerous a
manner, from the reactions in other countries.
Outwardly the picture of the crisis in Germany varied little
from that in comparable countries. There were, however, impor-
tant differences in the conditions leading up to the crisis which,
together with other particular factors, explain the different reac
tions of German society compared with those of other countries.
Let us first of all look at some statistics: with the end of inflation
the German economy experienced a relatively steady growth, which
allowed the national income to rise by 25 per cent between 1925
and 1928. But already in I929 the national income had stagnated
59
CONTEMPORARY HISTORY
at 71 billion RM, and by 1932 it had sunk by no less than

cent to 41 billion.1
The decline in the gross national product was slightly l
cause of the relatively stable yield from indirect taxation (
of Briining's fiscal measures), but nevertheless spectacular
at 37 per cent. The figures for individual economic fields only
firm to a greater or lesser degree the development of th
national yield. The production index for industry had su
1932-3 to half of what it was in 1927-8, and in the parti
sensitive sector of capital goods, to a third. Whatever sec
examine, we see the picture of a crisis without parallel
history of industrial capitalism. Its most extreme expressi
counterpart of falling production, was the sharp increase
employment: at the peak of the crisis, in 1932, the official Ge
statistics showed 6 million unemployed. The actual figu
considerably higher because many people who were witho
after years of unemployment no longer received support an
no longer included in statistical records. We shall not go far w
if we assume that in 1932 one in every three of the working p
tion had no job. And even those who still retained their jo
under constant threat of dismissal because everyone was r
able; there were vast numbers of competitors ready to tak
place, and thus their whole existence was threatened.
These facts indicate that Germany, together with the U
States, was the hardest hit by the crisis, which in both co
became particularly acute through the combination of va
mutually intensifying causes, after both had experien
economic boom lasting several years which had supp
awareness of the crisis-prone character of the economic
After the first world war structural changes in the system
private economy reinforced the effects of the trade cycle
conditioned by the cyclical movements of stocks, the rate
vestment, and consumer demand - had been a charact
feature of the capitalist economy. These changes gave
which had been regarded as 'normal' and 'inherently self-c
tive', a direction which observant contemporaries could se
1 Cf. Dietmar Keese, 'Die volkswirtschaftlichen Gesamtgrossen

Deutsche Reich in den Jahren I925-I936', in Werner Conze and Hans
Die Staats- und Wirtschaftskrise des Deutschen Reichs 1929-33 (Stuttga
35 ff.
60
GERMANY AND THE GREAT DEPRESSION
end in the breakdown of the whole system. Among ot

the system's loss of flexibility should be mentioned, d
polization of production and distribution, the increas
of prices and wages, the gradual destruction of the li
system of commerce and currency through the estab
tariffs and trade restrictions, changes within the inner s
firms, expressed above all in the wave of rationalization d
twenties. The result formed the decisive economic denominator
of the crisis: a structural deficit in demand, something which,
according to the liberal economic philosophy, was just not possible.
It was the formal expression of the fact of surpluses in production
over demand and purchasing power which tipped the balance to
millions of unemployed.
The crisis assumed the same form and character in the United
States, Belgium, or Switzerland as in Germany, but in the latter
case there were in addition special conditions, arising from the
war and its consequences, which made the economy more sus-
ceptible. Here too we must limit ourselves to simple enumeration:
on the one hand reparation payments hampered the development
of an autonomous policy to combat the crisis (as in fact happened
under Briining, though they need not have done so); on the other
hand the great inflation of 1920-3, coming after a wartime financial
policy that had speculated on eventually loading the cost of the
war onto defeated opponents, undermined the capacity and the
will to save and limited the domestic accumulation of capital, thus
aggravating a difficulty from which Germany had suffered since
I918; this is one explanation of the circumstance that public as
well as private undertakings resorted more and more to foreign
capital after I920, which led in Germany in 1930-2 to the special
crisis in the banking system and to the aggravation of the general
crisis. This bank crisis, which had no parallel in other western
countries, must be briefly described because of its particular role
in the course that the world crisis took in Germany.
Its starting point was the destruction of the private capital with
which the merchant banks operated by the decline in private
fortunes as a result of the inflation of I920-3. As the banks had no
possibility of balancing their losses by domestic deposits, they
took the easy way out and from 1924 imported foreign capital
readily offered by the United States. These imports were without
doubt an important factor in the country's quick economic
6I
recovery, but the conditions on which this capital w

