Economic Policies

Policy Explanation Successes Failures

Aims Hiter had 3 primary goals, though no set economic plan: N/A N/A
- Reduce unemployment
- Create an economy strong enough that could support the
policy of Lebensraum
- Achieve autarky, so Germany did not rely on other nations.

Tackling War production: (eventually the Four Year Plan), the need for Unemployment was Manipulation of
Unemployment military supplies meant that workers had to be hired in factories, reduced, evident by how in statistics: A large portion
reducing unemployment. 1933 unemployment was 6 of the population, such as
million and by 1939 victims of civil purges,
Public works projects: the construction of the Autobahn, houses, Germany suffered a labour was not accounted for
schools, hospitals, etc, provided employment, together with a sense shortage. when calculating
of purpose as workers were producing useful infrastructure that unemployment figures,
would help the country. The Armed forces grew from suggesting the numbers
- This overlapped with the goal of militarisation, as 100,000 in 1933 to were much higher.
railways and motorways linked the East and West and 1,400,000 in 1939.
would be used in war. → Historian Adam
By 1934, The RAD was Tooze describes the
RAD, Youth Labour Service: made up of 400,000 men. ‘hidden unemployed’
- Cheap & regimented labour. and calculated that there
- Initially voluntary but later compulsory for 19-25 males. were still 4 million out of
- Authoritarian control over recruits allowed for Party work in 1935.
indoctrination.
- Semi-military group of Nazi youth. Hitler also incentivized
single women not to
Conscription (1935): Provided “employment” for all 18-25 year- work so they could get
olds serving in the military, and allowed Hitler to “destroy the married and have
ToV”. children and qualify for
marriage loans.
 The Hjalmar Schacht was Germany’s Minister of Economics up to Bilateral agreements Import shortage:
‘New Plan’ 1936, and his developed the New Plan for economic recovery: allowed Germany to import Though the agreement
(Schacht) more raw materials and solved the trade issue
(1934) Correcting the balance of trade: increase its influence over in 1934, there was still
the Balkan region. increased demand for
German imports outweighed exports, leading to a fall in foreign imports (which could not
reserves and gold, and the accumulation of debt. Mefo bills funded ½ of be met), especially as
Germany’s rearmament rearmament grew at a
Fiscalization of imports: The government had to approve all between 1933-38. steady pace.
imports, as to ensure that there was not more money flowing out
of the country than flowing into it. Economic distortion:
Schacht worried about an
Bilateral agreements: Especially with Balkan states, which were economy that had been
the main suppliers of German raw materials. The implementation too distorted towards
of barter agreements eliminated the use of scarce foreign rearmament due to
currency caused by the trade deficit and increased Germany’s budget deficits and
economic influence over the region. payment problems.

Mefo Bills: acted as government bonds that could be claimed with Hence, Schart wanted to
interest after 5 years. encourage exports, and
halt the increase in
However, the bills were supplied by a dummy company→ arms expenditure.
Metallurgische Forschung, a heavy industry corporation.
Hitler’s disapproval:
The bills: Hitler thought that
Schacht’s approach
Disguised government involvement in rearmament. was overly
conservative and would
Increased the expenditure on rearmament by delaying real not get Germany where
payment. he wanted it to be.

Aimed to increase public expenditure without causing inflation. Hence, Schacht was
fired and Goering was
appointed in 1936.
 The Germany prepared for war in 4 years: Prioritised German Hitler successfully Guns vs Butter: The
Four Year Plan rearmament and self-sufficiency in food and industrial production increased rearmament. economic investment in
(Goering) (key industries during the war). war production came at
(1936) In 1932, military spending the opportunity cost of
Government regulations: The government increased control over accounted for 1% of the production of
imports, labour, raw materials, and prices. It also created targets Germany’s GDP, yet by consumer goods,
that the private sector had to meet. 1940 military spending especially food.
reached 38% of Germany’s
Hitler’s demand for an excessive rearmament marked the GDP. This meant that the
radicalization of the regime as it came at the cost of consumer German economy failed
goods, which became known as the “Guns vs. Butter” dispute. in sufficiently providing
consumer goods and
→ Historian Mason has argued that the rearmament program was rearmament
hindered by having to supply both military and consumer
goods, making Germany less prepared for war.

