Evaluate the Nazis economic policies from 1933 - 1939. To what extent were the Nazis economic policies successful in making Germany ready for war by 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland?

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Chan Yuen Man, Crystal   991389332

HIS 242 Term Paper        

HIS 242 Term-paper

Evaluate the Nazis economic policies from 1933 – 1939.  To what extent were the Nazis economic policies successful in making Germany ready for war by 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland?

Course Code: HIS 242

Student Name:  Chan Yuen Man, Crystal

Student Number: 991389332

Instructor’s Name: Professor E. Jennings

T.A.’s Name: Jerzy Borzecki

Word Count: 3,013 words

        It is almost a universal conception that Hitler deliberately provoked World War II for his personal desires.  Some historians prove this belief by Hitler’s biography “My Struggle” (Mein Kampf) and his series of bold and aggressive foreign policies.  While others confirm this notion by demonstrating the objectives of pre-war Nazis economic policies.  They claim that Hitler immediately started carrying out rearmament program and various war-preparatory measures once he came to power in 1933.  Because of his lack of planning and ignorance to the economic situation, he failed to prepare Germany for a major war by 1939, and he even failed to deal with Germany’s own economic problems in 1932.  However, this claim is not well justified.  In fact, Hitler did put a lot of emphasis on economic recovery in the first three years of his regime.  It is not until 1936 did he start accentuating his warfare programs.  As a consequence, considering the time duration, the progress that the Nazi leaders made with their policies, and the “Blitzkrieg” war aim proposed by Hitler, actually Hitler was very successful in arming Germany and making Germany ready for a series of short but speedy wars by 1939 when he invaded Poland.  

        When Hitler came into the office in 1933 he faced an economically devastated Germany.  Although the economic situation was improved with aids given by the United States, Germany still suffered a great deal from the Great Depression in 1929, and “economic activity had recovered only slightly from the lowest point of the depression”.  Unemployment was the most serious problem at that time.  Hitler understood very well that, with six million official unemployment registers and an estimate of a million more non-registered, it was absolutely impossible to rearm Germany at that stage.  He also understood that, instead of rearmament “recovery was the immediate priority”.  Therefore, on May 1, 1933, Hitler announced the First Four-Year Plan “to rescue the German people, to safeguard German food supplies, and to rescue the German workers through a powerful attack on unemployment”.  According to Guillebaud, the Four-Year Plan can be summarized into four main disciplines – increasing the demand for labor directly by means of public works; and by means of stimulating private investments; decreasing the labor supply by granting marriage loans, tax remissions and withdrawal of women from workforce; and lastly, increasing consumption.  To create more jobs, the government initiated and financed a lot of public construction work, like the construction of superhighways (Autobahnen), automobiles and communication lines.  Two “Reinhardt Programs” were published to subsidize motor-road, residential and agricultural buildings’ repair and reconstruction.  The abolition of the motor-vehicle tax and the reduction of various taxes, such as the land tax (Grundsteuer), greatly encouraged consumption, productivity and private investments, which in return increased more job opportunities.  Marriage loans and tax privileges for hiring female domestic workers were granted to withdraw women from entering the industry.  Furthermore, the Nazi leaders inherited some public work measures that were already brought out by the von Papen and Schleicher government.  For instance, the Nazis leaders still applied the Reich Labor Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst) created in 1931 to give military training in advance of actual army service.  All of these gave an immediate improvement on the labor market and a relief to all German citizens.

                 Not only were there economic recovery and reorganization taking place in the cities, but there were also two important measures performed in the rural areas of Germany as well.  The first one was the emergence of “Reich Food Estate” (Reichsnahrstand) in the summer of 1933.  Under this policy, every agricultural sector was reorganized in this Estate, “which is a self-administrative statutory corporation comprising all individuals and organization concerned in the distribution as well as the production of agricultural commodities”.  In other words, this was served to stabilize food prices and control the amount of production.  While the second measure was the Hereditary Farm Law (Erbhofgesetz) carried out in the fall of 1933.  As it was written in the moral doctrine of Nazis economic principle, that “public interest before self-interest”, this law “had the effect of protecting large and medium-sized farms at the expense of the small peasantry”.  Under this act, the “hereditary farms” so-called “were not to be mortgaged, could not be sold, were indivisible and passed from father to eldest son”.  It was hoped that “farms [were] large enough to be self-sustaining”.  Hence, it sowed the seed for agricultural self-sufficiency and it further stabilized the quantity, prices and marketing of agricultural produce.  To summarize, under these two schemes, all the farms were cartel zed and nationalized, and all the agricultural activities were put under the government control and taken out of the free economy and direct capital supply.

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        Compare to all of the above-mentioned massive economic remedy and restructuring policies, the government expenditure on armament and military was relatively small.  In fact, there was no vast military program proclaimed by the government from 1933 to 1936.  Braun summarized the government expenditure on military and rearmament in his book, “The Germany Economy in the Twentieth Century” and pointed out that “it was only in 1936 Germany’s expenditure on military exceeded 10% of GNP” and “it was only from the year 1936 “military investment alone… exceeded civilian investment”.  While Klein made the observation that in 1935 the Group I ...

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