carried within them the seeds of a crisis long before
part, about half of the capital of 20-6 billion Marks
streamed into Germany up till I93I, was lent on s
whereas German banks as a rule gave long-term loans.
the boom trend continued this did not matter too muc
the slightest loss of confidence on the part of the foreign
in the German economy or in its political situation w
have dangerous consequences. This constellation cam
1929-30. After 'Black Friday' on the New York stock
the stream of capital from the United States to Germa
dry up and the capital that had been lent began to b
Then, when in the Reichstag elections of Septemb
national socialist vote increased tenfold, the second gr
calling in capital took place; in the summer of 1931 -
tacular bank collapses in neighbouring Austria - the
rose to its peak.2 One of the biggest German banks,
stadter und Nationalbank, declared itself insolvent; da
50 to IOO million Marks had to be paid out until, in
week of July I931, it was only by legislation enforci
holiday that a general collapse of the credit syste
averted.
A fateful reciprocal action arose between the credit
the general economic crisis, which further accelerate
lapse of the economy. If we bear in mind that almost half
deposits in the big German banks came from abro
grasp the serious nature of this bank crisis, which reveals
plary fashion the connection between inflation, repara
loans, and the world economic crisis, a connection tha
the most outstanding characteristics of the state of
Germany in 1930-2.
The factors in the crisis which have so far been mentioned concern
only the industrial and complementary sectors of the economy.
Hardly less important for the profile of the German economic
crisis, however, were the developments in agriculture. As in indus-
2 On the bank crisis see Karl Erich Born, Die deutsche Bankenkrise 193I
(Munich, I967).
3 Stolper, Hauser, Borhardt, Deutsche Wirtschaft seit I870 (second ed.
Tiibingen, I966), I32.
62
try, here too the crisis in Germany was only part of the w
crisis, whose causes are to be found in the marked expansio
agricultural sector during the first world war. The result w
in international price levels which hit the German farm
cularly hard because of their unavoidably high product
In 1930-3, for example, the grower received for his rye 23
less than in the years 1925-8; for barley the correspond
was 19 per cent, for wheat io per cent.4 The proceeds o
I932-3 amounted to only 62 per cent of those in I92
sonal incomes sank accordingly, while debt rapidly inc
that finally it came, often enough, to bankruptcy sales
alone an area of I77,000 hectares was under compuls
producing an effect hardly less great than that of unemplo
industry.
It was not, however, the visible material hardship revealed by
these statistics which distinguished Germany from France or the
United States. The difference lay in the social weight and socio-
logical character of those who were hit the hardest, the big land-
owners in the so-called 'rye belt' in the east of the Reich. Here, in
contrast to the western democracies, large-scale agriculture had a
dominant political role. Because of the powerful influence of the
Prussian Junker - symbolized by the figure of Reichsprasident
von Hindenburg - any far-reaching economic measures which
worked against German agriculture became a political threat to the
republican regime. So an economic problem, which governments
elsewhere sought to solve through political-economic means, be-
came in Germany a question of the survival of democracy - but
it was by no means the only factor endangering the republican
regime.
The world economic crisis in its particular German manifesta-
tion had an increasingly powerful effect between I929 and 1933 on
the political scene, on power relationships within society, on the
behaviour of individual citizens as well as on government policies.
The internal political situation was characterized on the one hand
by the rapid growth of the right-wing anti-democratic forces
whose breakthrough into a mass movement was made possible by
the impoverishment of millions, and on the other by the decline
4 Cf. W. G. Hoffmann, Das Wachstum der deutschen Wirtschaft seit der Mitte
des I9 Jahrhunderts (Berlin, I965), 544.
5 Cf. Statistisches Handbuch von Deutschland I928-1944 (Munich, I949), 607.
63
and deformation of the parliamentary system and the tran