The government feared popular unrest and disapproval of the

government if there was a great shortage of consumer goods.

- The excessive rearmament was overheating the economy

which culminated in issues like labour shortages and
shortage of raw materials.

→ Historian Overy argued that there were 2 distinguishable periods

in the German economy:

- 1933-36: Public works and revival of consumer demands

were prioritised.

- Post-1936: Rearmament was prioritised as Hitler steered

the economy towards war.

Ultimately, the post-1936 period was not enough time for

 Germany to become the seizable war economy Hitler desired.

- Overy has even argued that Germany failed to build a

strong war economy capable of enduring long periods
of war, which is why the Blitzkrieg tactics were created, so
quick victories could be attained and a war of attrition
could be avoided.

Blitzkrieg Blitzkrieg allowed Germany to obtain new territory that supplied Blitzkrieg evidenced many Germany was pushed
(1939-41) them with labour and raw materials. short-term successes. into a war of attrition,
- E.g→ Anchluss and invasion of Czechoslovakia had supplied Particularly with the military which it was not able to
Germany with economic resources achievements and sustain.
conquered territory.
However, the performance of the Nazi economy during war raises The goals of the 4 year
the question of whether Germany was a polycratic state or the plan were not met.
monolithic Fuhrer state.
Hitler’s wish to establish
→ Historian Geary has referred to the overlapping authorities of a New Order in Europe
the government as “personal fiefdoms” that prevented political led to the issues outlined
and economic policies from running smoothly. by Gordon Wright as the
Nazis failed to effectively
A lack of central wartime administration made it difficult for the get the conquered
nation to successfully mobilise resources and get all the people population behind their
behind the war effort. This resulted in a sense of confusion. war effort.

E.g→ Overy has exemplified this productive inefficiency by

pointing out that Fritz Todt, Minister of Armaments and war
production (1940-42), had no control over aircraft production.

It was events like these that hindered the Nazi ability to react to war
losses:
- E.g→ Inability to replace the lost planes in the Battle of
Britain (1940).
 - Gordon Wright has argued that the Nazis could have
collaborated with the conquered territories as a way to
benefit from the vast military and material resources.
Instead, their policy of “smash and grab” was more
convenient, but did not allow Germany to fully thrive from
the conquered territories.

The Economy With the death of Fritz Todt, Albert Speer replaced him as the Under Speer, the economy
under Albert Minister of armaments and war production. effectively functioned and
Speer became much more
(1942-45) Spear restructured the economy, and mobilised to a total war. organised.
Production increased massively. War time production goals
- E.g→ 3x more weapons in 1944 than 1941. were being met.
However, at this point Germany was already at war with the USA. → Overy stated that Speer
was a figure of authority
Germany’s industries were being bombed by Allies. that allowed the economy to
become more efficient.
He even pointed out that the
increase in German
production showcased the
ineffectiveness of Allied
bombing.
Though the economy was
more organised,
Germany was not able
to withstand the Allies’
attacks.
It is interesting to notice
how, during the
Blitzkrieg, the economy
was not doing well, but
the military made gains,
whereas under Speer,
the opposite occurred.
This shows the self-
destructiveness of the
Nazi economy, as the
period of
disorganization proved
irreversible.
 Social Policies
Policy Explanation Factor

The education Part of Hitler’s goals of building a “Thousand Year Reich” involved the heavy indoctrination & Nazification of Policies towards
system the youth, as a way to build a generation that would carry the views of the NSDAP. the Youth

Schools and universities were cleansed from teachers unsympathetic to Naizm, due to their Jewish
background or lack of fitness.

