Year 12 – Nazi Germany homework
For Monday 2nd March
Produce a document to summarise Continuity (things that stayed the same) and Change in Nazi Economic policies, 1933-1939
Examples of documents you could produce include a table with two columns, a diagram, a mind map, two paragraphs or a graph.
I expect last weeks’ homework (questions answered on Nazi economic policies – see below, Feb 15th) to be handed in by Wednesday. If you are not able to do this, please see me.
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Nazi Economy Questions
1.
Looking at the sources there is a subtle difference between and them and this is the scale of both the sources where Source 2 is mainly about the day to day life where source 3 is more about the big picture but let’s look at both of them first for similarities.
Both of the sources heavily but bot directly mention the idea that the it was state that controlled everything regarding the workers, their rights and who told them what to do. Source 2 talks about the workers having “been put in their place under Hitler”. This referred to Hitler removing all Trade Unions and put all workers under the one Union, the RAF. The source also mentions the fact that bosses no longer feared disciplining anyone and once again were “absolute master” as the unions were gone there no longer the threat of strikes. All this meant now the State had control over the workers as they could now simply tell the bosses what they wanted from the workers and it would be done. Source 3 also mentions the idea of the state being completely in charge but in a slightly different manner. Rather than having control directly over the workers as mentioned in Source 2, Source talks about the state ordering whole companies and the entire work force of the nation to focus on one thing and one thing only. Rearmament, “that everything else therefore should be subordinated to this purpose.”. This shows utter control within the state over the economy as they can order a cause that requires the entire nation and it’s done.
Again, both sources talk about the idea of Big Business had more control because the government needed them and in turn it benefitted both of them. Source 3 is focused on the governments obsession with rearmament and it Hitler himself even stated “the accomplishment of the armament programme with speed and in quantity is the problem of German politics, that everything else therefore should be subordinated to this purpose.”. This meant a huge opportunity for the people at the top of the big companies who could be quite pushy with their demands from the government. This leads me onto Source 2 in which one of the results one the Big Business affair was Hitler’s removal of the Trade Unions which was on Hitler’s agenda but Big Business leaders would also be extremely interested in this as well as they would have more control over the workers. This was legally done by “the Charter of Labour, had put the worker in his place and raised the employer to his old position of absolute master – subject, of course, to interference”. The whole idea of Big Business having influence in the Nazi party and the running of the country was for the mean time inevitable as the Nazis and Hitler needed them to rebuild the country and carry out his dream of rearmament.
Looking at the similarities of each source naturally leads you onto looking at the differences between them both and compare them. I’ll begin with Source 2.
Source 2 is written by an American journalist, William Shirer who lived in Germany during the rise of the Nazis and wrote the source itself after WW2 in 1950. The source itself differs from source 3 in one big way, the scale in which each context is focused on. Source 2 is primarily about the average worker his/her status regarding the social hierarchy. It says that the workers, as the Nazis became more focused on the economy became gradually worst off. They lost the Trade Unions and that in turn meant less workers rights and the potential for exploitation, their were small wage rises but the cost of living increased at a faster pace than the wages rising. This benefited the businesses and the government because they were now no strikes and work got done, quotas were met etc because of the lack of strikes and workers campaigning. Where as source 3 is mainly about the governments plans regarding where they wanted the work ethic focused and what the Nazis expected from the Economy. After the Treaty Of Versailles crippled Germany, the Nazis decided to break it and go ahead and again rebuild the Armed Forces with rearmament. This required the whole of Germany’s industry to focus on it to get it completed in the time scale Hitler set out. Overall regarding the context of each, Source 2 is focusing on the workers themselves where as Source 3 is focused more on the “bigger picture” talking about the Nazi plans and how Hitler wanted them done.
Another big difference between them is the author and their background as this effects each source massively. Source 2 is written by a American living in Germany 5 after the end of the war (Note that the events in question are before was declared or even before America got involved combat wise.). Source 2 as stated is written by an American living in Germany and witnessed the events himself and can be viewed as a primary source. The major facts to take into account when looking at the source and evaluating it, is his background. He wasn’t, as far as we know, a devout Nazi or even a Nazi so isn’t going to biased towards them and because America went to war with them he may be biased against them. The same applies to Source 3, it was wrote by Hjalmar Schacht, he was at one point a key member of the Nazi party, a minister for the Economy between 1934 and 1937. The situation of which the source is taken from is the stand out point for me as it was the Nuremberg trials and we are not completely sure of his feelings and opinions at this point. My opinion would be he would tell the truth about the Nazis at this time as he is on trial and facing serious consequences and still might have sour feelings as was removed from his post by the Nazis (Unless he retired).
2.
Looking at the entire period of the German Economy you can measure the success of the policies but first of all we’d need to look at their overall aims. The Nazis aim was three different long term goals which included; Recovery from the Great Depression, Rearmament of the German Army, Navy and Air Force and finally to be self sufficient (Autarky). Now we know the German aims you can measure the success.
If we were to look at the Nazi aim of reducing unemployment you can look at what the Nazis did about it. To start off you can look at the the Nazi’s and the Public Works Act. This enabled Germany to give people jobs that were unemployed and build up Germany’s hospitals,schools, parks, infrastructure etc at the same time. You can link this nicely to the Source 1 as it is a propaganda poster showing the fall of unemployment and that after 1933, where all the acts began to come in unemployment fell. Other policies the Nazi’s used to combat unemployment was the idea of paying companies with Mefo Bills to employ people. The whole idea of giving the big companies money and contracts to take on people was a big credit to the Nazis as I said it got people people into employment and got the tasks like Rearmament and the construction of Germany’s buildings roads etc done in one go. The policies put in place were probably the most successful Hitler had decided to use as it reduced unemployment from 6,000,000 to just 400,000 and in turn led to the development of brand new buildings and roads, but it didn’t come without a cost as it the idea mefo bills and the building schemes meant that Germany’s debt increased almost 10 fold.
Rearmament was another big topic on the Nazis economic agenda as Hitler’s long term plan was Total War on the nations that had crippled his beloved German nation. He combined the unemployment and big business schemes together to satisfy the demands for rearmament, in which the companies that took on the people were told to focus on Germany’s rearmament as the Treat of Versailles had destroyed the Armed Forces and restricted them from expanding. Initially Hitler wanted all industry focused on the Rearmament scheme but this failed until approximately 1943 where there was no other choice but to focus all the attention on the military. The policy itself was successful regarding it’s purpose, it reduced unemployment as 100,000’s-1,000,000’s new jobs were introduced as the SS, Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine were expanded/formed but again like most of the policies the Nazis introduced it resulted in massive debt that was not addressed.
Finally there was the idea of Autarky, being self sufficient which was Hitler’s and Nazi’s belief that it was the only way for Germany to a superior nation and not rely on the rest of world for particular goods. On one hand it was was successful as Germany was relying on less imports and at time of war this crucial as certain goods, some essential are simply unavailable and this in turn strengthened the Germany economy as it created jobs within the country for it’s own citizens. But again, due to the geography of the world, it still relied heavily on the import of raw materials, particularly in the Balkans where they were needed for rearmament. They never actually achieved Autarky as it means you have no imports at all and Germany was still importing goods.
In conclusion the Nazi’s were largely successful throughout 1933 through to 1936 and in the end managed to solve a large number of of issues within Germany since the end of the first world war and the introduction of the Treaty of Versailles. But, even though they had a considerable number problems in the Germany which weren’t resolved; Wages didn’t keep up with living costs, debt was out of control and eventually they didn’t build their armament big enough to fight the number of enemies they intended to fight which in turn was a leading factor in which the Third Reich crumbled.