the politics of presidential cabinets and emergency laws
could do nothing to halt the growing crisis. Economic h
gradually produced and merged with the helplessness of
cratic system, establishing a cause and effect relationsh
the crisis and the fall of the Weimar Republic.
Leaving Hitler aside, there were four cabinets which
highest political responsibility in Germany during the
the coalition government led by the social democrats un
man Miiller, Briining's cabinet, and the governments of
Schleicher. The formation of the coalition governmen
1928 brought to an end the period of conservative coalition
had lasted for several years, and the political prospect
social democrats seemed much more favourable than d
first five years of the Republic: the Left had won a strikin
in the 1928 elections, the political situation at home see
stable than ever, thanks to Stresemann's skilful foreign
Reich had now become a respected international par
more, and the German economy had reached a new pr
peak. The most important questions facing this governm
concerned with foreign affairs; at home it was anxious t
the status quo, for, given the balance of political forces, an
social change envisaged by the socialist majority was o
question. The relative stability of the year 1928, howe
camouflaged the fragile nature of the parliamentary system
structural weaknesses lay less in the questions arising
provisions of the constitution than in the attitude of h
difference with which a large section of the population
democratic institutions. The political compromise betw
social democrats and the representatives of big busines
banks in the Deutsche Volkspartei was tenable only so
flourishing economy managed to conceal the antagonism
the classes.
The first signs of crisis began to appear in the German economy in

I929: the national product stagnated, investment in industry sank
by a quarter of what it had been in I928, and unemployment was
on average 35 per cent higher; public revenues showed a declining
trend in the second half of the year, and stagnated in relation to the
preceding year, whereas in the preceding three years they had
64
increased by between 10 and 15 per cent.6 The gover

suddenly faced by the question, who should bear
meeting the threatening financial crisis - a question t
view of the conflicting interests of big industry and t
it would be very difficult to find a compromise solution.
ment came under heavy pressure from the Reichsbank
banks on account of a budget deficit at the end of I929
danger of being unable to act, especially as the big ind
working through the Deutsche Volkspartei, were dem
purely bourgeois government which would agree to th
for lower taxes. The dispute over the raising of contr
unemployment insurance was only the occasion for, n
of, the collapse of the Miiller government. Behind it
tensification of the class struggle, the question who shoul
consequences of the financial and economic crisis, and
the fact that the social forces represented by the coali
were no longer willing to keep the parliamentary sy
tioning. As the next Chancellor, under pressure from c
circles, depended less on the confidence of parliament
support of the President and the pressure groups out
ment, the crisis in the coalition in March 1930 develo
crisis of the Republic.
The policies of the Briining government further str
the traditionally powerful influence of the aristocra
army. At the same time industry and the banks w
political predominance, clearly reflected in Briining's
and financial policies. The state power 'above the p
Hindenburg and Schleicher strove to establish me
the victory of the conservative-bourgeois groups ove
The cabinet reshuffle in 1931 showed this clearly
demonstration by the right-wing bourgeoisie and the
owners that they were going to solve the problems arising
political and economic crisis by methods which su
the Deutschnational President of the Reichslandbu
senting the interests of the agrarians, became minist
culture; the minister of finance Moldenhauer (asso
I. G. Farben), who had succeeded the social democrat
in 1929, remained in office, the Reichswehr was repr
General Groener, and the leader of the Volkskons
6 Cf .W.G. Hoffmann, op. cit., 80o.
Treviranus, represented the right wing of the bourgeo

all its anti-parliamentary and anti-socialist section. The
programme of this government, now set so firmly on a co
course, corresponded in its main points with the crisis p
put forward in December I929 by the German industr
memorandum entitled 'Rise or Fall ?' It proposed the 'e
ment of capital accumulation', the reduction of taxes on pr
and the 'removal of uneconomic obstacles', that is, cut
social expenditure. The industrialists demanded par
urgently higher indirect taxation - which is borne mai
mass of the workers - and at the same time lower taxes on
and on capital. All these demands had already been acc
principle by the Miiller government by the end of 19
financial programme of 12 December I929 the employer
be allowed tax reductions of 1345 million RM, and
demands were to be taken into account. It was this surrender to
industry that led to Hilferding's resignation, and finally to the
break up of the coalition in March I930.
Briining's programme was designed both to discharge political

