 Hello and welcome to this video summarizing everything you need to know when it comes to understanding Hitler's economic policies once he was in power and he crowned himself Führer. Now when it comes to understanding how Hitler ran the state of Nazi Germany, it's really essential to understand how he hoped to see Germany prosper economically. Do remember that of course he became Chancellor in 1933, however the effects of the Great Depression were not too far away. People still remembered the 1929 stock market crash and the economic consequences it had on Germany. So Hitler really put in place stringent economic policies as part of his mission to strengthen Germany. Now let's quickly recap on what Hitler's overall aims were when it came to Nazi Germany and of course ensuring that Germany really regained its former strength. I would say think of the acronym WELL, which means war. So firstly he wanted to rearm for war. He felt that the Treaty of Versailles on all of the concessions that Germany made after the First World War were all embarrassments for Germany and Germany not only had to reverse the effects of this but also Germans needed more land and this of course would mean war. The other things to remember in terms of his aims is to do with employment. So he wanted to put all Germans back to work and of course when I mean Germans I mean Aryan people. In other words people who were of Aryan European descent and of course people who were minorities such as Slavic people and Jewish people were excluded from this. However Hitler wanted to put all German men back to work. The other aspect of his aims was to do with independence. So Hitler wanted to ensure that Germany had all it needed without having to ever rely on other countries and of course this is tied into its economic independence. And finally the other important thing to remember is to do with land. So Hitler wanted to ensure that Germany had all it needed from other countries by invasion. This was called Lebensraum. In other words living space and increasing German living space. Now Hitler when it came to implementing his economic policies he appointed two ministers. The first was Schaatt and in 1933 to 1935 he was in charge of implementing what Hitler called the new plan. This was written up in 1934 and its aims were the following. Firstly to cut welfare spending. In other words to cut how much the government was spending in terms of helping people who are out of work, unemployed people and so on. The other aspect of the new plan was to spend more on industry especially rearmament because do you remember that of course one of Hitler's aims was to prepare for war. Also this new plan involved reducing how much Germany imported from other countries. Now Schaatt did lots of things. Firstly when it came to the Reich Labour Service which was called the R.E.D. Youth Section. Around 400,000 people who were unemployed spent six months in camps, they wore uniforms and received little pay to send back to their families. However they were in charge of working in the public work schemes such as building the autobahns and the R.E.D. Service became compulsory for men between 1935 and from women onwards from 1939. This was really really essential in reducing the numbers of unemployed people and of course even if they weren't paid very much they still had something to work on. Of course this is tied into the public works schemes. So Hitler had promised and he implemented the intention of building new homes, constructing autobahns. These are the vast railways and highways, hospitals as well as schools and this was really really good for Hitler because it gave millions of people jobs especially millions of men jobs. Also when it came to business lots of businesses were given contracts and taxes were lowered if they made sure that they could take on more men as employees. Also Hitler talked to these businesses and agreed that they could keep their wages fairly low so that they could afford to take on many workers. Hitler just wanted the numbers to go up in terms of people who were in work. Another aspect of his economic policy under shot was the Reich entailed farm law of 1933. What this did is it protected ownership of small farms, it canceled some debts and food prices were kept low and this was supposed to protect farmers and also ensure that they stayed more productive. Now Hitler didn't necessarily have a lot of results when he's looked at what shot did and especially the results that this brought and so he wasn't really happy and ultimately shot ended up for resigning and Herman Goring took over as a second minister who was looking after his economic policies and he implemented from 1936 to 1939 the four year plan. Now as I mentioned Hitler changed ministers. He wasn't really happy with shot because Germany's economy hadn't grown very much. Shot had also told Hitler to slow down when it came to rearming and spending cash elsewhere. Hitler didn't like this however so he hired Herman Goring to make Germany already in four years and of course shot resigned in 1939 but even far before then by 1936 he had essentially been sidelined. Now when it come to Herman Goring there are several things that he implemented. Firstly he strictly controlled food prices and what farmers produced the Reich food estate. Also Herman Goring stopped Germany from becoming dependent on buying goods from other countries by creating synthetic which are also called ersatz products. So for example coal was used to make oil and rubber, acorns were used to manufacture coffee, flour was used to create makeup. So in other words what Hitler really wanted was for Germany to be independent of relying on other countries for the goods that are needed and part of this independence policy was to try to create alternative products to what couldn't be found in Germany so that these things wouldn't have to be imported from other countries. A third thing that Herman Goring did was he also used slave labor from people who were jailed in concentration camps and there was a lot of forced labor by people transported to Germany from the