By Mark Weber
To deal with the massive unemployment and economic paralysis of the Great
Depression, both the US and German governments launched innovative and
ambitious programs. Although President Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” measures
helped only marginally, the Third Reich’s much more focused and comprehensive
policies proved remarkably effective. Within three years unemployment was
banished and Germany’s economy was flourishing. And while Roosevelt’s record in
dealing with the Depression is pretty well known, the remarkable story of how
Hitler tackled the crisis is not widely understood or appreciated.
Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. A few weeks
later, on March 4, Franklin Roosevelt took office as President of the United
States. Each man remained his country’s chief executive for the next twelve
years -- until April 1945, shortly before the end of World War II in Europe. In
early 1933 industrial production in each country had fallen to about half of
what it had been in 1929. Each leader quickly launched bold new initiatives to
tackle the terrible economic crisis, above all the scourge of mass
unemployment. And although there are some striking similarities between the
efforts of the two governments, the results were very different.
One of the most influential and widely read American economists of the
twentieth century was John Kenneth Galbraith. He was an advisor to several
presidents, and for a time served as US ambassador to India. He was the author
of several dozen books, and for years taught economics at Harvard University.
With regard to Germany’s record, Galbraith wrote: “… The elimination of
unemployment in Germany during the Great Depression without inflation -- and
with initial reliance on essential civilian activities -- was a signal
accomplishment. It has rarely been praised and not much remarked. The notion
that Hitler could do no good extends to his economics as it does, more
plausibly, to all else.”
The Hitler regime’s economic policy, Galbraith goes on, involved “large
scale borrowing for public expenditures, and at first this was principally for
civilian work -- railroads, canals and the Autobahnen [highway network]. The
result was a far more effective attack on unemployment than in any other
industrial country.” / 1 “By late 1935,” he also wrote, “unemployment was at an
end in Germany. By 1936 high income was pulling up prices or making it possible
to raise them … Germany, by the late thirties, had full employment at stable prices.
It was, in the industrial world, an absolutely unique achievement.” / 2 “Hitler
also anticipated modern economic policy,” the economist noted, “by recognizing
that a rapid approach to full employment was only possible if it was combined
with wage and price controls. That a nation oppressed by economic fears would
respond to Hitler as Americans did to F.D.R. is not surprising.” / 3
Other countries, Galbraith wrote, failed to understand or to learn from the
German experience: “The German example was instructive but not persuasive.
British and American conservatives looked at the Nazi financial heresies -- the
borrowing and spending -- and uniformly predicted a breakdown … And American
liberals and British socialists looked at the repression, the destruction of
the unions, the Brownshirts, the Blackshirts, the concentration camps, and
screaming oratory, and ignored the economics. Nothing good [they believed], not
even full employment, could come from Hitler.” / 4
Two days after taking office as Chancellor, Hitler addressed the nation by
radio. Although he and other leaders of his movement had made clear their
intention to reorganize the nation’s social, political, cultural and
educational life in accord with National Socialist principles, everyone knew
that, with some six million jobless and the national economy in paralysis, the
great priority of the moment was to restore the nation’s economic life, above
all by tackling unemployment and providing productive work.
“The misery of our people is horrible to behold!,” said Hitler in this
inaugural address. / 5 “Along with the hungry unemployed millions of industrial
workers there is the impoverishment of the whole middle class and the artisans.
If this collapse finally also finishes off the German farmers we will face a
catastrophe of incalculable dimension. For that would be not just the collapse
of a nation, but of a two-thousand-year-old inheritance of some of the greatest
achievements of human culture and civilization …”
The new government, Hitler said, would “achieve the great task of
reorganizing our nation’s economy by means of two great four-year plans. The
German farmer must be rescued to maintain the nation’s food supply and, in
consequence, the nation’s vital foundation. The German worker will be saved
from ruin with a concerted and all-embracing attack against unemployment.”