obligations to the agrarians by providing for higher duties on
agricultural imports, and to meet the industrialists' wishes for a
reduction in expenditure on social services and for higher taxes on
consumption. However, he did not succeed in getting a parlia-
mentary majority for his programme when it was presented in
July I930, and so the policy of government by decree and the
elimination of parliamentary control was finally introduced.
Briining, who had long been convinced that the parliamentary
system was only a hindrance to the solution of the problems posed
by the crisis, and who had been selected by Schleicher and
Hindenburg as Chancellor with the intention of making the work
of government independent of parliament, reacted to this defeat
by dissolving the Reichstag.
The programme, in which the most important elements were
the reduction of state expenditure and a consistent policy of
deflation, was promulgated by decree under article 48 of the con-
stitution. But neither these measures, nor those on similar lines
taken during the two following years, really grappled with the
crisis. On the contrary, the more rigorously Briining cut the budget,
reduced mass purchasing power by special taxes, lowered incomes,
66
and made cuts in social expenditure, expecting salvatio

solely from balancing the budget and subordinating
policies to reparation policies, the faster the economy and
moved towards collapse.
The warning signal that the crisis was making an imp
political behaviour of the population was provided by
stag elections of September I930. The most important r
the rise of the national socialists from an insignifican
group which had got 2-6 per cent of the vote in 1928, to t
strongest party, with I8-2 per cent of the vote. A brief
this election shows the radical change in the political be
the German people, above all the close connection
political radicalization and economic crisis.7 The heavie
were suffered by the bourgeois-conservative right-win
consisting mainly of the Deutsche Volkspartei and the
nationale Volkspartei. Their share of the vote dropped f
I -8 per cent; they lost half of their voters. The t
reservoir of voters for these parties, the Protestant po
the countryside of north and east Germany, the ol
middle classes of independent artisans, tradesmen, wh
workers and public employees, felt that in face of the thr
economic and social existence the right-wing bourgeois
longer sufficiently represented their interests, and after 1
went over to Hitler's party. The extreme anti-marxism
party cut them off from the working class but at the sam
skilful social demagogy responded to their feeling
threatened by big capital. Ignoring the manifold region
fessional differences in voting behaviour, we can say th
of national socialism was the result of the radicalization
middle classes. It was the old middle class which had lost its
savings in the inflation, and in the process of the growth of cartels
and combines in the economy since 1918 had to accept increasing
encroachments on its economic self-sufficiency and independence.
The members of the new middle class, the white-collar workers,
saw in their turn how their jobs were endangered, first by the wave
of rationalization and then by the crisis, and desperately tried to
preserve their social status by taking refuge in radical politics.
7 For an analysis of these connections see Werer Kaltefleiter, Wirtschaft

und Politik in Deutschland (Cologne, I966).
67
Theodor Geiger8 estimated that this middle class, so s

to national socialism, accounted in 1930 for one third of
population. If we compare this figure with the nation
vote - September 1930: I8.2 per cent; July 1932: 37-3 p
November 1932: 331I per cent - it becomes clear th
managed with increasing success to make the middle c
mass basis of his movement. In the summer of I932, a
of the world economic crisis, the bourgeois parties wer
(1928: 42 per cent; 1932: II per cent). A notable exceptio
Zentrum, the Catholic party of the west and south Germ
bourgeoisie, which was able to hold its percentage of a
Equally, the left wing (social democrats and commu
mained more or less unchanged (1924: 37 per cent; I928
cent; 1930: 38 per cent; July I932: 36 per cent), with th
tion that within the Left a growing shift in favour of
munists was taking place. The Catholic sections of
middle classes in the Rhineland, Westphalia, Upper Sile
Bavaria, as well as the socialist-oriented sections of the
class organized in trade unions, proved themselves mo
immune to national socialism, even though with each e
crumbling away became more noticeable. Briining's po
tween 1930 and I932 can be characterized as a race betw
internal crisis and the solution of the problem of repa
external affairs. The successes won over reparations an
matters concerning foreign affairs were however bought d
so far as they hindered an active policy of dealing with
There are in fact many indications to support the thesi
Briining government attempted to settle the reparation
by means of orthodox financial and economic policie
facing the tasks at home.9 There is however nothing t
that Briining had in his pocket any plans for overcoming t
ready to put into operation once the external questions
dealt with.10
At the end of its period in office, in May I932, the cab
8 Theodor Geiger, Die soziale Schichtung des deutschen Volkes (rep