countries that Hitler took over between 1938 and 1939. Fourthly Herman Goring oversaw the building of huge mining and metal industries. This was what was called the Herman Goring Works and of course do you remember of course all of this entailed employing lots and lots of people and even if the German men were not that well paid at least they had jobs and Hitler really focused on these numbers. Now to keep people really really motivated in terms of Hitler's economic drive he did implement some rewards for workers. The first was called the Strain Through Joy Programme KDF and it was set up in 1933. It kept workers busy outside of work with lots of organised leisure activities. There were evening classes, theatre trips, picnics and large sporting events. Also two cruise ships sailed people around the Canary Islands and this cost two weeks wages. Another thing that perhaps Volkswagen does try to keep secret in terms of its history is that it was actually created by the Nazis and it was created as a people's car. So Hitler essentially established a saving scheme that was started for workers who wanted to own a Volkswagen Beetle. They could save five marks per week until they reached 750 marks and they could use this to pay for their car so this was called the workers car and this is essentially the origins of the Volkswagen car. Another economic reward for workers was called the BT of Labour Programme SDA. Now what this programme did is it helped Germans see workers something good and something to be proud of and factory owners and businesses were asked to try to improve working conditions like giving free hot meals, improving lighting, reducing noise in factories as well as lowing pollution. Now when it comes to actually evaluating whether Hitler's economic policy was a success there's lots of things to consider. Firstly to some extent you could say this was successful because Germany's infrastructure improved. Indeed 2,000 miles of autobahns were built between 1933 and 1938 and even today autobahns in Germany are quite infamous. These are the very high speed motorways that cars can drive and they're very very well connected so these actually the origins of this was during the Nazi period. So to some degree you can say that what Hitler did in terms of infrastructure actually improved Germany. Also 60,000 new houses were built on his watch and most German people had a guaranteed job. The job didn't necessarily pay very well but they did have a job. His focus as well on rearmament created many jobs so do you of course remember that he focused a lot on heavy industry and this of course generated jobs. Now industrial goods and weapons were made more than consumer goods such as clothes and shoes. So Germans had the illusion that they were better off as they had less leisure items to buy and this is of course because that there were not that many companies which were supported which focus on consumer good production. Furthermore the KDF program made many working-class German people feel that they had an actually good life and especially the Volkswagen car meant that they had access to a cheaper car which prior to this and prior to the rule of Hitler many of them weren't able to afford. Also the most productive workers could qualify for a cruise on a KDF ship. This was seen as something that many people felt meant that Hitler's economic policy was a success. Also the beauty of labor program the SDA created better working conditions for a lot of employees and big companies made huge profits as they got massive government contracts and they didn't have to pay workers very high wages. Also do you remember that the Reich entailed farm laws meant that farmers to some extent partly benefited as the debts were reduced and they had a place to sell the goods and of course this market was the government. That being said there were many downsides to Hitler's economic policy so when you're thinking about evaluating whether to what extent it was a success you should also think about all the downsides. Now firstly do bear in mind that workers worked harder for less pay. In other words most people worked a 49 hour week which had risen to 53 hours a day by 1943 so actually under Hitler people had to work harder and for less money. Another thing to remember in terms of the quality of life going down is that many people were conscripted into the army especially young men aged between 18 and 25 years and they had no choice. Also the numbers looked really good in terms of unemployment because a massive gender women were removed from the workforce and forced to stay at home. In other words under Hitler's leadership life was actually worse for many women who hated being forced to stay at home so even if we can say that the numbers looked better because more people were employed actually this also means that these numbers only included the people who were still on the workforce a lot of women were forced to be removed from the workforce and encouraged to stay at home and have lots of babies. Also Jews and other minority groups were removed from their jobs and Jewish businesses were closed down or the businesses were deemed too profitable were essentially given over to German people meaning that again another massive group ethnic minorities were removed making the numbers look good but actually if you count the number of total German people women and Jews and other minority groups were actually their lives are much much worse off under Hitler. Also bear in mind that small businesses suffered immensely and 20% of small businesses closed down on Hitler's watch. Farmers also didn't really benefit that much from the Reich entailed farm laws as government controlled what they could charge so they couldn't make massive profit. There was also rationing of many things like butter even before the Second World War started because Hermann Göring wanted what he called arms not butter. It was an extreme focus on rearmament and heavy industry. So that's all when it comes to understanding Hitler's economic policy. I hope you found this really useful and thank you so much for listening.