From Hyperinflation to Full Employment: Nazi Germany’s Economic Miracle Explained
It is the brainchild of the British historian Dan Snow and his team. History fanatics will probably recognize Snow’s name—he’s responsible for the excellent History Hit podcast and has fronted history shows on the BBC, PBS, National Geographic, and the History Network. He also does live shows on tour.
Before the Nazis took control of the Reichstag in 1933, around 6 million Germans were unemployed; the German economy was in total collapse, Germany had no international credit rating, and was almost bankrupt from World War 1 reparations payments.
The German people were demotivated, factories were closed from lack of money to pay wages, benefits were cut as the Government had no money to pay them and inflation was spiralling out of control.
Hyperinflation: A five-million mark note.
Third Reich economic nationalism
Inside an incredible three years, all this was changed. Unemployment was banned by the Nazi Party and went from 5 million to zero in the space of a few years. Every unemployed man had to take up an available job, or risk being sent to prison. Non-Germans had their citizenship removed and were thus not eligible for employment.
*** JdN …..What did Adolf Hitler achieve?
He took a major nation mired in bankruptcy, with 6 million unemployed
And all this was accomplished with no natural resources to speak of, no gold reserves and nothing but hostility surrounding the country.
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The launching of work programmes
The NSDAP stimulated the economy with spending programs using printed money and IOUs that companies could cash after 3 months when they’d taken on more staff, increased production and their output of goods. This was managed by the new ‘National Labour Service’ or Reichsarbeitsdienst.
State-sponsored industry
The Nazis sponsored building programmes for new Football Stadia, enormous housing projects, and planting of new forests. In 1937 a new state-sponsored car manufacturer was commissioned by Hitler to provide cheap cars for families. It was called “der Volkswagen,” which meant ‘people’s car’ and families were encouraged to buy one by making monthly payments.
Third Reich stamp featuring a Volkswagen.
Huge public works programmes were established in construction and agricultural labour and workers were given an armband, a shovel and a bicycle and then sent to their nearest project to work. From 1933 to 1936 the number of Germans working in the construction industry tripled to 2 million. Many worked renovating and building the public buildings of Berlin.
National service programme
A new programme of Military Service took thousands of unemployed young men off the list and into the Wehrmacht (National German Army).
*** This is very misleading! We did not restart the military draft until March 1935, 26 months after we came to power, and so were already out of the Great Depression by then WITHOUT major military spending!
Notice this chart again: Joblessness plummeted from 5.7 million to 2.6 million, a fifty-percent drop BEFORE we started cranking the military up!!!!!!
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This meant that lots more guns, military vehicles, uniforms and kit were needed, so this in turn provided even more employment. The SS also took on thousands of new members, but since they had to buy their own uniforms, this tended to be from the more educated and affluent middle classes.
Women told to stay at home [“told”? No, urged]
Employers were discouraged from taking on women while the NSDAP delivered propaganda for women to stay home and be good wives and mothers, alongside giving them increased family benefits for doing so. This took women off the unemployment list and pretty much paid them to breed more children.
*** JdN
Oooh, “breed,” how animalistic…. but it is okay when Orthodox Jews breed; then it is heartwarming that a nice jewish couple “has a large family.”
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Imports were banned
Imports were forbidden unless vital to survival and then heavily discouraged, with research established to reproduce these goods from inside Germany as soon as possible. No more bread was imported from Poland, so that meant more German bread was needed, creating new jobs for farmers and bakers who were needed to produce enough to supply the German nation.
The strongest economy in Europe
1935 Reichsmark [with the classic NS slogan Gemeinnutz vor Eigennutz: “The common good before the individual.”]
By July 1935 almost seventeen million Germans were in brand new jobs, though they were not well paid by anyone’s standards. But nevertheless, these jobs provided a living wage, compared with just eleven million Germans who were in employment just two years before.
In the space of four years, Nazi Germany changed from a defeated nation, a bankrupt economy, strangled by war debt, inflation and lack of foreign capital; into full employment with the strongest economy and biggest military power in Europe.
Ein Gruß vom Volkslehrer zu Karfreitag – mitsamt einer besonderen Botschaft:
(Die Länge des Dokuments beträgt gut fünf Minütchen)
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#VOLKSLEHRER: Karfreitag in Ludwigslust
https://www.bitchute.com/video/sbjj1dS8yGrQ/
I believe Hitler deserves immense credit for laying out a well-designed economic gameplan and his lieutenants deserve credit for executing that plan, but I also think the success of the NS Economic Programme was in part due to the nature of the German people.
I’m from the West Coast and we have a lot of very, very lazy White people. I’ve been to Germany and working-class Germans are more ‘peasantlike’ than middle class and upper class ones – but they aren’t an ‘underclass’ in the manner that the worst elements of American Whites are.
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It’s a bit hard to put into tactful words, but the Germans are basically a bit more homogenous, a bit less ‘crude’, and a bit more prone to workaholic behavior.
Very true, though how long ago was your experience with German blue-collar? Things have gone downhill fast even in Germany.
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My first wife was working-class Austrian, as was her family. Salt-of-the earth people…
That’s cool, I’ve never been to Austria but I’ve heard it is a bit less ‘touristy’ than Bavaria.
My experience with Germans is also admittedly more limited than yours. My boyfriend is a middle class German & we have been together for a few years… but I still can’t speak German beyond a very basic level. I have also mainly socialized with his friends and family. My most recent trip over there was in 2019 shortly before Covid hit.
We have been in working-class neighborhoods though, and I was struck by how much cleaner they are than similar neighborhoods in America (no candy wrappers on the ground, no McDonalds bags laying in people’s yards, not a lot of pitbulls…).
I asked him his opinion on the more ghetto sort of Germans and he brought up a female rapper named Schwesta Eva and said ‘naturally, she’s a Pole.’ He tends to view Poles in a half amused, half ‘just go home already’ sort of way. This seems to be a widely held attitude among Germans. He is essentially of the opinion that Germany’s ‘White underclass’ is disproportionately Eastern European / non-German.
I’m a hard-core Anglophile and we have visited England. He views the English in a fairly positive light.
Actually, there is a genetic difference between Western and Eastern Europe, that is, Haplogroup r1b and r1a…..