I932 edition).
9 The thesis of the primacy of foreign policies is particularly stro
sented by W. J. Helbich, Die Reparationen in der lra Briining (Ber
10 This thesis is represented by, amongst others, Werner Conze
tischen Entscheidungen in Deutschland I929-1933, in Conze, Raup
Staats- und Wirtschaftskrise des Deutschen Reichs 1929-1933 (Stuttg
68
presented with decrees that, in addition to carrying on th

tionary course, provided for a modest public works progr
the funds for which were to come mainly from cancellation
state subsidies, amounting altogether to 135 million R
programme - it was taken over and carried out by Papen
1932 - was no more than a gesture that had little practical
cance in face of the million strong army of unemployed. Brii
famous phrase about the 'last Ioo yards before the finishi
lacked any real relevance, at least as regards overcom
crisis. Although it is true that the economy was no long
tracting after the summer of I932, any visible impro
appeared only a year later and the breakthrough to full e
ment was achieved only four years later.
It would be idle to enter into a controversy now about w
Briining's economic decisions derived from calculations re
foreign affairs or from a dogmatic adherence to liberal e
principles which were no longer applicable in view of the pro
monopolization which had taken place over the years. Fina
distribution of power within society, which prevented th
tion of more relevant economic and financial policies, w
sive: only because Briining's policies corresponded w
wishes of the large entrepreneurs for the burdens of the cris
shifted onto the working class, could they be operated f
whole years. The decisions on the emergency decrees wer
fluenced by big businessmen within the cabinet or in in
committees. Even at his fall the influence of these vested inte
remained, though now directed against Briining. Modest at
at land reform in the East mobilized the agrarians, althoug
had never before been so generously subsidized as dur
Briining era. The accusation of 'agrarian bolshevism' beca
occasion for Briining's dismissal; it was not a case of par
losing confidence in the Chancellor; it was the President w
so. Briining, who had done a good deal to undermine W
democracy by his readiness to exclude parliament from d
making, finally fell victim to his own strategy.
What followed Briining was not democracy's swan song b

definite establishment of the authoritarian state apparatus
did not even maintain the fiction of parliamentary demo
decision making. The so-called 'cabinet of experts' under
69
was in reality an alliance of Reichswehr, heavy indu

Junkertum; it was created for the purpose of consolid
rule of the upper classes - without any concessions to th
and small farmers and without control by parliament. T
another reason for the change of government: Hin
Schleicher, and the agrarians were dissatisfied with Br
policies on account of his apparently too 'soft' attitude
the socialists, his opposition to the right-wing para
associations, the Wehrverbdnde, and his agrarian policy,
industrialists were calling for a revision of the econom
pursued up till then. Although it is true that the policy of
had been maintained mainly at the cost of the poorer
became unmistakably clear in I932 that if the state con
refrain from intervention, the economic crisis could
threaten the very existence of the capitalist system, es
the unions as well as the national socialists were ad
expansive state economic policies.
Thus under Papen, and a few months later under
Chancellor, General Schleicher, the policy of 'the thrif
familias' which had been maintained up till then, was m
step by step in favour of stimulating the economy by mean
contracts. Under Papen this policy was, more obviously t
Schleicher (who attempted to achieve a modest opening
the left), connected with measures to deprive employee
rights, for instance by allowing employers to cancel wa
ments. More strongly than Papen, Schleicher believed
promise between workers and employers in the interest
lizing his presidential-cabinet regime, but was no more
Papen to create a broader political basis for his rule. Schl
only came under fire from industry, but through his la
ment plans brought on himself the enmity of the 'Grii
or at least the most influential section of the East Germ
rians, without being able to win the support of the unio
over, he was unable to establish a balance within his ca
tween (export oriented) industry and (autarky oriente
ture. In spite of his cautious withdrawal from Papen's conse
reactionary positions, by January 1933 Schleicher foun
isolated from Hindenburg and from the most powerful elem
society, and had failed in his attempt to split the nation
movement. Heavy industry and the agrarians had by
70
their money on Hitler, who had a stable mass basis and at t

