World War II: The Nazi Economic Policy

An Economic Upheaval The Nazi Economic Policy. A policy in which served as Germany’s crutches after being beaten down for so long. After WWI, Germany was left in a state of great need and poverty, and with their forms of Government no longer working a change needed to be made. Thus the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. Being in the state that Germany was in, the Nazis introduces many new economic policies which prepared them greatly for WWII. Although there are other factors which attributed to preparing Germany for war, the Nazi Economic Policy was the most attributable.

To understand how the Nazi Economic policy truly helped Germany for the war, it must first be known where Germany started before Hitler. The time before Hitler’s ruling was

Bruening sought to use his power to pass a policy of fiscal retrenchment and welfare state cutbacks. For as he promised Hindenburg (the previous President), Bruening tried "at any price to make the government finances safe". (cite) Bruening’s policies and programs were nearly all failures, and as these failures piled up so did the unemployment. The unemployment rate caused despair from the German population in which seeked a party and leader that actually possessed a plan. So alongside the rise of unemployment was the rise of the Nazi Party votes. Voters were unlikely to move to the establishment parties as they had ruled the country before and had some responsibility for the Depression. Voters outside the industrial working class were unlikely to move to the Social Democrats as the Social Democrats were a "class" based party, their rhetoric and their form of organization being somewhat uncomfortable for the middle class; and the Social Democrats carried burdens in a strongly nationalist country of being officially

Hitler had initiated programs to rearm, in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles, shortly after coming to power. Hitler introduced compulsory military service in 1935 and increased the army to 550,000 men. (cite) Rearmament became a national economic priority, although this was problematic, since German industries were still heavily reliant on imported raw materials. In 1936 Hitler announced a new economic program: the Four-Year Plan. He stated that “Germany must reach full independence from abroad in all raw materials that can be produced by German skills, by our chemistry, by our mechanical industries and our mines”. (cite) The German economy underwent many changes during this period. Things that were constructed consisted of oil and coal refineries, factories for the recycling, and smelting plants of steel and aluminium. But despite these changes, Germany was still far from self-sufficient (although the increase was great). By 1939 Germany was importing 33 per cent of its raw materials and 20 per cent of its food. (cite) Though enough had been done to expand the German military and its partial rearmament. Spending on arms doubled in just one year, as it was ordered to retool the factories to produce weapons, vehicles and other military equipment. According to John D Clare, Hitler’s rearmament program didn’t just increase Germany’s military but also “made him very popular at home, destroyed the Treaty