Nazi Economy

• 18.4 billion marks spent on job creation schemes


  1933
• 37.1 billion marks spent on job creation schemes


  1938
• Germany built autobahns


  1. Covered 7,000 miles

  2. Provided jobs

  3. Increased efficiency of German industry as goods could travel across the country at speed
• 125,000 employed in autobahn construction


  1935
• Nazis constructed public buildings

  1. Berlin stadium for 1936 Olympic Games

  2. Bridges

  3. Coastal walls
• Nazis invested money in the car industry

  Producing the Volkswagen
• National Labour Service (RAD)


  • Compulsory for all men aged 18-25 in 1935 for 6 months
  • Helped build autobahns and other projects like draining marshes, tree planting, building coastal walls
• The RAD was successful in improving employment figures but it was not popular
• Workers in the RAD were paid very low wages and lived in tented camps with poor food and working conditions
• The official government figures did not include a number of groups who lost their jobs or those in labour service without proper jobs - the invisible unemployed
• Groups included in the invisible unemployed


  • Jews forced out of jobs, especially doctors and teachers
  • Women dismissed from jobs or encouraged to take marriage loans and have babies
  • Unmarried men under 25 had to do 6 months in the RAD
  • Opponents of Nazism arrested and sent to concentration camps
• Rearmament became especially important after 1936


  1. Four Year Plan changed the whole economy to preparing for war

  2. More money spent on manufacturing weapons like tanks, ships and aircraft

  3. Spending increased to 26 billion marks by 1939
• Between 1933 and 1939 the production of coal and chemicals doubled, and iron and steel tripled
• Hitler defied the Treaty of Versailles and announced conscription in 1935
• 1,360,000 men in the army which reduced unemployment


  1939