time, despite his apparently anti-capitalist agitation, was
able as the strongest guarantee against 'marxism'. It was
who came out top in the German crisis, ready to solve it in h
way and successful in I933-4 in doing so.
The effects of the crisis were visible mainly in the econo

political fields where they can be measured and describe
this reflects only part of the reality, revealing no more t
rough social outline formed from the indications off
statistics, political data, and social institutions. The impac
lives of individuals and on the smaller social groups, as w
the intellectual climate in German society, is far more dif
evaluate. The difficulties lie partly in the untried met
evaluation, although there is no lack of historical evidenc
following remarks are intended merely to trace some contour
to give a rounded picture of the social-psychological state of a
in Germany in 1930-2.
The material effects of the crisis were very similar fo
workers and for the lower middle class: millions of work
their jobs for years on end; traders and artisans - directly
dent on mass purchasing power - saw their turnover declin
month to month, and farmers could hardly be sure of sup
themselves as prices continued to fall. Their political rea
however, were dissimilar: the workers, at least the skilled
who were members of trade unions, felt themselves confi
the political view of the world which they had acquired fr
left-wing parties and their own unions, according to which
lism was coming to an end and the time was ripe for taki
paths which would lead to socialism. On the other hand m
them, retaining their confidence in social democracy, sup
the Republican regime, unlike the communists for wh
Republic was a reactionary and bourgeois obstacle to the
tion of 'true socialism'. Common to both was the firm bel
view of the world that helped them to understand the cri
despite all the present misery, kept open the prospect of a
future.
11 See on these questions Rudolf Vierhaus, 'Auswirkungen der K
I930 in Deutschland', in Conze and Raupach. There is also important
in Wilhelm Treue, Deutschland in der Weltwirtschaftskrise in Augenzeugen
ten (Disseldorf, I967).
7I
Totally different was the political behaviour of the f

shopkeepers, artisans and tradesmen, the white-collar
public employees and the professional classes. It was in
tion of the population, which as a heterogeneous residu
tween the upper and lower social strata had not yet de
sense of identity, that awareness of the crisis was most
reflected. Before 1914 they had regarded themselves as
tion of the population which was the staunchest support
regime, firmly ensconced in the authoritarian structu
Wilhelmine state which, although according them littl
influence, made possible a flourishing economy and ga
consciousness of identity with the power and glory of
Germany. When, after I918, Germany lost its position a
power, and reparations and inflation destroyed the
foundations of these middle classes, their earlier loyalt
state turned into a rejection of the new state. The new
was blamed for what had been caused by the bankrupt
old order: the loss of greatness abroad, of the brilliant
image and of economic prosperity. Inflation and world
crisis seemed to be merely part of a deeper German crisi
earlier values had lost their validity. Fear of the chaos t
equated with communism, fear of the consequences of i
rationalization - which often turned into a romantically
hostility towards industrial society as such - the very r
social degradation through the economic crisis, of sink
into 'the grey proletarian mass' - these were some of th
for the political disintegration of the middle classes. T
movement promised new authority, which would enable
identify once more, and seemed to break through the p
hopelessness of the crisis years with activist elan.
The noisy activism, the radical rhetoric against the '
onto which all the evils of the crisis were projected
trayal of a new, more colourful picture of the future, gave
decisive advantage over the dry doctrines of the comm
the plain-spoken sobriety of the bourgeois parties and
democrats. After several years of crisis, many were neither
nor able to examine the rational foundations of the dem
Hitler or a Goebbels. Tired of the incapacity of the 'part
system' to solve the crisis, people took refuge, in resig
desperate hope, in the collective daydream of fascist pr
72
Many phenomena which bore witness to the disinteg