“Within four years,” he pledged, “unemployment must be decisively overcome
… The Marxist parties and their allies have had 14 years to show what they can
do. The result is a heap of ruins. Now, people of Germany, give us four years
and then pass judgment upon us!”
Rejecting the cloudy and impractical economic views of some radical
activists in his Party, Hitler turned to men of proven ability and competence.
Most notably, he enlisted the help of Hjalmar Schacht, a prominent banker and
financier with an impressive record in both private business and public
service. Even though Schacht was certainly no National Socialist, Hitler appointed
him President of Germany’s central bank, the Reichsbank, and then as Minister
of Economics.
After taking power, writes Prof. John Garraty, a prominent American
historian, Hitler and his new government “immediately launched an all-out
assault on unemployment … They stimulated private industry through subsidies
and tax rebates, encouraged consumer spending by such means as marriage loans,
and plunged into the massive public-works program that produced the autobahn
[highway system], and housing, railroad and navigation projects.” / 6
The regime’s new leaders also succeeded in persuading formerly skeptical
and even hostile Germans of their sincerity, resolve and ability. This fostered
trust and confidence, which in turn encouraged businessmen to hire and invest,
and consumers to spend with an eye to the future.
As he had promised, Hitler and his National Socialist government banished
unemployment within four years. The number of jobless was cut from six million
at the beginning of 1933, when he took power, to one million by 1936. / 7 So
rapidly was the jobless rate reduced that by 1937-38 there was a national labor
shortage. / 8
For the great mass of Germans, wages and working conditions improved
steadily. From 1932 to 1938 gross real weekly earnings increased by 21 percent.
After taking into account tax and insurance deductions and adjustments to the
cost of living, the increase in real weekly earnings during this period was 14
percent. At the same time, rents remained stable, and there was a relative decline
in the costs of heating and light. Prices actually declined for some consumer
goods, such as electrical appliances, clocks and watches, as well as for some
foods. "Consumer prices rose at an average annual rate of just 1.2 percent
between 1933 and 1939," notes British historian Niall Ferguson. "This
meant that Germans workers were better off in real as well as nominal terms:
between 1933 and 1938, weekly net earnings (after tax) rose by 22 percent,
while the cost of living rose by just seven percent." Even after the
outbreak of war in September 1939, workers’ income continued to rise. By 1943
average hourly earnings of German workers had risen by 25 percent, and weekly
earnings by 41 percent. / 9
The “normal” work day for most Germans was eight hours, and pay for
overtime work was generous. / 10 In addition to higher wages, benefits included
markedly improved working conditions, such as better health and safety
conditions, canteens with subsidized hot meals, athletic fields, parks,
subsidized theater performances and concerts, exhibitions, sports and hiking
groups, dances, adult education courses, and subsidized tourism. / 11 An
already extensive network of social welfare programs, including old age
insurance and a national health care program, was expanded.
Hitler wanted Germans to have “the highest possible standard of living,” he
said in an interview with an American journalist in early 1934. “In my opinion,
the Americans are right in not wanting to make everyone the same but rather in
upholding the principle of the ladder. However, every single person must be
granted the opportunity to climb up the ladder.” / 12 In keeping with this
outlook, Hitler’s government promoted social mobility, with wide opportunities
to improve and advance. As Prof. Garraty notes: “It is beyond argument that the
Nazis encouraged working-class social and economic mobility.” To encourage
acquisition of new skills, the government greatly expanded vocational training
programs, and offered generous incentives for further advancement of efficient
workers. / 13
Both National Socialist ideology and Hitler’s basic outlook, writes
historian John Garraty, “inclined the regime to favor the ordinary German over
any elite group. Workers … had an honored place in the system.” In accord with
this, the regime provided substantive fringe benefits for workers that included
subsidized housing, low-cost excursions, sports programs, and more pleasing
