The Nazi Economy

Six million to three hundred thousand

When Hitler became chancellor in January 1933 the official count of unemployed Germans stood at 6 million, one worker in three. By 1935 it was 1.7 million. By 1939 it was around 300,000, and employers were complaining of a shortage of labour. No other country recovered from the Depression so fast, and the recovery did more than anything else to make the regime popular. It was done in three ways. Public works employed men directly: the National Labour Service took 18 to 25 year olds for six months of draining marshes and planting forests at pocket-money wages, and the autobahn programme had laid 3,000 kilometres of motorway by 1938. Rearmament employed far more: conscription returned in March 1935, the army grew from 100,000 to 1.4 million by 1939, and military spending rose from around 3.5 billion marks in 1933 to 26 billion. And the figures were arranged: Jews dismissed from their jobs, women who left work for the marriage loan, and the men in the Labour Service and the army were not counted as unemployed. The economy this built was made for a war, and from September 1939 the war remade it: rationing, bombing, seven million foreign workers, and in 1945 twelve million refugees. AQA asks you to weigh benefits and drawbacks on the same evidence, to explain in what ways lives changed, and to judge which of two reasons mattered more. This module gives you the figures and the shapes.

Five words the examiners use

Each definition ends with the moment it mattered, because a bare definition earns nothing in an 8-mark answer.

The economy, in order

Put these six events in the order they happened.

• The trade unions are dissolved and the German Labour Front takes their place
• Conscription returns and the Labour Service becomes compulsory
• Goring announces the Four Year Plan for self-sufficiency and war readiness
• Food rationing begins, four days before the invasion of Poland
• Speer becomes armaments minister and Goebbels demands total war
• Millions of Germans flee westward ahead of the Red Army

Why did unemployment fall so fast?

Britain and the United States still had millions unemployed in 1938. Which explanation best accounts for Germany reaching near full employment by 1939?

• Rearmament did most of it: military spending rose from around 3.5 billion marks in 1933 to 26 billion in 1939 and the army grew fourteenfold after conscription in 1935, so that the arms factories and the barracks absorbed millions; public works did some, with the autobahns, housing and the Labour Service employing men directly from 1933; the world economy was recovering anyway from 1933; and the figures were arranged, with Jews, women, conscripts and Labour Service men removed from the count.
• The autobahns employed most of the 6 million.
• Germany exported its way out of the Depression.
• The official figures were accurate and the recovery was exactly as large as claimed.

Benefits and drawbacks on the same evidence

The grade-9 habit AQA rewards on this topic: take one piece of evidence and show both what it gave and what it cost. Each row here is one fact read both ways.

Question 1: how does Interpretation B differ?

Interpretation A, written for this module: "The Nazi economic miracle was real. Within six years a country with six million unemployed had a labour shortage, and the worker who had queued for the dole in 1932 had a wage, a paid holiday and a future by 1938." Interpretation B follows. Tap the TWO statements from Interpretation B that show a different view from A about the worker.

• The German worker of 1938 earned in real terms roughly what he had earned in 1928, and worked four hours a week longer for it.
• Unemployment fell from 6 million to a few hundred thousand between 1933 and 1939.
• He had lost his union, his right to strike and, with the work book, his freedom to leave one employer for another.
• The autobahn network reached 3,000 kilometres by 1938.
• The army grew from 100,000 men to 1.4 million after conscription returned in 1935.

The impact of war on the economy and the people

Select the THREE statements that are true of what the war did to the German economy and to German civilians.

• Rationing of food, clothing and soap began on 28 August 1939, four days before the invasion of Poland, and stayed adequate until 1942, after which the rations for meat and fats were cut repeatedly.
• With millions of men in the army, the labour shortage was met by around 7 million foreign workers by 1944, most of them forced, and by the registration of women aged 17 to 45 for work after the total war speech of February 1943.
• Allied bombing killed around 400,000 to 600,000 German civilians, destroyed much of Hamburg in July 1943 and Dresden in February 1945, and drove millions from the cities, while arms output under Speer nonetheless tripled between 1942 and 1944.
• Germany never needed rationing because self-sufficiency had succeeded.
• Unemployment returned during the war as factories were bombed.
• No Germans became refugees, because the fighting stayed outside Germany until 1945.

Two interpretations, and why they differ

AQA Paper 1 Section A opens with two interpretations and three questions: how they differ, why they might differ, and which is more convincing. The pair below were written for this module to show the shape; the exam prints real historians. Interpretation 1. Nazi economic policy was a success for ordinary Germans. It ended the Depression faster than any democracy managed, gave six million people work, held prices steady, and offered the working class holidays and leisure they had never had. Whatever else the regime did, on the economy it delivered. Interpretation 2. The recovery was bought at the expense of the workers who made it and was built for a war that destroyed them. Hours rose, real wages stood still, unions and free movement went, and the whole effort served rearmament. When the war came the same economy brought rationing before the first shot, forced labour on a scale of millions, and cities burned from the air. Why might they differ? Evidence chosen: Interpretation 1 reads the unemployment figures and the KdF brochures; Interpretation 2 reads the wage statistics, the work books and the war. Baseline: 1 measures 1938 against 1932, the bottom of the slump; 2 measures it against 1928, the best Weimar year. Purpose and time frame: 1 stops in 1939 and asks whether the policy worked; 2 runs to 1945 and asks what it was for. This meant that the same facts support both, and the convincing question is settled by which baseline and which end date the evidence justifies.

