Changing Living Standards 1933-39 Flashcards
Standard of living change
Increasingly sharply divided between that of conformist “pure Germans” and that of people the Nazis saw as undesirable
What other undesirables were in the Nazi State?
18th August 1939 - all doctors, nurses and midwives had to report any babies and children under 3 years of age who had any mental/physical disability ; this T4 campaign was mounted further where parents were offered the chance to send their children to “specialist clinics”where they were killed. From Jan 1940 this expanded to the mentally ill/chronically sick and over 70000 people died under the T4 programme
Between October 1936 and July 1940 families that were asocial (alcoholics/not financially stable) were sent for about a year to be re-educated at Hashude ; re-education included lectures and classes
The ordinary worker
Living standards initially improved under Nazis and unemployment dropped - real wages grew however these wages were regulated so people did not have too much spending money because industry was geared to war production, not consumables.
Benefits were provided through the “Strength through Joy” programme with medical care, the provision of loans and extra food for “suitable” mothers. They did keep people optimistic tho - for example, you can save up to get a Volkswagen (factory soon turned to war production)
Social Welfare
They inherited a social welfare programme but in 1933 set up the NSV which divided the needy into those who deserved help and those who did not ; the NSV’s aims was to create a stable and healthy population and not to really care about the welfare of individuals
NSV ran mother and child programmes and crèches and kindergartens that the Nazis thought as their first chance to influence a child’s upbringing
By the end of 1938 there were about 10800 of these
NSV housing
By 1939 the NSV had a million volunteers and block wardens responsible for housing
They ran a yearly Winter Aid programme to distribute food and clothing parcels and running soup kitchens at emergency centres - from the start it was very hard to not contribute to this as SA members often asked quite aggressively for donations
How did people view the NSV?
As Nazi snoopers who were hoping to catch people breaking regulations such as listening to foreign radio broadcasts