factory facilities. / 14
In his detailed and critical biography of Hitler, historian Joachim Fest acknowledged:
“The regime insisted that it was not the rule of one social class above all
others, and by granting everyone opportunities to rise, it in fact demonstrated
class neutrality … These measures did indeed break through the old, petrified
social structures. They tangibly improved the material condition of much of the
population.” / 15
A few figures give an idea of how the quality of life improved. Between
1932, the last year of the pre-Hitler era, and 1938, the last full year before
the outbreak of war, food consumption increased by one sixth, while clothing
and textile turnover increased by more than a quarter, and of furniture and
household goods by 50 percent. / 16 During the Third Reich’s peacetime years,
wine consumption rose by 50 percent, and champagne consumption increased
five-fold. / 17 Between 1932 and 1938, the volume of tourism more than doubled,
while automobile ownership during the 1930s tripled. / 18 German motor vehicle
production, which included cars made by the US-owned Ford and General Motors
(Opel) works, doubled in the five years of 1932 to 1937, while Germany’s motor
vehicle exports increased eight-fold. Air passenger traffic in Germany more
than tripled from 1933 to 1937. / 19
German business revived and prospered. During the first four years of the
National Socialist era, net profits of large corporations quadrupled, and
managerial and entrepreneurial income rose by nearly 50 percent. / 20 Between
1933 and 1938, notes historian Niall Ferguson, Germany's "gross domestic
product grew, on average, by a remarkable eleven percent a year," with no
significant increase in the rate of inflation. / 21 “Things were to get even
better,” writes Jewish historian Richard Grunberger in his detailed study, The
Twelve-Year Reich. “In the three years between 1939 and 1942 German
industry expanded as much as it had during the preceding fifty years.” / 20
Although German businesses flourished, profits were controlled and by law
were kept within moderate limits. / 21 Beginning in 1934, dividends for stockholders
of German corporations were limited to six percent annually. Undistributed
profits were invested in Reich government bonds, which had an annual interest
yield of six percent, and then, after 1935, of four and a half percent. This
policy had the predictable effect of encouraging corporate reinvestment and
self-financing, and thereby of reducing borrowing from banks and, more
generally, of diminishing the influence of commercial capital. / 22
Corporation tax rates were steadily raised, from 20 percent in 1934 to 25
percent in 1936, and to 40 percent in 1939-40. Directors of German companies
could grant bonuses to managers, but only if these were directly proportionate
to profits and they also authorized corresponding bonuses or “voluntary social contributions”
to employees. / 23
Between 1934 and 1938, the gross taxable income of German businessmen
increased by 148 percent, and overall tax volume increased during this period
by 232 percent. The number of taxpayers in the highest income tax bracket --
those earning more than 100,000 marks annually -- increased during this period
by 445 percent. (By contrast, the number of taxpayers in the lowest income
bracket -- those earning less than 1500 marks yearly -- increased by only five
percent.) / 24
Taxation in National Socialist Germany was sharply “progressive,” with
those of higher income paying proportionately more than those in the lower
income brackets. Between 1934 and 1938, the average tax rate on incomes of more
than 100,000 marks rose from 37.4 percent to 38.2 percent. In 1938 Germans in
the lowest tax brackets were 49 percent of the population and had 14 percent of
the national income, but paid only 4.7 percent of the tax burden. Those in the
highest income category, who were just one percent of the population but with
21 percent of the income, paid 45 percent of the tax burden. / 25
Jews made up about one percent of Germany’s total population when Hitler
came to power. While the new government moved quickly to remove them from the
nation’s political and cultural life, Jews were permitted to carry on in
economic life, at least for several years. In fact, many Jews benefited from
the regime’s recovery measures and the general economic revival. In June 1933,
for example, Hitler approved a large-scale government investment of 14.5
million marks in the Jewish-owned firm Hertie, a Berlin department store chain.
