Policies to reduce unemployment and their impact

Question 1

Economic plans

Answer 1

Date: 1936

Cause:

• Hermann Goering created the ‘Four Year Plan’ to help Germany prepare for war.

Its two aims were:

• Rearmament
  Self-sufficiency
• The four-year plan was accompanied by a propaganda campaign to persuade people to only buy German products and eat only German food.
• in 1939, Germany imported 1/3 of its raw materials.

Consequences:

1) By 1939, the government had a debt of over 40 billion marks.

2) The Four-year plan led to food shortages. Although millions of people were back at work, the average consumption of basic foodstuffs like bread, milk, meat, and eggs dropped between 1937 and 1939.

Question 2

Reducing unemployment

Answer 2

What:

• The nazis doubled spending on public work programs, such as building autobahns and the Olympic Stadium in Berlin which created jobs for construction workers.
• Hitler took rearmament more importantly so the spending on arms increased from around 2 million marks in 1933 to 17 million in 1937 which helped create industrial jobs, e.g. (coal mining, iron ore extraction, etc.)
• The TOV had limited Germany’s army to 100,000 men, but by 1938 there were more than 900,000 men in the army.

Question 3

‘Invisible unemployment’

Answer 3

Cause:

• From 1933, women were encouraged to stay at home.
• From 1937, women were encouraged back to work to support the rearmament program.
• Jews were forced from their jobs and their positions were taken by Aryans. Leading to Jews no longer being considered as citizens and so they were not included in the unemployment figures.
• The National Labour Service (RAD) was set up to organize unemployed men to do manual work.
• After 1935, unemployed men were forced to join the RAD and were no longer counted as unemployed.

Question 4

The German Labour Front (DAF)

Answer 4

• The Nazis banned the trade unions and set up The German Labour Front, led by, Dr. Robert Ley.
• Trade unions were seen as a threat because they argued for improved workers’ rights and were associated with communism.
• The DAF’s main aims were to control wages and to get workers to work harder.
• The DAF wanted more work without pay, so it ran two programs to try to improve workers’ lives:

STRENGTH THROUGH JOY(KDF):

• This scheme gave workers rewards for their work - evening classes, theatre trips, picnics, and even very cheap or free holidays.

BEAUTY OF LABOUR(SDA):

• The job of this organization was to help Germans see that work was good, and that everyone who could work should. It also encouraged factory owners to improve conditions for workers.