To support the Modern History HSC course

2. WHAT WERE HITLER’S ECONOMIC
AIMS AND PRIORITIES?
WHAT WERE THE TWO STAGES OF
NAZI ECONOMIC POLICY AND
WHAT WERE THEIR AIMS?
TO WHAT EXTENT DID HITLER
ACHIEVE HIS ECONOMIC AIMS?

3. THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST GERMAN
WORKERS PARTY➤ Economic policy prior to 1933 was confused
➤ 25 Point Plan had socialist elements
(limit big business, support small traders
and farmers)
➤ But during the 1933 campaign Hitler
promised not the threaten the interests of
big industrialists
➤ After coming to power, leading Nazis sought
a “third way” between socialism and
capitalism where the state would retain
some control of the economy but still
allowing free enterprise

4. HITLER’S AIMS
➤ To drag Germany out of
recession
➤ To increase employment
➤ To make Germany an autarky
➤ To get rid of Jewish
industrialists
➤ To transform the economy to
focus on rearmament

5. THE NEW PLAN
➤ Introduced by Hjalmar Schact,
President of the Reichsbank and
Economic Minister
➤ Included
➤ Interest frozen on payments of
foreign debts
➤ Reduced and regulated imports
including trading manufactured
goods for cheap raw materials
➤ New bilateral trade agreements
which saw imports from Eastern
Europe and South America
➤ Moved German economy from
consumer to military production

6. NEW PLAN
SUCCESS➤ 1933 Farm Law
➤ Farmers subsidised but food prices kept
at 1928 level
➤ Unemployment fell from 6 million in
January 1933 to 1 million in January 1938
➤ Public works schemes like the
autobahns (7000 km of motorway) -
Schacht heavily influenced by Keynes
and the New Deal economic policies of
the USA
➤ Despite Schact’s reservations, spending on
rearmament boosted employment and
industrial output
➤ Built two battleships, several submarines
and many aircraft
➤ Plenty of work for industrial workers and
big business

8. NEW PLAN CONTROLS
➤ Farmers collectivised and centralised under the Reich Food Estate which set strict standards
(e.g. chickens expected to lay 65 eggs per year)
➤ German Labour Front (RAD)collectivised and controlled all workers on public works projects
➤ Run by Dr Robert Ley
➤ All German males had to serve 6 months then had to join the Wehrmacht
➤ Workers could not be sacked on the spot or leave job without government permission
➤ Weekly working hours increased from 60 to 72
➤ Strikes outlawed
➤ Spending on rearmament deceived the population
➤ Volkswagen Beetle designed in 1938 as the “people’s car”
➤ Government hire/buy scheme introduced where workers paid 5 marks a week into an
account and when he account reached 750 marks they would get a car ordered for them
➤ No-one ever received a car - all money redirected into arms factories
➤ People too scared of Gestapo by this point to complain

9. THE SHIFT IN
1936➤ August 1936, Hitler dictated a
secret memorandum:
There is only one interest - the
interest of the nation, only one view,
the bringing of Germany to the point
of political and economic self-
sufficiency . . . I therefore set the
following tasks. German armed
forces must be operational within
four years. The German economy
must be fit for war within four years
➤ In 1936 the New Plan was
abandoned in favour of the Four-
Year Plan to achieve autarky or
economic self-sufficiency in food
and raw materials

10. THE FOUR YEAR
PLAN➤ Coordinated by Goring
➤ Four priorities:
1. Increase agricultural production
2. Retrain key sectors of the workforce in
military or agricultural sectors
3. Government regulation of imports and
exports
4. Achieve self-sufficiency in producing
raw materials
➤ New powers given to Goring to carry this
out included -
➤ Acquiring business and property
➤ Direct industry
➤ Re-channel financing
➤ Direct policy on the economy

11. FOUR YEAR PLAN
STRATEGIES➤ Produce synthetic rubber and
textiles to reduce reliance on
imports
➤ Iron and steel industry expanded
➤ Hermann Goring Steelworks
(state owned) built in 1937 -
largest industrial complex in
the world by 1940, employing
over 600 000 people
➤ Companies in the Ruhr directed
to stockpile coal and coke for fuel
➤ Oil and petrol produced in huge
quantities and stockpiled

12. FAILURE OF THE
FOUR YEAR PLAN➤ Agriculture suffered due to workers
being moved to industry - in 1939
Germany still importing 33% of its raw
materials
➤ While they could supply themselves
with enough coal, they still needed to
import ore to make steel
➤ The ore they produced was of low
quality
➤ According to Richard Overy, the Nazis
only met 6 of their 26 self-sufficiency
targets outlined in the Four-Year Plan
➤ So much focus on militarisation that
consumer goods were in short supply -
“guns or butter”?

13. THE BIG QUESTION
➤ Did Nazi economic policy succeed or fail?
➤ Consider their aims - employment, rearmament, autarky
➤ Why did it succeed/fail?
➤ Consider leadership, land, popular support
➤ What happens next?