Workers, Farmers and Businesses in Nazi Germany

Question 1

Economic recovery and rearmament (Card 1)

Answer 1

• Nazis acted with commitment to solve some of the main problems
• The economist Dr Hjalmar Schacht organised Germany’s finances to fund a huge programme of work creation
• The National Labour Service sent men on public work projects to build motorways or autobahns and railways
• Job creation was almost entirely funded by the state rather than from German businesses
• However, unemployment fell steadily and Germany was short of workers by 1939

Question 2

Economic recovery and rearmament (Card 2)

Answer 2

• One of Hitler’s most cherished plans was rearmament
• In 1935 he reintroduced conscription for the German army
• In 1936 he announced a Four-Year Plan under the control of Goering to get the German economy ready for war
• Conscription successfully reduced unemployment because the need for weapons, equipment and uniforms created jobs in the coal mines, steel and textile mills
• The German world-class air force (the Luftwaffe) allowed engineers and designers to gain new opportunities

Question 3

The Nazis and the workers

Answer 3

• Hitler promised and delivered lower unemployment which helped to ensure popularity among industrial workers
• Hitler needed good workers to create the industries that would help to make Germany great

Question 4

What schemes did the Nazis use to keep the workers happy?

Answer 4

• Strength Through Joy (KDF) gave them cheap theatre and cinema tickets, organised trips and sporting events
• Thousands of workers saved 5 marks a week in the state scheme to buy the Volkswagen Beetle, the ‘people’s car’
• It became a symbol of the prosperous new Germany, even though no workers ever received a car because all car production was halted by the war in 1939
• Beauty of Labour movement which improved working conditions in factories

Question 5

What was the disadvantages of these schemes?

Answer 5

• Workers lost their main political party, the SDP
• Lost their trade unions and this caused resentment
• Workers had to join the DAF (General Labour Front) run by Dr Robert Ley and this organisation kept a strict control of workers
• Strikes for better pay and working conditions were banned
• Some people were prevented from moving to better-paid jobs
• Wages were comparatively low
• By the late 1930s many workers complained their standard of living was still lower than it’d been before the Depression

Question 6

The Nazis and the farming communities

Answer 6

• Farmers had been an important factor in the Nazis’ rise to power so Hitler helped them
• In September 1933 he introduced the Reich Food Estate under Richard Darre
• This forced central boards to buy agricultural produce from the farmers
• Gave the peasant farmers a guaranteed market for their goods at guaranteed prices
• The Reich Entailed Farm Law: banks couldn’t seize their land if they couldn’t pay loans or mortgages, ensuring the farmers’ land stayed in their hands

Question 7

What was ‘Blood and Soil’?

Answer 7

• The Reich Entailed Farm Law also had a racial aim
• ‘Blood and Soil’ was the belief that the peasant farmers were the basis of Germany’s master race
• Farmers were the backbone of the new German empire in the east

Question 8

What were the disadvantages of these Nazi measures for peasant farmers?

Answer 8

• More efficient, go-ahead farmers were held back by having to work through the same processes as less efficient farmers
• The Reich Entailed Farm Law stated that only the eldest child inherited the farm
• Many children of farmers left the land to work for better pay in Germany’s industries
• Rural depopulation (the decrease in population size in rural areas due to out-migration) ran at about 3% per year in the 1930s - the exact opposite of the Nazis’ aims!

Question 9

Big business and the middle class (Card 1)

Answer 9

• Many middle-class business people were grateful to the Nazis for eliminating the Communist threat to their businesses/properties
• They liked the way in which the Nazis seemed to be bringing order to Germany
• If you owned a small engineering firm, you were likely to do well from government orders as rearmament spending grew in the 1930s
• However, if you produced consumer goods or ran a small shop you might have struggled since large department stores who were taking business away from local shops weren’t closed

Question 10

Big business and the middle class (Card 2)

Answer 10

• Big businesses really benefited from Nazi rule
• Big companies no longer had to worry about troublesome trade unions and strikes
• Mercedes and Volkswagen prospered from Nazi policies
• Companies that created chemicals gained huge government contracts to create explosives, fertilisers and artificial oil

Question 11

What was the Volksgemeinschaft: ‘National community’?

Answer 11

• Hitler wanted all ‘racially pure’ Germans to think of themselves as part of a national community
• Under Nazi rule workers, farmers and so on would see themselves as Germans
• First loyalty would be to Germany and the Führer
• Germans would be so proud to belong to a great nation that was racially and culturally superior to other nations that they would put the interests of Germany before their own
• Hitler’s policies were designed to win the kind of loyalty to the Nazi state

Question 12

Did the Nazis succeed in creating a Volksgemeinschaft?

Answer 12

• No, the Nazis never quite succeeded
• Germans in the 1930s didn’t lose their self-interest
• Never embraced the national community wholeheartedly
• However, the Nazis didn’t totally fail
• In the 1930s Germans did have a strong sense of national pride and loyalty towards Hitler
• For the majority of Germans, the benefits of Nazi rule made them willing to accept some central control, in order to make Germany great again