Tax concessions to the workers, meant more people wanted to work in these environment. Hitler opened up the unions to any members; this meant that the economy was stimulated by worker independence and confidence. Hitler extended a lot of public work schemes such as in 1932 the building of homes and motorways. As there were now subsidies for hiring more workers in the private sector, this opened up jobs as domestic servants and increased jobs in government bureaucracy. Another scheme, that was important to Hitler at the time, and followed ‘Nazi policy of anti-semitism’, and was also popular with the public. This was to force Jews and married women out of there jobs, to make room for the young male working population. And ANOTHER scheme to increase the amount of jobs, which coincides with the military policies, was too take men between 18-25 out of work, and place them in the army making more jobs. Germany ALSO had a major problem, with there balance of trade deficit. One OTHER scheme, that is less connected with fitting with Nazi policies are Mefo bills, these were used to help increase expenditure on by dealing payment in cash. Schacht set up a company that would make credit notes, and give them out to companies and services. They would be converted into Reichsmarks after 5 years with interest. This managed to fund half of Germanies re-armament program from 1933-38.
Hitler wanted to re-arm, but because of the improved employment, income rates and the boost in the economy people wanted to spend, this meant tat the consumer demand went up. There was low food production, not enough raw materials and things had to be imported from Romania. The 4 year-plan was drawn up and aimed to get Germany, ‘ready for war’ within four years, the priority was given to re-armament. Raw materials and machinery were given priority in extraction and production. These machines would later be used in arms production to get ready for war in the late 1940’s. There was a series of regulations emitted by the Office of the Four Year plan that intervened in the economy, these regulations laid down things that controlled foreign exchange, raw materials, and prices to manage the economy. The idea was that the country would become self-sufficient and provide for itself, not having to rely on imports. Total ‘autarky’ was impossible, but initially, German production increased in iron and food industries, ersatz products were developed to replace imports. (Using coal to make there own oil, artificial rubber.) For example, on farms Grain production rose from 99 to 115 between 1933 and 1939.
There was also another problem regarding exports/imports called the ‘Guns vs. Butter’ crisis, this involved the tension between putting economic resources into buying one of the two. I.e. supporting the race for readiness for war, or the consumer. No one argued for a total concentration, they wanted a compromise with one being more dominant. Originally, it was assumed Hitler would be pro-guns, nowadays it is assumed that he was concerned to give good supplies of butter as well as weaponry. The people who were pro-butter, were Schacht, Industrialists and the Military, they wanted to develop consumer goods, develop exports, limit rearmament and develop trade links between other countries. On the side of ‘guns’, was Goering the ‘economic dictator’, he wanted major re-armament to ‘appease Hitler’ and an autarky siege economy, which would also appease Hitler who had experienced the problems of being starved out in WW1.
In conclusion, this way of running the economy, re-inflated confidence in the unemployed, around 1.5 million jobs were created. Industrial produce rose by 60 percent during the time these policies of self-sufficiency were introduced and the GDP rose by 40 percent. Germany no longer had to borrow money, as they had sorted out the problem of foreign trade, and balance of payment by becoming self sufficient. In the end, Goering won over Schacht because his policies of self-sufficiency and readiness for war appealed more than the ‘butter’ side of the playing field.