A. Plan of the Investigation With the beginning of the Third Reich the German economy experienced a rapid increase. The propaganda of the Nazi regime spread among the people the opinion that the economic reforms where completely successful. This investigation assesses whether the situation of people actually improved due to the economic boom as much as the propaganda said. However the funding for the economic boom hasn't been mentioned by the propaganda and therefore is taken into consideration for a valuable assessment of the success of the Nazi Economic policies. The investigation focuses on the development of the German economy between 1933 and August 1939. The effects of the Second World War on the German economy aren't assessed in this investigation since they aren't linked to the economic reforms between 1933 and August 1939 of the Nazi regime evaluated in this investigation.
B. Summary of Evidence When the Nazi Government came to power in 1933 they were facing an extreme unemployment situation. Between the middle of 1929 and January 1933 the number of unemployed people registered by the government increased from 1.25 million to 6 million in 1933.
In 1929 the high unemployment rate caused mainly by the depression originated from the Wall Street crash and its effects on the German economy. Furthermore the United States withdrew their loans because of the economic recession. Both these closely related factors caused that the economy of the Weimar republic collapsed which left millions of people unemployed. Already in the Weimar Republic in 1931 the idea of trying to stop the economic recession by work creation measures was introduces by the government of Brüning. New jobs were created in the mining and textiles industry to lower the high unemployment rate and its harmful effects on the economy. But there was only a little effect, because approximately 27000 new jobs were a really small number compared to the 6 million unemployed workers. The Nazi regime enlarged this idea by sending much more money on the work creation measures.
In addition the Nazi regime tried to strengthen the industry. An example for this is the support of the motor firms. High taxes were imposed on motor vehicles before the war which caused that German companies had to endure heavy import penetration before the recession. In 1933 the Nazi regime lowered the taxes on motor vehicles. After the crisis the smaller motor firms had disappeared and only the bigger ones were left over with new tools and new factories getting built. The German motor companies now could "respond to pressure to lower costs and chase a wider area of demands" Between 1932 and 1938 the production of motor vehicles tripled while the production of commercial vehicles rose even faster by 40% a year in 1932 to 49 % in 1938.
In 1936 the four year plan was presented by Hermann Göring in October 1936 and immediately put into effect. In August 1936, Hitler set the Four Year Plan the task of "procuring the prerequisites for the self-defense of the German people by providing the necessary armament materials". Connected with this was the expansion of living space in the east which included the extension of food and raw material resources. Hitler's main demands for the four year plan were that the German army had to be operational within four years and the German economy had to be prepared for war within four years. This included the increased independence from imports of essential materials which lead to an enlarged domestic production of raw materials such as iron ore, fuel and synthetic rubber. The Four Year Plan caused that the arms industry had a high increase in production as well. Lots of the unemployed people therefore got jobs in the arms industry and in the industry producing materials that are important for war waging. The four year plan, the work creation measures and the high grows in the commercial vehicle production lead to nearly full employment.
At first, the Nazi Economic policies seemed to be very successful. However the situation for the workers didn't really better. The payment for the new Jobs by the work creation measures was often very low. Therefore the former people unemployed people didn't had a lot more money than before, but they had to work hard to get it now. Besides the focus of the industry on war preparation caused that the production of consumer goods decreased.
In addition the economic boom was financed by a great ineptness of Germany. The Nazi got loans from the people but never paid any of these back. Also the Nazis created a system where with the workers could get a car. The Beetle cost only 990 marks and therefore was affordable by the workers easily because it was only approximately 35 weeks wages for the average worker. The Nazi Regime created a hire purchase scheme were the workers paid 5 marks a week into an account. When their account reached 750 marks they were supposed to be given a number with what they could get their car. But this was only theoretical and no one got a car actually. All the money invested by the people went to the rearmament process. No-one encumbered oneself, because that could cause trouble with the secret police.
C. Evaluation of sources
The origin of Speech before the Reichstag is a speech Hitler held during a session of the Reichstag on 30th January 1937. Its purpose is to persuade the people about the, from Hitlers point of view, positive development Germany experienced ever since the NSDAP got full power. He praises the people benefit by the social, economic and political changes in the past. Hitler claims that especially the situation of the working class bettered The Limitations of the speech are clearly that it only shows one opinion on this topic, the official view of the Nazi regime. It is clearly a form of propaganda of the Nazi regime trying to make their decisions look the best way possible. The value is that it shows the official opinion of the Nazi Regime on their own reforms. But even it has this prepossession on the assessment of the success of the economic policies it is an excellent source for part D to be use as an example for propaganda of the Nazi regime.
The essay "Nationalsozialistische Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahmen als
Beschäftigungs- und Aufrüstungspolitik" written by Florian Groß evaluates the nazi economic reforms while focusing on the work creation measures. The purpose of the essay is to give a detailed overview on the work creation measures and its effects on the economy and its purpose. The essay is supposed to be based on historic facts since it is a scholastic work and also shouldn't include any personnel view of the author on the issue. Therefore the value is high, because it presents the historical events based on neutral sources. The limitations of the source are that the author wasn't part of the historical events and therefore has to base his work on other historic texts so that there is a possibility that he choose a source which doesn't fully correspondent with the reality. Another limitation is that the author only focuses on the work creation measures and not on other important economic factors such as the Four Year Plan.