All teachers were forced to join the National Socialist Teachers’ League (NSLB) which aimed to:
- Ensure conformity in their presentation of the Nazi ideology to the youth.

- Keeping teachers under Party control.

Students learned subjects like history, biology, “Germanics” and “Eugenics” which aimed to teach different
aspect of Nazi qualities.
- E.g1→ History taught students the greatness of Germany’s past and the “evil legacy of Weimar”
→ Historians Noakes and Pridham have highlighted that the teaching of history in Germany
had always had a nationalist bias, with many teachers being taught those same ideas
Hitler wished to carry out.
- E.g2 → The study of Eugenics instilled the idea of Aryan racial superiority.

The Nazims even propsed more elite education for selected future leaders:
- The Adolf Hitler Schools emphasised physical exercises, race purity & obedience.
- The Napolas focused on military discipline and leadership.
- The Order Castles was for the ruling elites and included similar subjects as the previous two but also
included political studies, and indoctrination.

Youth groups Nazi youth movements had existed in the 1920s but were intensified in 1933, with the creation of the Hitler Policies towards
Youth (HJ) and the League of German Maidens (BDM) the Youth

Hitler Youth→ Militaristic activities, sports, and physical activities.

 League of German Maidens→ Domestic, "women like" chores and activities.

Hitler believed that schools were not enough to create the tough, athletic, and obedient new Germans,
which is why the Youth groups were created

Noticeably, Hitler’s goals for the youth excluded intellectualism and academic excellence as he believed
these had led to the cultural degeneracy of Germany.

→ Sax and Kuntz have said that, under Nazism, children “were duller and stupider, though healthier,
individuals.”

Hitler also ensured to ban other youth movements and absorb their members (apart from Catholic
movements which were protected by the Concordat).

By 1935 nearly 60% of the 10-18 year olds had joined, though the movements were only compulsory in
1939.

Children would spend the whole day at the movements being indoctrinated, practising sports, militarism,
etc. Children's homes were like bed and breakfast services as that was the only time they returned home.

Children enjoyed the movements which played into the NSDAP’s goal of monopolising young life and
obtaining it fully under Party control.

The Youth Movements aimed to:

- Liberate them from the “evils” of democracy, Marxism and Jews.
- Restore German pride and honour.
- Revise 1919 “Diktat”.

Role of Women Supposedly, Hitler did not necessarily see women as inferior but he sought to rescue them from the Policies towards
degeneracy of women’s dignity and honour, which had occurred under Weimar’s Western democratic- Women
liberal policies.
 He sought to restore the traditional role of women as mothers and family oriented. He also believed that
women bore the nation’s future.

Hitler attempted to limit female participation in society to “Children, Kitchen, Church.”

Hitler believed that men and women should work in partnership to serve the nation.

Hence, Hitler also believed that women bore the nation’s future, and so proposed numerous pro-natalist
policies to supply the Reich, given that Germany had a declining and low birth rate.

Nazi anti-feminism was also shared by groups such as traditionalists, and the Church.

Hitler capitalized on this, creating what critics claimed to be a reactionary policy based on male supremacy,
in spite of the Nazis claiming the contrary.

Pro-natalist As an attempt to increase the population of the Reich, Hitler implemented measures such as Policies towards
policies Women
Marriage loans: 1000 Reichsmarks paid at 1%, to which the value decreased by ¼ per child.
- To receive the loan, however, women had to give up employment. The goal was to discourage
women from working, so unemployed men could take the jobs.
- It is estimated that 42% of couples received the loan by 1939.
- Loans did not significantly increase the birth rates→ 2+ kids: Harms > benefits
Monetary incentives:
- Income-tax reductions for married couples, and higher taxes for singles, or couples who had no
children.
- Child support & provision of facilities like birth clinics which helped to reduce fares.
Mother’s Cross award
- Depending on the number of children, mothers would receive medals. E.g→ 8+ was gold.