traditional social behaviour have been rightly ascrib
crisis. The change within family relationships, the qu
of moral standards, the rapid increase in crime, the c
and poisoning of human relationships, the spread of c
the neglect of externals, the sharpening of class hatred
and the general extension of the zone between legality and
- all these were symptoms and visible expressions of th
the sphere of personal life. We should not however forg
many respects the crisis only accelerated the operation
which had been at work for a long time as society wa
into the modem urban industrial pattern, or were a c
of the war which had brought into question the ethica
and traditional values of bourgeois society.
A particularly severe social problem was the lack of
for young people. Between I929 and 1933 many left scho
the faintest hope of ever being able to acquire skills o
profession, for the number of places for apprenticeship
even more sharply than the number of jobs.12 Tho
university had poor chances of finding employment, a
an academic proletariat which flocked into the Wehrverbdn
national socialists. Hitler's movement attracted the
skilfully playing off its activism, oriented towards th
against the prevailing conditions which were so obvious
a future. The existing state of affairs stood in the eyes
young people for philistinism and 'rotten compromise
trast, national socialism fascinated them by its refusal to b
its militarist ideology, its discipline. Its ideals seemed to be
youth, revolutionary, seething, innovating, heroic. Its
self-portrayal conveyed a dynamic and revolutionary im
and was successful in directing the anti-capitalist longi
masses into the channels of counter-revolution which,
1930 and I932, joined forces with the ruling classes in s
It is hard to find a common denominator for the cont
of these years. And yet there is a dialectical connection
and excitement, hopelessness and activism, present mis
visionary future, anarchic dissolution of society and the fl
12 For example the number of apprentices in the iron, steel,

working industries fell from I32,000 (1925) to I9,000 (1932). Cf.
Jahrbiicher fur das Deutsche Reich, I933, I935.
73
disciplined Kampfverbdnde: linking them all was the fe

the existing state of affairs could not last, a theme with
versions varying from the anti-technology complaints o
tural critics to visions of the future - nationalist, anti-w
socialist. It was Germany's particular tragedy that a co
sight into the necessary changes found a false answer: not t
future to be formed rationally in the interests of the majo
the intoxicated irrationality of counter-revolutionary
whose method of overcoming the crisis ended in gross e
and the second world war.
Klaus Epstein Memorial Prize

Essay Competition
The Institute of Contemporary History and
Wiener Library of London, and Brown Univer-
sity of Providence, Rhode Island, are pleased to
announce that the first prize in this competition
has been awarded to Mr Charles S. Maier for his
paper on 'Between Taylorism and Technocracy:
European Ideologies and the Vision of Industrial
Productivity in the I920S'. The essay will be pub-
lished in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of
Contemporary History.
The jury regret that the other papers submitted

failed to qualify for the second prizes.
74

Germany and Great Depression

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Germany and Great Depression

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Germany and the Great Depression

Author(s): Dieter Petzina

The world-wide economic crisis of 1929-33 marked the decisive

at 71 billion RM, and by 1932 it had sunk by no less than

1 Cf. Dietmar Keese, 'Die volkswirtschaftlichen Gesamtgrossen

end in the breakdown of the whole system. Among ot

recovery, but the conditions on which this capital w

and deformation of the parliamentary system and the tran

The first signs of crisis began to appear in the German economy in

increased by between 10 and 15 per cent.6 The gover

Treviranus, represented the right wing of the bourgeo

Briining's programme was designed both to discharge political

and made cuts in social expenditure, expecting salvatio

7 For an analysis of these connections see Werer Kaltefleiter, Wirtschaft

Theodor Geiger8 estimated that this middle class, so s

8 Theodor Geiger, Die soziale Schichtung des deutschen Volkes (rep

presented with decrees that, in addition to carrying on th

What followed Briining was not democracy's swan song b

was in reality an alliance of Reichswehr, heavy indu

their money on Hitler, who had a stable mass basis and at t

The effects of the crisis were visible mainly in the econo

Totally different was the political behaviour of the f

Many phenomena which bore witness to the disinteg

12 For example the number of apprentices in the iron, steel,

disciplined Kampfverbdnde: linking them all was the fe

Klaus Epstein Memorial Prize

The jury regret that the other papers submitted

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