Winston Churchill and the years of appeasement

Employment and living standards - Life in Nazi Germany, 1933-1939 - Eduqas - GCSE History Revision - Eduqas - BBC Bitesize

Although Germany claimed to have full employment by 1939, many groups of people were not included in the statistics, including:

• The 1.4 million men in the army at this time.
• Jews who were sacked and their jobs given to non-Jews.
• Women who were encouraged to give up their jobs to men.

Big businesses - By 1937 monopolies (which the Nazis had promised to tackle) controlled over 70 per cent of production. Rearmament from 1935 onwards boosted profits and managers of the major industrial companies saw their wages rise by 50 per cent between 1933 and 1939

Those working in the rearmament industries aside, living standards did not really improve for German workers under the Nazis. From 1933 to 1939 wages fell, the number of hours worked rose by 15 per cent, serious accidents in factories increased and workers could be blacklisted by employers if they attempted to question their working conditions.

 

Yes, they were expected to get married early, have two babies by 28 years of age and after that one baby every 2 years.( from a SS document though but after WW1 the number of men in Germany was considered low for war )

"The Nazis had clear ideas of what they wanted from women. They were expected to stay at home, look after the family and produce children in order to secure the future of the Aryan race."

 

The question is: was it an order or a suggestion. Because it was a suggestion.
There was and there is nothing wrong with supporting the traditional model of family.
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In its fifth year, Hitler's regime could present itself as the model dictatorship. Unemployment had fallen to negligible levels. The economy was booming. Life for millions of German households was returning to something like normal.

The savage wave of repression in 1933-4 had done its job Inmate numbers in Himmler's concentration camps dwindled to a few thousand. For a time, even the regime's anti-Semitism was toned down.

When compared to the warlike aggression of Fascist Italy in Africa and Imperial Japan in China, not to mention the well-publicized excesses of Stalin's show trials, Hitler's government appeared positively reasonable.
The Wages of Destruction

 

For a country that was going broke because it was preparing for war we know what was about to happen.

No, women were not ordered but they were more and more out of work force.

Yes, typical dictatorship that looked clean on the surface but was dirty inside.

The PRIVATE sector was booming. Read above. And debt figures were getting bigger and bigger all the time.

What would you do in 1939 when the country has no more foreign currency? Schacht left because he knew the answer by Hitler.

Is this the pure dictator led Germany good for workers:Big businesses - By 1937 monopolies (which the Nazis had promised to tackle) controlled over 70 per cent of production

 

Ummm...In reality 1.4 million were conscripted & 2.3 million volunteered between 1935-39.

That accounts for roughly 66% of Germany's drop in unemployment right there. It does not even include those that went into the armaments industry.

 

Not true.
Citation needed, and not the found-on-the-Internet kind. The Germans were capable to field a millions-strong army but as far as I know, the size of the pre-war Wehrmacht was about 600,000.

(1.4+2.3)/5years=0.74

Beginning in 1935, with the reintroduction of universal conscription, around 700,000 potential recruits aged eighteen years became available each year. Within just one year's cycle, the numbers of the peacetime army of 1914 could theoretically be achieved again. Yet the first year's recruits included only 360,000 young men. During the First World War the birth rate had declined greatly.
Hitler's Wehrmacht, 1935–1945 (Foreign Military Studies) by Rolf-Dieter Müller

Other countries had conscription and armies too - and of a similar size.
The point is anyway that:
Unemployment had fallen to negligible levels. The economy was booming.
Hitler's government appeared positively reason

 

wm. Why use the same excuses as you cannot admit nazi Germany was sinking in debts due to creating the new army?

 

Do you mean the fact that today America's debt is approximately 80% of its GDP, and the French 98 percent?
It was less in Nazi Germany, see figure 9 in "The Wages of Destruction."

In the thirties, Germany was actually praised for its use of debt to finance economic recovery.
This is why the economy was booming.