This “bail out” was done to prevent the ruin of the large firm’s suppliers,
financiers, and, above all, its 14,000 employees. / 26
Prof. Gordon Craig, who for years taught history at Stanford University,
points out: “In the clothing and retail trades, Jewish firms continued to
operate profitably until 1938, and in Berlin and Hamburg, in particular,
establishments of known reputation and taste continued to attract their old
customers despite their ownership by Jews. In the world of finance, no
restrictions were placed upon the activities of Jewish firms in the Berlin
Bourse [stock market], and until 1937 the banking houses of Mendelssohn,
Bleichröder, Arnhold, Dreyfuss, Straus, Warburg, Aufhäuser, and Behrens were
still active.” / 27 Five years after Hitler had come to power, the Jewish role
in business life was still a significant one, and Jews still held considerable
real estate holdings, especially in Berlin. This changed markedly in 1938,
however, and by the end of 1939 Jews had been largely removed from German
economic life.
Germany’s crime rate fell during the Hitler years, with significant drops
in the rates of murder, robbery, theft, embezzlement and petty larceny. / 28
Improvement in the health and outlook of Germans impressed many foreigners.
“Infant mortality has been greatly reduced and is considerably inferior to that
in Great Britain,” wrote Sir Arnold Wilson, a British M.P. who visited Germany
seven times after Hitler had come to power. “Tuberculosis and other diseases
have noticeably diminished. The criminal courts have never had so little to do
and the prisons have never had so few occupants. It is a pleasure to observe
the physical aptitude of the German youth. Even the poorest persons are better
clothed than was formerly the case, and their cheerful faces testify to the
psychological improvement that has been wrought within them.” / 29
The improved psychological-emotional well-being of Germans during this
period has also been noted by social historian Richard Grunberger. “There can
be little doubt,” he wrote, “that the [National Socialist] seizure of power
engendered a wide-spread improvement in emotional health; this was not only a
result of the economic upswing, but of many Germans’ heightened sense of
identification with the national purpose.” / 30
Austria experienced a dramatic upswing after it joined the German Reich in
March 1938. Immediately following the Anschluss (“union”), officials
moved quickly to relieve social distress and revitalize the moribund economy.
Investment, industrial production, housing construction, consumer spending,
tourism and the standard of living rose rapidly. Between June and December 1938
alone, the weekly income of Austria’s industrial workers rose by nine percent.
The National Socialist regime’s success in banishing unemployment was so rapid
that American historian Evan Burr Bukey was moved to call it “one of the most
remarkable economic achievements in modern history.” The jobless rate in
Austria dropped from 21.7 percent in 1937 to 3.2 percent in 1939. The Austrian
GNP rose 12.8 percent in 1938, and an astonishing 13.3 percent in 1939. / 31
An important expression of national confidence was a sharp increase in the
birth rate. Within a year after Hitler came to power, the German birth rate
jumped by 22 percent, rising to a high point in 1938. It remained high even in
1944 -- the last full year of World War II. / 32 In the view of historian John
Lukacs, this jump in the birth rate was an expression of “the optimism and the
confidence” of Germans during the Hitler years. “For every two children born in
Germany in 1932, three were born four years later,” he notes. “In 1938 and
1939, the highest marriage rates in all of Europe were registered in Germany,
superseding even those among the prolific peoples of Eastern Europe. The
phenomenal rise of the German birthrate in the thirties was even steeper than
the rise of the marriage rate.” / 33 “National Socialist Germany, alone among
countries peopled by whites, succeeded in attaining some increase in
fertility,” notes the outstanding Scottish-born American historian Gordon A.
Craig, with a sharp rise in the birth rate after Hitler came to power, and a
steady increase in the years that followed. / 34
In a lengthy address to the Reichstag in early 1937, Hitler recalled the
pledges he had made when his government assumed power. He also explained the
principles on which his policies were based, and looked back at what had been
accomplished in four years. / 35 “… Those who talk about `democracies’ and
‘dictatorships’,” he said, “simply do not understand that a revolution has been
carried out in this country, the results of which can be considered democratic
in the highest sense of the term, if democracy has any real meaning … The
National Socialist Revolution has not aimed at turning a privileged class into
a class that will have no rights in the future. Its aim has been to give equal
rights to those who had no rights … Our objective has been to make it possible
for the whole German people to be active, not only in the economic but also in
the political field, and to secure this by organizationally involving the
masses … During the past four years we have increased German production in all
areas to an extraordinary degree. And this increase in production has been to
the benefit of all Germans.”
