(i) The Background
When Hitler came to power in 1933, six million Germans were out of work. His most urgent task was to find them jobs, for during the election campaigns he had promised the voters "work and bread" if he ever became leader.
(ii) The Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD)
Fortunately for Hitler, several job-creation schemes had already been started by previous governments. One was the National Labour Front ( Reichsarbeitsdienst, or RAD ). This organisation gave men jobs in public works schemes -- digging drainage ditches on farms, planting new forests, building schools and hospitals. The biggest public works scheme was the building of a network of motorways. Soon after coming to power, Hitler took over the Labour Service and expanded it. Men in the RAD had to wear military uniform and live in camps, and they were given only pocket money as wages. But for many thousands of men that was better than life with no work at all -- and they got free meals. In 1935, a Reich Labour Service Law said that all men aged 18-25 must spend six months in the Labour Service. With hundreds of thousands of young Germans entering the work camps, the jobless figures dropped sharply. The Nazis also took over the road-building programme from the previous government. A law of June 1933 expanded the programme by ordering the creation of a network of motorways. This gave work to never fewer than 80,000 men over the next five years. At the same time, a Law to Reduce Unemployment gave government grants for building new homes, schools, hospitals and other public services. To make sure that this gave work to as many people as possible, this law said that all such buildings must be done by hand.
(iii) The attack on unemployment
The results of Hitler's attack on unemployment look impressive at first sight :
UNEMPLOYMENT IN GERMANY
JANUARY 1933 6 014 000
JANUARY 1934 3 773 000
JANUARY 1935 2 974 000
JANUARY 1936 2 520 000
JANUARY 1937 1 853 000
JANUARY 1938 1 052 000
JANUARY 1939 302 000
In fact, the drop in unemployment was not all due to the creation of new jobs. Many Jews and women were forced out of their jobs soon after Hitler came to power. Although their jobs were given to unemployed people, the names of the Jews who became unemployed were not then recorded in the unemployment registers.
The most important reason for the fall in unemployment during these years was rearmament. Hitler planned to make Germany a strong and independent country, and that meant building up the size and strength of the army. In March 1935 he started compulsory military service for young men, and set up an airforce. The army quickly grew from 100,000 men in 1933 to 1,400,000 in 1939. Of course, the men doing their military service did not count as unemployed, so this took 1,300,000 off the registers. And to equip this new army, 46 billion marks were spent on weapons and equipment, so many thousands of people were given work in making the tools of war. Hundreds of thousands of workers were drafted into the factories to turn out the guns and tanks needed. As Reichsmarshall Goring commented : "In the decisive hour it would not be a question of how much butter Germany has but how many guns".
Because Hitler wanted a strong, independent Germany, he had to make the country self-sufficient in food and materials. He ordered Germany's scientists to find artificial substitutes for food and materials imported from other countries. They quickly developed all sorts of substitutes; wool and cotton were made from pulped wood, coffee from acorns, petrol from coal, make-up from flour, and so on. As all these things were made in Germany in place of imported goods, many of the unemployed found work in new industries. The problem was that Germany could not hope to produce enough raw materials from within Germany herself. Countries rich in these materials would have to come under Nazi control or influence. This was why Hitler's ambitions were likely to lead to war sooner or later as Germany seized for herself the vital requirements for her economy from other nations. Hitler's main aim, therefore, was to prepare Germany for a war of conquest in Europe.
At a top secret conference in 1937, he told his military commanders that the German people needed Lebensraum, or living-space, beyond the borders of Germany in Eastern Europe, and that the Nazis must be prepared to use force to obtain it. The Nazi government borrowed large sums of money and spent it on purchasing weapons, building airfields, autobahns and docks, and trained soldiers, all of which helped to create more jobs. In 1933 the army was 100,000; by 1935 it was 550,000 and growing. In 1936 Goring was put in charge of the Four Year Plan, whose aim was to make Germany ready for war by 1940 with the country producing all its own food and raw materials.
The Plan was not a complete success. When Germany declared war on Poland in 1939, it was still importing 33% of its raw materials and 20% of its food. However, the Plan had put large numbers of people back to work by investing heavily in chemical firms such as I.G. Farben, which had discovered how to produce synthetic rubber and how to refine petrol from coal. The price to pay for this success was a large national debt which had risen by 250% between 1933 and 1939. This did not bother Hitler : when his armies overran the Slavs in Eastern Europe, the Slavs would pay Germany's debts.
(iv) The German Labour Front
One new feature of work in Nazi Germany was that there were no trade unions. Within months of coming to power, Hitler abolished all trade unions and set up the German Labour Front in their place. It was run by a former chemist, Dr Robert Ley. Dr Ley did make some improvements in the life of workers. He made sure, for example, that bosses could not sack workers on the spot. But he also made sure that workers could not leave a job without the government's permission, and that only government-run labour exchanges could arrange new jobs. Worse, Dr Ley abolished the right of workers to bargain for higher wages, and he made strikes illegal. He also got rid of limitations on the number of hours a person could be made to work. By 1939, many Germans found themselves working 60 to 72 hours a week. Not many workers complained, however. This was not just because they were afraid of what might happen if they did complain. By 1936 the average factory worker was earning 35 marks a week -- ten times more than the dole money which six million people were receiving in 1933.
(v) Strength Through Joy
Hitler and the Nazi Party aimed to control every part of people's lives, and that included their free time. A huge party organisation called Strength Through Joy ( Kraft Durch Freude -- K.D.F. ) had the job of organising leisure activities for the people. The K.D.F. was run by Dr Robert Ley, leader of the German Labour Front. He worked out that there were 8,760 hours in a year, and that the average German spent one third of them sleeping and a quarter of them at work. This left 3,740 hours free for leisure. Dr Ley wanted to be sure that these leisure hours were not wasted : people with nothing to do in their free time would get bored and frustrated, and this would make them into bored and frustrated workers. Happy people with plenty to do in their free time would be more likely to work hard at their jobs. So Dr Ley and the K.D.F. drew up massive programmes for working people.
The biggest programme provided workers with cheap holidays. Dr Ley had two 25,000 tonne liners built to take workers on ocean cruises at bargain prices. A cruise to the Canary Islands, for example, cost 62 marks, the equivalent of two weeks' wages. Although most Germans could afford this, it was only loyal and hardworking members of the Nazi Party who were given places on the cruise liner. For those who could not get a place on a cruise ship, there were walking holidays in the mountains for 28 marks a week or, in winter, skiing holidays in Bavaria. The price of 28 marks included travel, board and lodging, the hire of skis, and lessons from an instructor. People with a taste for foreign travel could have two weeks in Switzerland for 65 marks, or a tour of Italy for 155 marks.
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