These benefits, however, were only appropriate if children were of Aryan blood and not “asocials”. E.g→ Child
born with a disease or handicap.

Opposingly, the government also provided decensentives by denying women control of their body,
E.g→ banned contraception, and criminally convicting women who broke these laws.
Women in the Initially, laws restricted the number of women that could work in the civil service or attend higher education. Policies towards
workplace Women
Nazi propaganda was used to discourage women to work and encourage them to fufill the Party set goals.

Yet, By 1937, rearmament programmes had led to labour shortages, to which women were sought to
work.
- While in 1933 there were 5 million employed women, by 1939 there were 7.14 million.

This was achieved through propaganda and monetary incentives:

E.g→ Propaganda attempted to convey to women that joining the workforce was honourable and they should
attend higher education to become skilled workers and serve the Reich.

E.g→ Monetary incentives were adapted: For example, working women were now qualified to receive
marriage loans.

Still, despite returning to the workplace, women did not have the same social status as men:

→ Women mainly took on roles in education and health industries yet Hitler refused to allow them to work in
certain industries like the judiciary, as he believed women were emotion driven and intellectually inferior.

→ Women had a secondary role in politics, merely conducting male-dominated policies.

→ Geary pointed out that this was an instance in which ideological purity had to give in to economic
necessity.

Although, the government created institutions to promote Nazi values amongst women:
- German Women’s Enterprise (DSW)
- Reich Mother’s Service (RMD)
- National Socialist womanhood (NSF)
 The German Within Hitler’s first year, trade unions were abolished as part of the Nazification process, as trade unions Policies towards
Labour Front were associated with leftism. Workers
(DAF)
Unions were replaced with the German Labour Front (DAF), which did not fight for workers, but rather:
- Ensured workers were kept in order and the production was increased.

Integrating To ensure this, the DAF created 2 subsection organisations: Policies towards
Workers in the Workers
Volksgemeinschaft - Beauty of Labour→ ensured that facilities, meals and workplaces were to good standards, the Nazis
also wished to achieve beautification.

- ‘Strength Through Joy’ (KdF) → Incentivised workers by providing them with subsidised leisure
facilities, such as theatre visits, sports, etc.
- This was the carrot in the carrot and stick approach utilized by the Nazis, to incite high levels of
production.
- Opposingly, workers lost their freedom as organising leisure activities allowed the state to
ensure that workers had no-time for anti-state activities and could be indoctrinated.

→ Head of the DAF, Robert Ley, stated that the KdF contributed towards the “sense of solidarity required by
the Volksgemeinschaft.”

Council of Trusts: an organisation that represented workers in discussions with ‘plant leaders’.
- It was designed to further encourage the idea of a community in the workplace between employers and
employees→ The opposite of class struggle.

Attempts to Nazify In 1933, Hitler had signed the Concordat with the church, however, it quickly became clear that the Nazis Policies towards
the Church aimed to interfere with religion. the Church

German Christians created the Reich Church, whose Reich Bishop was Ludwig Muller, and attempt to
reconcile protestant and Nazi beliefs.

However, the Nazis were only partly successful in achieving the predominance of the Reich Church.

It was for difficult for the Nazis to head on attack the Church as they feared losing support from German
 Catholics, which was precisely the group they were attempting to sway.

Hence, a war of attrition between the Church and the State was developed:

To subtly attack the Church, the Nazis:

- Accuse priests of crimes such as sexual abuse and pederastry as an attempt to lure young people
away from the Church.

- During the mid-1930s, the Nazis launched the Church Secession Campaign to encourage Germans
to abandon churches.

Yet, despite these measures, the nazification of the Church failed, as the Reich Church had limited support
and Catholicism remained popular.

Nevertheless, the Church was still in a delicate situation, as it too could not openly attack Nazism, given that
the Nazi government was actually implementing policies enjoyed by the Catholic Church:

→ Historian Ian Kershaw has argued that the Church did not launch an attack on Nazism because it shared
some of its beliefs. E.g→ The Nazis attacked ‘godless’ Marxism, they built an authoritarian state, and conducted a
strong foreign policy.