In another address two years later, Hitler spoke briefly about his regime’s
economic achievement: / 36 “I overcame chaos in Germany, restored order,
enormously raised production in all fields of our national economy, by
strenuous efforts produced substitutes for numerous materials that we lack,
encouraged new inventions, developed traffic, caused mighty roads to be built
and canals to be dug, called into being gigantic factories, and at the same
time endeavored to further the education and culture of our people for the
development of our social community. I succeeded in finding useful work once
more for the whole of the seven million unemployed, who so touched all our
hearts, in keeping the German farmer on his soil in spite of all difficulties,
and in saving the land itself for him, in restoring a prosperous German trade,
and in promoting traffic to the utmost.”
It’s often been claimed, even by some supposedly reputable scholars, that
Hitler’s success in reviving his nation’s economic life was based largely on
government spending for rearmament and preparation for war. This is a myth. As
the renowned British historian A. J. P. Taylor noted: / 37 “Germany’s economic
recovery, which was complete by 1936, did not rest on rearmamnent; it was
caused mainly by lavish expenditure on public works, particularly on motor
roads, and this public spending stimulated private spending also, as [British economist
John Maynard] Keynes had said it would. Hitler actually skimped on armaments,
despite his boasting, partly because he wished to avoid the unpopularitiy which
a reduction of the German standard of living would cause, but more from the
confident belief that he would always succeed in bluff. Thus, paradoxidcally,
while nearly eveeryone else in Europe expected a great war, Hitler was the one
man who neither expected nor planned for it.”
American historian John Garraty compared the American and German responses
to the Great Depression in a much-discussed article published in the American
Historical Review. He wrote: / 38 “The two movements [that is, in the US
and in Germany] nevertheless reacted to the Great Depression in similar ways,
distinct from those of other industrial nations. Of the two the Nazis were the
more successful in curing the economic ills of the 1930s. They reduced
unemployment and stimulated industrial production faster than the Americans did
and, considering their resources, handled their monetary and trade problems
more successfully, certainly more imaginatively. This was partly because the
Nazis employed deficit financing on a larger scale and partly because their
totalitarian system better lent itself to the mobilization of society, both by
force and by persuasion. By 1936 the depression was substantially over in
Germany, far from finished in the United States.”
In fact, the jobless rate in the United States remained high until the
stimulation of large-scale war production took hold. Even as late as March
1940, the US unemployment rate was still almost 15 percent of the work force.
It was production for war, not Roosevelt’s “New Deal’ programs, that finally
brought full employment. / 39
Prof. William Leuchtenburg, a prominent American historian known best for
his books on the life and career of Franklin Roosevelt, summed up the
President’s mixed record in a highly acclaimed study. “The New Deal left many
problems unsolved and even created some perplexing new ones,” concluded Leuchtenburg.
“It never demonstrated that it could achieve prosperity in peacetime. As late
as 1941, the unemployed still numbered six million, and not until the war year
of 1943 did the army of jobless finally disappear.” / 40
The contrast between the German and American economic records during the
1930s is all the more striking when one takes into account that the US had
vastly greater natural resource wealth, including large petroleum reserves, as
well as a lower population density, and no hostile, well-armed neighbors.
In an address given in December 1941, Hitler himself compared the record of
his government and that of President Roosevelt in dealing with the challenge of
the world economic crisis. / 41
“Whereas the German Reich experienced an enormous improvement in social,
economic, cultural and artistic life in just a few years under National
Socialist leadership,” he said, “President Roosevelt was not able to bring
about even limited improvements in his own country. This task should have been
much easier in the United States, with barely 15 people per square kilometer,
as compared to 140 in Germany. If economic prosperity is not possible in that
country, it must be the result of either a lack of will by the ruling
leadership or the complete incompetence of the men in charge. In just five
years, the economic problems were solved in Germany and unemployment was
eliminated. During this same period, President Roosevelt enormously increased
his country's national debt, devalued the dollar, further disrupted the economy,
and maintained the same number of unemployed.”
