Transcript Nazi economy

Hitler's Economic Policy
How Hitler Transformed the German Economy
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Objectives
This presentation is designed to help you:
 Understand Hitler’s priorities on coming to power
 Evaluate the Schacht period of economic
management 1933-5
 Understand the importance of Goering and the 4
year Plan 1936-40
 Evaluate the success or otherwise of Nazi
economic policy
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Unemployment
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During the election campaigns Hitler had promised to solve
unemployment. This was only one of his aims
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Hitler’s economic priorities were
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1. To drag Germany out of the world recession
2. To solve unemployment (which he had promised
to do)
3. To make Germany an “autarchy” – a self
sufficient economy
4. To get rid of Jewish industrialists and give
their businesses to “Aryans”
5. To transform the economy to focus on
rearmament and war
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Schacht
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Schacht was President of the Reichsbank - he directed German
economic policy in 1933
He believed in steady growth and a stable currency
He promoted trade agreements with developing countries and
traded manufactured goods for cheap raw materials
He was against spending too much on rearmament before the
German economy was strong enough
His New Plan of 1934 aimed to reduce imports into Germany and to
strengthen the currency
He fell out with Hitler over the speed of rearmament and was
replaced by Hermann Goering in 1936
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Hitler’s Ideas
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The German economy should be converted into a war machine
Germany must rearm quickly, conquer countries by Blitzkrieg or
lightning war, takeover their economies and move on
Conquered countries would give the master race “Lebensraum”
By exploiting conquered countries living standards could be
maintained at home despite all the money being spent on war
In 1936 Goering was appointed to introduce a 4 year plan to put
Hitler’s ideas into action
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The aims of the 4 year Plan
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Speed up rearmament and make Germany ready for war
Make Germany self sufficient in raw materials
“autarchy” by developing home grown substitutes.
In 1933 total money
spent on the military
was 1.9 million marks
by 1939 it was 32.3
million!
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What were the results of this?
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The size of the German army grew massively
Hitler became more confident and started to openly
break the Treaty of Versailles
Austria
1938
Czechoslovakia
1938
Poland 1939
World war broke out!
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Was the 4 year Plan a success?
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Unemployment dropped quickly from 4.8 million in 1933 to 0.5
million in 1938
Wages rose slightly but were still lower in 1938 than they had
been in 1928
Working hours went up to 49 hours per week in 1939, (NB 52
hours in 1940; over 60 hours by 1945)
There were fewer consumer goods (personal and household
goods available)
Trade unions were replaced by “Beauty of Labour” and
“Strength Through Joy” who organised better conditions and
leisure activities
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Were people better off under the Nazis?
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Unemployment fell everywhere not just in Germany
Some people were forced to work on public works
programmes
There were disadvantages to the SDA and KDF – workers
had no representation
Workers put more into the economy than they got out of it
If you were “Aryan” and of no strong political beliefs life
was relatively good
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