Still, even though the Church did not consistently attack Nazism, they did not blindly support it either, as
they often publicly condemned the regime when it opposed the Catholic doctrine:

- In 1937, Pope Pius XI publicly attacked the Nazi government for breaching the Concordat, and
racial/nationalist idolatry.

- He also attacked the government in 1938 following the events of Kristallnacht.

- In 1940, Pope Pius XII repudiated the Nazi Euthanasia program (Akiton T4).

Minorities The Nazi government considered asocials all of whome were undeserving of living in the Policies towards
Volksgemeinshcaft. Minorities
 Asocials included groups such as homosexuals, Jews, Roma/Sinti, the homeless, physically/mental
handicap.

These people were part of the Community of aliens, who were treated inhumanely and with great hostility, in
order to “protect the racially superior.”

Treatment of asocials consisted of various ways of stripping people from their humanity:
- Sterilisation
- Demonization
- Social exclusion
- Euthanasia

Yet, the Nazis also institutionalized the persecution of minorities and anti-semitism by using legislation:

E.g→ the Nuremberg Laws in 1935

The Nazis also ensured this instituionalized repression by inciting popular hatred of these groups:

- E.g→ The Gestapo relied on Cultural Denunciation (which involved the general population) to find
those undesirables that hid amongst Germans.

- E.g→ Kristallnacht in November 1938 was when there was a nationwide arrest of Jews and
destruction of Jewish property as an attempt to incite Jews to leave Germany.

Finally, minorities were often sent to concentration camps, such as Auschwitz and Belzec, where they would
be used as forced labour or as trial subjects for medical experiments.

E.g→ It is estimated that 320,000-350,000 were sterilised in concentration camps.

The Holocaust The Holocaust was the final solution to the Jewish question, which was mainly orchestrated by men like Policies towards
(1941-1945) Hiedrich Himmler (head of the SS) and Adolf Eichman. Minorities
The matter of the Jewish Question referred to the Nazi dilemma of what ough to be done with the
numerous Jews and minorities that had come under Nazi control. Before the euthanasia program ws
established, the Nazis pondered on a variety of alternatives to deal with this question:

- E.g→There was a plan involving the mass deportation of Jews to Madagascar in 1940, so they could be
excluded from the European population.

- However, with the development of war and the Allied naval predominance, the German navy could not
transport the Jewish to Madagascar, as they would have to break through the Royal Navy, so this plan
crumbled.

Hence, the Holocaust was decided as the policy to deal with the asocials, as it referred to the systematic
elimination of asocials from Nazi teritory.

The Nazi approach to Jews were institutionalized and eliminationist:

→ Initially forcing emigration/Ghettos (‘39/40)
- Logistical Problems once Germany expanded East due to great number of Jews.
→ Annihilation project (Wannsee Conference, January 1942)

There are 2 different schools of thought on the Holocaust:

1. The Intentionalist school: Hitler followed his consistent aim of exterminating the Jewish
population, as noted in Mein Kampf, where Hitler alluded to the destruction of “undesirables” from
the Volksgemeinschaft.

- Notable Historians: Richard Overy (British), Karl Bracher (German), Lucy Dawidowicz
(American)

2. The Structuralist/Functionalist school: The Holocaust was a result of the initiative by local Nazi
officials in occupied Eastern territories, who attempted to solve the problem of managing a great
Jewish quantity by simply systematically exterminating all of them.

- Notable Historians: Timothy Mason (British), Zygmunt Bauman (Polish), Timothy Snyder
 (American)

Nevertheless, by 1945, 6 million Jews had been killed in Nazi concentration camps, through means such as
gas chambers.

The Holocaust was one of the major genocides in History. * Shoa refers to the persecution and murder of
Jews in specific, whereas Holocaust refers to all asocials.