Hitler's Economic Policy

1. Hitler's Economic Policy How Hitler Transformed the German Economy

2. 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

3. Unemployment • During the election campaigns Hitler had promised to solve unemployment. This was only one of his aims

4. Hitler’s economic priorities were • 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

5. Schacht • 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

6. Hitler’s Ideas • 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

7. The aims of the 4 year Plan • 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!

8. What were the results of this? • The size of the German army grew massively • Hitler became more confident and started to openly break the Treaty of Versailles Czechoslovakia 1938 Austria 1938 Poland 1939 World war broke out!

9. Was the 4 year Plan a success? • 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

10. Were people better off under the Nazis? • 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