In another major address given that same year, Hitler compared the
social-political-economic systems of the United States, the Soviet Union, and
Germany. / 42 “We’ve now gotten to know two [social-political] extremes,” he
said. “One is that of the Capitalist states, which use lies, fraud and
swindling to deny their peoples the most basic vital rights, and which are
concerned entirely with their own financial interests, for which they are ready
to sacrifice millions of people. On the other hand we’ve seen [in the Soviet
Union] the Communist extreme: a state that’s brought unspeakable misery to
millions and millions, and which, following its doctrine, sacrifices the
happiness of others. From this [awareness], in my view, there is for all of us
only one obligation, namely, to strive more than ever toward our national and
socialist ideal … In this [German] state the prevailing principle is not, as in
Soviet Russia, the principle of so-called equality, but rather only the
principle of justice.”
Could Hitler’s economic policies work in the United States? These policies
are probably most workable in countries such as Sweden, Denmark, and the
Netherlands, with a well-educated, self-disciplined and ethnically-culturally
cohesive population, and a traditionally strong “communitarian” ethos with a
correspondingly high level of social trust. Hitler’s economic policies are less
applicable in the United States and other societies with an
ethnically-culturally diverse population, a markedly individualistic,
“laissez-faire” tradition, and a correspondingly weaker “communitarian” spirit.
/ 43
David Lloyd George — who had been Britain’s prime minister during the First
World War -- made an extensive tour of Germany in late 1936. In an article
published afterwards in a leading London newspaper, the British statesman
recounted what he had seen and experienced. / 44
“Whatever one may think of his [Hitler’s] methods,” wrote Lloyd George,
“and they are certainly not those of a parliamentary country, there can be no
doubt that he has achieved a marvelous transformation in the spirit of the
people, in their attitude towards each other, and in their social and economic
outlook.
“He rightly claimed at Nuremberg that in four years his movement had made a
new Germany. It is not the Germany of the first decade that followed the war —
broken, dejected and bowed down with a sense of apprehension and impotence. It
is now full of hope and confidence, and of a renewed sense of determination to lead
its own life without interference from any influence outside its own frontiers.
“There is for the first time since the war a general sense of security. The
people are more cheerful. There is a greater sense of general gaiety of spirit
throughout the land. It is a happier Germany. I saw it everywhere, and
Englishmen I met during my trip and who knew Germany well were very impressed
with the change.”
“This great people,” the seasoned statesman went on to warn, “will work
better, sacrifice more, and, if necessary, fight with greater resolution
because Hitler asks them to do so. Those who do not comprehend this central
fact cannot judge the present possibilities of modern Germany.”
Although prejudice and ignorance have hindered a wider awareness and
understanding of Hitler’s economic policies and their impact, his success in
economic policy has been acknowledged by historians, including scholars who are
generally very critical of the German leader and his regime’s policies.
John Lukacs, a Hungarian-born American historian whose books have generated
much comment and praise, has written: “Hitler’s achievements, domestic rather
than foreign, during the six [peacetime] years of his leadership of Germany
were extraordinary … He brought prosperity and confidence to the Germans, the
kind of prosperity that is the result of confidence. The thirties, after 1933,
were sunny years for most Germans; something that remained in the memories of
an entire generation among them.” / 45
Sebastian Haffner, an influential German journalist and historian who was
also a fierce critic of the Third Reich and its ideology, reviewed Hitler’s
life and legacy in a much-discussed book. Although his portrayal of the German
leader in The Meaning of Hitler is a harsh one, the author all the same
writes: / 46
“Among these positive achievements of Hitler the one outshining all others
was his economic miracle.” While the rest of the world was still mired in the
economic paralysis, Hitler had made “Germany an island of prosperity.” Within
three years, Haffner goes on, “crying need and mass hardship had generally
turned into modest but comfortable prosperity. Almost equally important:
helplessness and hopelessness had given way to confidence and self-assurance.