D.Analysis
When the Nazi regime introduced its economic policies the number of unemployed people rapidly decreased. In his speech Hitler claimed that the rapid decrease of the unemployment rate was caused by the ideas and policies introduced by the Nazi regime. But in fact the Nazi regime only executed ideas which had been there before. The idea of work creation measures for example was introduced in 1930 when under Brüning a plan of vacation by the state worth 1 billion RM came up. The plan was only stopped because the situation of the international capital market made it impossible to get the plan financed.
Regarding the work creation measures there are no doubts that they were really successful in fulfilling the goal of decreasing the number of unemployed people. Within the first eleven month of the Nazi Regime in charge the number of unemployed people dropped from six million to four million Anyhow it has to be pointed out that the economic boom hasn't been created by the effects of the National Socialist economic reforms only, but also was supported by the upswing of the global economy from 1933 onwards. Therefore the success of the Nazi Economic reforms shouldn't be supervalued. Another issue regarding the work creation measures addressed in the essay of Groß is that the salary of the laborers in the work creation measures was very low. Therefore even thought that they weren't unemployed anymore, their situation didn't become any better, instead they had to work very hard to have the same living standard as they had before. The economic boom however was also caused by the increase of the industrial production. This happened because the production of arms and other war requirements increased after 1934. With the four year plan the industry output got focused even more on war products.
The state wasn't capable of paying all this cost so that the Germany had to face an increasing indebtedness. This was withhold from the people by the Nazi regime. At the beginning these indebtedness where covered at a high percentage by illegitimately dispossession of Jews living in Germany and also by confiscated fortune of forbidden parties or politically persecuted individuals. Later on the expenditure became so high that, that it couldn't be covered be these proceeds at all. At this point the Nazi regime already focused on paying these back by war spoils.
E. Conclusion
In his speech Hitler says that ever since the Nazi regime is in charge the situation of the people has improved a lot. Hitler claims that especially the situation of the working class improved. However the situation of the working class didn't better because their income didn't increase and later on the production of consumer goods decreased because the whole economy focused on preparing for war. But by giving them jobs and opportunities to get cheap vacation or to buy a car the regime manipulated the attitude of the people so that they felt that their situation improved. In addition he praises the strong industrial growth since 1933 happened to be only because of the Nazi economic reforms. He avoids saying that one main factor for the industrial growth is that the world's economy in general faced a rising since the world financial crisis had been finally overcome. Also he doesn't say that the finanzierungsplan of the rearming is based on the illegal confiscation of fortune and later on Germany starting a new war. In addition the government got loans from the people without any intention of paying them back. Moreover money from the people that they invested on other purchases such as a car was taken by the regime and used to finance the rearmament and not for is actual purpose. Regarding the work creation measures, he only gives plain statistics which show that the number of unemployed people decreased. But still people got work their living standard often didn't get any better. In general it can be said that the Nazi propaganda tried to make the people appreciate the Economic policies by making the effects look much better than they actually were. Also the propaganda withhold the cost that Germany later on would had to pay to finance the measures taken by the regime to better the economic situation of Germany. The people didn't know that to finance the economic boom, Germany had to start a war. All in all the propaganda was quite successful in manipulating the peoples attitude towards the Nazi economic reforms.
F. List of sources
Braun, Hans-Joachim. "The German Economy in the Twentieth Century". London: Routledge, 1990. Questia. Web. 28 Feb. 2011.
Childers, Thomas, and Jane Caplan, eds. "Reevaluating the Third Reich". New York: Holmes & Meier, 1993. Questia. Web. 28 Feb. 2011.
Dick Geary, "Who Voted for the Nazis?," History Today Oct. 1998, Questia, Web,
1 Apr. 2011.
Groß, Florian, "Nationalsozialistische Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahmen als Beschäftigungs- und Aufrüstungspolitik ", Siegen, Universität Siegen, Web, 1 Apr. 2011
< http://dokumentix.ub.uni-siegen.de/opus/volltexte/2009/413/pdf/gross.pdf >
Hildebrand, K. "The Third Reich". London: Routledge, 1991. Questia. Web. 28 Feb. 2011.
Hitler, Adolf "Speech before the Reichstag" January 30,1937, Web, 1Apr. 2011 <http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Hitler%20Speeches/hitler%20rede%201937.01.30.htm >
Overy, R. J. "War and Economy in the Third Reich". Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. Questia. Web. 28 Feb. 2011.
P., Klaus "Wie finanzierten die Nazis den Wirtschaftsaufschwung im Dritten Reich?", Geschichtsforum 2005, Web, 1 Apr. 2011 <http://www.geschichtsforum.de/f66/wie-finanzierten-die-nazis-den-wirtschaftsaufschwung-im-dritten-reich-5450/>
"The Nazis and the German Economy", History Learning site, Web, 1 Apr.2011
< http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazis_and_the_german_economy.htm>,