 

Yes but three times the Money was put to the army than in two years to construction and building Busines. Also the Money went to private businesses- making the rich even richer. Germany had no possible means to pay back but like Hitler said, get the Money from war loot. He also said that if the economy is going Down more Money must be put to army so they have a better army for the war not move Money from army to economy.

 

LOL; this is a facrical exercise in futility.

Germans were fooled: for example, the KdF-Wagen. 340,000 Germans signed up to have their paychecks docked weekly in order to procure one. How many of these people saw one? 210 were produced before the war... No private citizen ever saw one. They went to officers, except two prototypes.

Funds were misappropriated from the DAF (German Labour Front). You couldn't get a job without belonging. Those working in the rearmament industries aside, living standards did not really improve for German workers under the Nazis. From 1933 to 1939 wages fell, the number of hours worked rose by 15 per cent, serious accidents in factories increased and workers could be blacklisted by employers if they attempted to question their working conditions.

Corruption was rife, throughout business. You couldn't do business in Nazi Germany without greasing wheels.

The judiciary was anything but independent. Judges were required to swear allegiance to the Nazi party upon appointment. The fundamental legal principle became Nazi "common sense", and "Whatever is good for Germany is legal".

Volkgemeinschaft's maxim "Du bist nichts, Dein Volk ist alles." You are nothing, your Folk/Race/Nation is everything.

Police were ‘liberated’ from the restraints of the accountability. The Krimpo was very careful when investigating crime. Several murder investigations were "bungled" in the 30's. It all depended on who did what. High ranking Nazis were obviously above suspicion, unless someone else in higher power wanted the mgone.

 

The Germans spent 10 percent of their budget on recreating their Army.
That was nothing - other countries spent similar money on their Armies too - only earlier.

The point is:
Unemployment had fallen to negligible levels. The economy was booming.

The US, France, Britain faced huge economic and political problems a the same time.
In the US unemployment was at 19.4 percent.
France was unstable politically.
This is why Hitler's government appeared positively reasonable.

And this is why pre-war Germany was a good place to live for everyday Germans - despite its (unknown at that time) shortcomings.

 

Strength Through Joy [KdF below]
A state-operated leisure organization [mostly for workers]
the world's largest tourism operator by the 1930s,
By 1934, over two million Germans had participated in a KdF trip; by 1939 the reported numbers lay around 25 million people.




The sank by the Soviets MV Wilhelm Gustloff (9,400 people died) was one many ships (there were seven similar others) operated by the KDF.


The Colossus of Prora, a 4.5 km long KdF beach resort for German workers.

 

A Jewish paramilitary group in Berlin (1936.) They were part of a much larger movement Herzlia/Betar. Israel's founding fathers were members of Betar including Yitzhak Shamir, Menachem Begin, and Reuven Rivlin (current president of Israel).

The movement's activity in Germany required, of course, Gestapo approval; in fact, the movement operated under the Gestapo's protection.
A group of SS men once attacked a Betar summer camp. The head of the movement complained to the Gestapo, and a few days later the secret police announced that the SS men involved had been disciplined.
The Gestapo asked Betar what compensation would be appropriate. The movement asked that a recent prohibition forbidding them to wear their brown shirts be lifted; the request was granted.
The Israelis and the Holocaust by Tom Segev

 

Berlin olympics:

The History Place - Triumph of Hitler: The Berlin Olympics


Tourists entered a squeaky clean Berlin where all undesirable persons had been swept off the streets by police and sent to a special detention camp outside the city. Buildings everywhere were decorated with Olympic flags hung side-by-side with Nazi swastikas including all of the various facilities used for sporting competitions.

The omnipresent 'Jews Not Welcome' signs normally seen throughout Germany were removed from hotels, restaurants and public places for the duration of the Olympics. Nazi storm troopers were also ordered to refrain from any actions against Jews. The virulent anti-Semitic newspaper published by Julius Streicher called Der Stürmer was even removed from newsstands. Interestingly, visitors wanting to talk to Jews in Berlin about their daily experiences or investigate Jewish life in Nazi Germany were required to contact the Gestapo first, after which they would be closely watched until they departed.

