Hitler & The Nazi’s Economic Policies
Hitler’s Army
- Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the German Army was unable to grow to more than 100,000 men.
- One way that Adolf Hitler dealt with this issue was to allow the Sturm Abteilung (SA) to grow rapidly.
- By 1934 the SA had grown to a force of over 4,500,000 men.
- The growth in the importance of the SA worried other leaders in the National Socialist German Workers Party.
- It also upset leaders of the German Army who feared that it would be taken over by the Ernst Rohm and the SA.
- They were won over to the Nazis when Adolf Hitler ordered the Night of the Long Knives where around 400 leaders of the SA were murdered.
Economic Recovery
- Once in power, Hitler played little part in formulating policy or contributing to German economic recovery. He instead relied on a group of advisors, some of whom were non-Nazis, to form policy in line with his broad goals.
- Hjalmar Schacht, a former member of the German Democratic Party who had been president of the Reichsbank during the late 1920s.
- Robert Ley, was put in charge of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (or ‘German Labour Front’) which co-ordinated Germany’s workforce.
- These men implemented economic reforms that achieved impressive results, at least on the surface.
- Focused on work programs and re-armament
- The Nazis initiated massive spending programs to stimulate the economy, generate jobs and encourage economic growth.
- In July 1934 the government formed the Reichsarbeitsdienst (the RAD, or ‘National Labour Service’). The RAD attacked unemployment by conscripting out-of-work Germans into vast work teams. RAD workers were given an armband, a shovel and a bicycle, and then sent to wherever public works, construction, clearance or agricultural labour was needed.
- One of the earliest RAD programs was the construction of massive autobahns: hundreds of miles of freeway connecting Germany’s major cities. These autobahns had a positive effect on the German car industry, which also flourished from the mid-1930s.