NAZI ECONOMIC CHANGES

• The German economy was still suffering from the depression but Hitler knew to deliver his promise of ‘Worl And Bread’ he needed to crate more jobs
• Unemployment was tackled by creating public works programmes e.g. building autobahns (motorways).

  Millions of men were given this job even though they were paid poorly.
• Men aged 18-25 were made to join the RAD (Reich labour service) for 6 months. They did hard manual labour e.g. tree felling and ditch digging and had to wear Nazi uniform and live in camps.
• All workers joined the DAF (German labour front) which controlled the workers and settled disputes between them and their employers. Persuading employers to improve conditions in factories.
• The KDF (Strength through Joy) organisation was set up to organise the lesuire time of the workers, providing them with cheap theatre tickets, cruises, skiing holidays and saving up for Volkswagen (peoples car). This encouraged them to work harder.
• From 1935 German men began to be conscripted into the army and more and more factories were set up for weapons production, both creating jobs. Germany tried to achieve self sufficiency so that they could keep fighting when other countries stopped trading with them.
• Women and Jews were sacked creating jobs for men. This was known as invisible unemployment as they were not counted in the unemployment figures.
• When Hitler came to power there were 6 million people unemployed, by 1938 that had reduced to 500,000. This made many people supports Hitler and the Nazis as they made life better.
• The government took control of prices, wages, profits and imports which stopped big businesses from running their affairs in their own way.
• Jewish small businesses were closed down allowinf other German small businesses to grow.
• Farmers were given help in paying off loans but we’re given quotas for production to meet which limited their freedom.