Even more miraculous was the fact that the transition from depression to
economic boom had been accomplished without inflation, at totally stable wages
and prices … It is difficult to picture adequately the grateful amazement with
which the Germans reacted to that miracle, which, more particularly, made vast
numbers of German workers switch from the Social Democrats and the Communists
to Hitler after 1933. This grateful amazement entirely dominated the mood of
the German masses during the 1936 to 1938 period …”
"The scale of the Nazi economic achievement should not be
underestimated," concludes Niall Ferguson, a Harvard University professor
of history. "It was real and impressive. No other European economy
achieved such a rapid recovery ... To most people in 1930s Germany it seemed there
had been an economic miracle. The Volksgemeinschaft [national community]
was more than mere rhetoric; it meant full employment, higher wages, stable
prices, reduced poverty, cheap radios (the Volksempfänger) and budget
holidays. It is too easily forgotten that there were more holiday camps than
concentration camps in Germany between 1935 and 1939. Workers became better
trained, farmers saw their incomes rise. Nor were foreigners unimpressed by
what was happening. American corporations including Standard Oil, General
Motors and IBM all rushed to invest directly in the German economy." / 47
Joachim Fest, another prominent German journalist and historian, reviewed
Hitler’s life in an acclaimed and comprehensive biography. “If Hitler had
succumbed to an assassination or an accident at the end of 1938,” he wrote,
“few would hesitate to call him one of the greatest of German statesmen, the
consummator of Germany’s history.” / 48 “No objective observer of the German
scene could deny Hitler’s considerable exploits,” noted American historian John
Toland. “If Hitler had died in 1937 on the fourth anniversary of his coming to
power … he undoubtedly would have gone down as one of the greatest figures in
German history. Throughout Europe he had millions of admirers.” / 49
Notes
1. J. K.
Galbraith, Money (Boston: 1975), pp. 225-226.
2. J. K.
Galbraith, The Age of Uncertainty (1977), pp. 214.
3. J. K.
Galbraith in The New York Times Book Review, April 22, 1973. Quoted in:
J. Toland, Adolf Hitler (Doubleday & Co., 1976), p. 403 (note).
4. J. K.
Galbraith, The Age of Uncertainty (1977), pp. 213-214.
5. Hitler radio
address, “Aufruf an das deutsche Volk,” Feb. 1, 1933.
6. John A.
Garraty, “The New Deal, National Socialism, and the Great Depression,” The
American Historical Review, Oct. 1973 (Vol. 78, No. 4), pp. 909-910.
7. Gordon A.
Craig, Germany 1866-1945 (New York: Oxford, 1978), p. 620.
8. Richard
Grunberger, The Twelve-Year Reich: A Social History of Nazi Germany,
1933-1945 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), p. 186. First
published in Britain under the title, A Social History of the Third Reich.
9. 9. R.
Grunberger, The Twelve-Year Reich (1971), p. 187; David Schoenbaum, Hitler’s
Social Revolution (Norton,1980 [softcover]), p. 100; Niall Ferguson, The
War of the World (New York: Penguin, 2006), p. 247. Sources cited: A.
Ritschl, Deutschlands Krise und Konjunktur (Berlin, 2002); G. Bry, Wages in
Germany, 1871-1945 (Princeton, 1960).
10. David
Schoenbaum, Hitler’s Social Revolution (Norton,1980), p. 101.
11. David
Schoenbaum, Hitler’s Social Revolution (Norton,1980 [softcover]), pp.
100, 102, 104; Historian Gordon Craig writes: “In addition to these undeniable
gains [that is, in a better quality of life], German workers received
significant supplementary benefits from the state. The party conducted a
systematic and impressively successful campaign to improve working conditions
in industrial and commercial plants, with periodic drives designed not only to
see that health and safety regulations were enforced, but to encourage some
alleviation of the monotony of daily labour at the same task by means of
amenities like music and growing plants and special awards for achievement.” G.