In the shoes of the economics ministry

Four decisions between 1933 and 1943. Choose what was actually done, and notice what each choice cost.

• May 1933. You are the new regime. Six million are unemployed and the unions, with millions of members, are the last organised force outside your control. What do you do?
• 1936. Schacht says the economy cannot take faster rearmament without cutting food imports and living standards. Goring says Germany must be ready for war in four years. You are Hitler. Whom do you back?
• Late August 1939. War with Poland is days away. You remember the hunger of 1918 and the revolution it fed. What do you do about food?
• February 1943. The Sixth Army has surrendered at Stalingrad, the factories are short of hands, and half of Germany is still working peacetime hours. You are Goebbels at the Sportpalast. What do you demand?

From cause to consequence

Because 6 million were out of work in January 1933, the regime put men to work at once on roads and drainage through the Labour Service and the _____. Because conscription returned in _____ and the army grew to 1.4 million, the barracks and the arms factories absorbed more men than any building scheme. Because Jews, women, conscripts and Labour Service men were left out of the count, historians call part of the fall _____ unemployment. Because the economy had been built for war, _____ began four days before the invasion of Poland. And because the men were at the front, the factories ran on around 7 million _____ workers by 1944.

Guns before butter

German military spending was around 3.5 billion marks in 1933 and around 26 billion marks in 1939. How many times larger was the 1939 figure, to the nearest whole number?

Question 4: describe two ways

AQA Question 4 might read: Describe two ways in which the Nazis reduced unemployment. It is marked as a way plus supporting detail, twice, for 4 marks. Which answer scores all four?

• One way was public works: the National Labour Service, compulsory from 1935, put around 400,000 young men at a time to work on roads and drainage, and the autobahn programme had built 3,000 kilometres by 1938. Another was rearmament: conscription returned in March 1935 and the army grew from 100,000 to 1.4 million, while arms spending rose from around 3.5 billion marks to 26 billion by 1939.
• They built roads. They built up the army.
• The Nazis were very successful at reducing unemployment and everyone had a job by 1939.
• Unemployment fell because Hitler needed a strong economy to fight a war.

A 12-mark paragraph, marked

Question 6: Which of the following was the more important reason for the fall in unemployment in Germany between 1933 and 1939: public works programmes; rearmament? Explain your answer with reference to both bullet points. Rearmament was the more important reason. From 1934 Schacht financed weapons through Mefo bills that kept around 12 billion marks of spending out of the published budget, conscription returned in March 1935 and took the army from 100,000 men to 1.4 million by 1939, and the Four Year Plan of 1936 poured money into steel, aircraft, synthetic oil and rubber. This meant that military spending rose from around 3.5 billion marks in 1933 to 26 billion in 1939, and the arms factories, the shipyards and the barracks between them absorbed more of the 6 million unemployed than every road and drainage scheme put together, so that by 1938 arms firms were short of skilled men. Public works mattered first and mattered less: the Labour Service and the autobahns gave visible work from 1933, but the autobahns employed around 125,000 at their peak and the RAD around 400,000 at pocket-money wages, which is a fraction of what the war economy absorbed after 1935. What earned the marks: a judgement in the first sentence; both bullet points addressed with specific support (Mefo, March 1935, the army figures, the Four Year Plan, the spending, 125,000, 400,000); the link phrase this meant that; and a closing comparison that says why one outweighs the other. A second paragraph on the counting of invisible unemployment as a reason the fall looked larger than it was would lift the answer further, and a sustained judgement across both is what reaches the top level.

Write the 12-mark answer

Which of the following was the more important reason for the fall in unemployment in Germany between 1933 and 1939: public works programmes; rearmament? Explain your answer with reference to both bullet points.

• One paragraph on each bullet point, with at least two pieces of specific support in each: a date, a figure, a scheme or a name
• Use a link phrase such as "this meant that" or "as a result" to turn each piece of support into an explanation of the fall

Question 3: which interpretation is more convincing?

AQA Question 3 asks which of the two interpretations on the callout card is more convincing about the Nazi economy, for 8 marks. A student has argued for Interpretation 1. Which is the strongest point to set AGAINST it?

• Interpretation 1 is convincing about 1933 to 1939 and silent about what the economy was for: measured against 1928 rather than 1932 the worker gained a job and little else, since real wages only regained the Weimar level in 1938 for four more hours a week, and the same rearmament that ended the slump produced rationing on 28 August 1939, seven million forced workers and half a million civilians dead from bombing, so Interpretation 2 is more convincing because it explains the whole period the question covers and Interpretation 1 explains only its first half.
• The Nazis were evil, so Interpretation 1 cannot be right.
• The KdF cruises mostly went to party members.
• Interpretation 1 is right because unemployment did fall to 300,000.