This document summarizes how Hitler restored the German economy and gained widespread popularity following his rise to power in 1933. It details how he instituted large-scale public works programs that reduced unemployment to 5 million, rearmed the military in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, and instituted policies to win the loyalty of workers, farmers, and big business. This economic recovery and restoration of national pride led most Germans in the 1930s to feel a sense of loyalty and community towards Hitler's regime.

1. NAZI Germany
Workers, farmers and
businessmen

2. Economic recovery and
rearmament
•Hitler promised radical methods to
solve desperate unemployment and a
crisis in German farming.
•German people gave up political
freedom to solve these problems
•Was it worth it?
•5 million jobless in 1933
•Dr. Hjalmar Schacht brilliantly
organized Germany’s finances to fund
a huge programme of work creation.
Public works projects
Conservation projects
Autobahns
Railways – extended and new
Major housing projects
Grandiose new public buildings
New Reich Chancellery
• Hitler fulfilled these promises

3. Rearmament
•1935 Hitler introduced conscription,
thus breaking the Treaty of Versailles
•1936 – Hitler’s 4-Year-Plan under control
of Herman Goering.
•Prepare Germany for War – one of the
very few clear policy documents written
by Hitler.
•Conscription reduced unemployment.
•Need for weapons, equipment and
uniforms created jobs in coalmines, steel
and textile industries.
•Engineers and designers for new
Luftwaffe, navy and army.
•Provided Hitler with economic revival
•Hitler thus popular amongst the German
people.
•Hitler gave them National Pride again
•German people felt their country was
emerging from the humiliation of the
Treaty of Versailles.
•This put Germany on an equal footing
with the major powers of the world.

4. The workers
•Hitler promises and delivered to the industrial
workers thus gaining popularity.
•Hitler needed the workers to Make Germany
great again!
•Hitler won their loyalty by:
Propaganda praising the workers associating
them with Hitler
Schemes such as Strength through Joy (KDF)
gave workers cheap cinema tickets, organized
improvement courses, holiday trips, sports event
tickets.
Many workers saved 5 Marks a week to
purchase the VW Beetle – people’s car.
Another important scheme – Beauty of Labour
– improved working conditions in factories such
as low-cost canteens, washing facilities, open
plan and more windows and air conditioning, etc.
•Result: German workers lost their main political
party (SDP), lost their Trade Unions both of which
left a seething resentment.
•All workers had to join the General Labour Front
(DAF) run by Dr. Robert Ley.
•DAF kept strict control of workers – no strikes,
no movement to better paid jobs, wages
comparatively low, BUT prices were strictly
controlled.
•Workers believed their standard of living to be
lower than pre-Depression days!

5. Nazi Farming
communities
•Farmers had been a major part of
Hitler coming to power. He did not
forget this.
•1933 the Reich Food Estate was
introduced under Richard Darre.
•Central Boards purchased agricultural
goods from farmers and distribute
them to markets for guaranteed
prices.
•Reich Entailed Farm Law
•Gave peasants state protection for
their farms; banks could not seize land
if they defaulted on loan repayments.
•Land stayed in the hands of peasants
not landowners
•Blood and Soil philosophy – farmers
were the basis of the racially based
Aryan Master Race.
•Farmers showed their thanks and love
to Hitler at the annual Harvest Festival

6. Big Business and
Middle Class
•Nazi record with the Middle Class was
mixed
•Middle Class grateful for Hitler
eliminating the Communists
•There was mixed support for Hitler’s
policies
•Small engineering firms thrived on
state orders due to rearmament
•Department stores still taking
business away from small shops and
not closed according to Hitler’s
promise.
•Big Business benefitted massively as
there were no strikes or Trade Unions
• I.G.Farben benefitted from huge
government contracts for explosives,
fertilizers and oil from coal
•Mercedes, BMW, Krupp, Bayer, VW,
etc. all benefitted greatly and still exist
today.

7. National
Community:
Volksgemeinschaft
•Hitler did not want social ‘classes’, but
wanted all Germans (all racially pure
Germans!) to think of themselves as a
part of a national community.
•‘Volksgemeinschaft’.
•Farmers, workers, middle class,
business owners, etc. would all see
themselves as Germans.
•First loyalty was to Germany, not a
social group.
•Pride in belonging to a great nation
that was racially and culturally
superior to other nations.
•Interests of Germany would go before
their own interests, thus Hitler’s
policies were designed to create this
kind of loyalty to the state.
•In the 1930’S, MOST Germans did feel
this national pride and loyalty towards
Hitler.