Osten quickly established an Aryans-only policy in selecting Germany's Olympic athletes. This was in keeping with numerous Nazi rules and regulations shutting out Jews from all facets of German society. Some of the Jews excluded from the Olympic team were actually world class athletes, such as tennis star Daniel Prenn and boxer Erich Seelig. They left Germany, along with other Jewish athletes, to resume their sports careers abroad. Prenn played tennis in England while Seelig moved to the United States. The Nazis also disqualified Gypsies, including Germany's middleweight boxing champ, Johann Trollmann.

Responding to the mounting international pressure, the Nazis made a token gesture by allowing a part-Jewish athlete, Helene Mayer, back on their Olympic team. She had won a gold medal at the 1928 Games and was considered to be the world's greatest female fencer. The Nazis also let the part-Jewish Theodor Lewald function as an "advisor" to Germany's Olympic Organizing Committee.

German broadcasters and journalists always referred to the African American Owens as "the Negro Owens." The other eighteen African American athletes were referred to as "America's Black Auxiliaries" as if they were not full-fledged team members.

Overall, the Berlin Olympics was a big success for the Nazis. Hundreds of international journalists acknowledged that Germany had put on the most lavish and biggest Olympics ever. Many thousands of tourists also left Germany with happy memories of the courtesy extended to them by the Nazis and the German people, as well as the fantastic facilities and precise efficiency of the whole event. The Nazis had succeeded in getting what they most wanted from hosting the Olympics – respectability.

 

Schact

Like other Nazis Schacht was extremely hostile to Germany's Jewish population. In one speech he argued that "the Jews must realize that their influence in Germany has disappeared for all time." In 1934 he arranged with the World Zionist Organization, a deal where German Jews could pay 15,000 reichmarks to emigrate to Palestine. It is estimated that over the next four years over 170,000 reached Palestine under this agreement.

Schacht disagreed with what he called "unlawful activities" against Jews and in August, 1935 made a speech denouncing Julius Streicher and the articles he had been writing in Der Stuermer. He pointed out that Jews had fought bravely in the German Army in the First World War and deserved to be treated fairly.

Schacht also had doubts about the large amounts of money being spent on armaments. He warned Hitler that he was building armed forces far beyond the country's economic capacity. He found it increasingly difficult working under Hermann Goering who fully supported the government's policy on military spending. As Goering told Schacht "If the Fuehrer wishes it then two times two are five."

In November, 1937, Schacht resigned as minister of economics. However, he remained as President of the Reichsbank where he continued to oppose excessive expenditures for armaments. Hitler eventually removed Schacht from power in January, 1939.

 

Sure those were Jews wearing paramilitary uniforms?

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Surely making a pact that the king would join SS?

 

wm. We definitely agree to disagree. Waste of time for both. I prefer to concentrate on other threads from now on. Cheers.

 

You couldn't get on the KDF cruise trips unless you were an approved Nazi... so they were basically plundering the common worker to provide luxury cruises for the faithful.

Everything revolved around you being reported as an ardent Nazi, or you'd get diddley squat.

By 1938, the construction cost for the unfinished Prora was estimated to be the equivalent of 899 million Euro in 2009.

Prora was never finished, so is irrelevant, as no German worker spent time there on vacation. It also happens it is a stone's throw from Peenemünde...

It was a propaganda tool, and only intended for those loyal to the party.

A grand total of 150,000 people (some of them foreigners and journalists, etc) participated in KDF cruises...in a country of 80 million people.

Partaking in a KDF "trip" could be visit to Berlin zoo. Your statistic of 25 million is meaningless: a report by SOPADE smuggled out of the country in 1936, ended with the chilling sentence: “There is simply no other choice.” This was the issue with KdF – it was effectively compulsory to participate in what it had to offer. Nazi laws did include the vastly sweeping ‘anti-government activity’ legislation and anyone who refused to participate in KdF activities could be classed as being anti-government.

 

Citation needed.