Craig, Germany 1866-1945 (Oxford, 1978), pp. 621-622.
12. Interview
with Louis Lochner, Associated Press correspondent in Berlin. Quoted in:
Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History (New York: 2000), p.
247.
13. G. Craig, Germany
1866-1945 (Oxford, 1978), p. 623; John A. Garraty, “The New Deal, National
Socialism, and the Great Depression,” The American Historical Review,
Oct. 1973 (Vol. 78, No. 4), pp. 917, 918.
14. J. A.
Garraty, “The New Deal, National Socialism, and the Great Depression,” The
American Historical Review, Oct. 1973, pp. 917, 918.
15. Joachim
Fest, Hitler (New York: 1974), pp. 434-435.
16. R.
Grunberger, The Twelve-Year Reich (New York: 1971 [hardcover ed.]), p.
203.
17. R.
Grunberger, The Twelve-Year Reich (1971), pp. 30, 208.
18. R.
Grunberger, The Twelve-Year Reich (1971), pp. 198, 235.
19. G. Frey
(Hg.), Deutschland wie es wirklich war (Munich: 1994), pp. 38. 44.
20. R.
Grunberger, The Twelve-Year Reich (1971), p. 179; Niall Ferguson, The
War of the World (New York: Penguin, 2006), p. 247.
21. D.
Schoenbaum, Hitler’s Social Revolution (1980), pp. 118, 144.
22. D.
Schoenbaum, Hitler’s Social Revolution (1980), pp. 144, 145; Franz
Neumann, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism
1933-1944 (New York: Harper & Row, 1966 [softcover] ), pp. 326-319; R.
Grunberger, The Twelve-Year Reich (1971), p. 177
23. R.
Grunberger, The Twelve-Year Reich (1971), p. 177; D. Schoenbaum, Hitler’s
Social Revolution (Norton,1980), p.125.
24. D.
Schoenbaum, Hitler’s Social Revolution (1980), pp. 148, 149.
25. D.
Schoenbaum, Hitler’s Social Revolution (1980), pp. 148, 149. (By
comparison, Schoenbaum notes, the income tax rate for the highest income
bracket in 1966 in the German Federal Republic was about 44 percent.)
26. D.
Schoenbaum, Hitler’s Social Revolution (1980), p. 134.
27. G. Craig, Germany
1866-1945 (Oxford, 1978), p. 633.
28. R.
Grunberger, The Twelve-Year Reich (1971), pp. 26, 121; G. Frey (Hg.), Deutschland
wie es wirklich war (Munich: 1994), pp. 50-51.
29. Quoted in:
J. Toland, Adolf Hitler (Doubleday & Co., 1976), p. 405. Source
cited: Cesare Santoro, Hitler Germany (Berlin: 1938).
30. R.
Grunberger, The Twelve-Year Reich (1971), p. 223.
31. Evan Burr
Bukey, Hitler’s Austria (Chapel Hill: 2000), pp. 72, 73, 74, 75, 81, 82,
124. (Bukey is a professor of history at the University of Arkansas.)
32. R.
Grunberger, The Twelve-Year Reich (1971), pp. 29, 234-235.
33. John
Lukacs, The Hitler of History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997), pp.
97-98.
34. G. Craig, Germany
1866-1945 (Oxford, 1978), pp. 629-630.
35. Hitler
Reichstag address of Jan. 30, 1937.
36. Hitler
Reichstag speech of April 28, 1939.
37. A. J. P.
Taylor, From Sarajevo to Potsdam (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975), p.
140. See also: A. J. P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War
(first published in 1961). See also: Burton H. Klein, Germany’s Economic
Preparations For War (Harvard Univ. Press, 1959). Pertinent excerpts from
this important book are published in: H. W. Koch, Aspects of the Third Reich
(1985), pp. 360-370.
38. John A.
Garraty, “The New Deal, National Socialism, and the Great Depression,” The
American Historical Review, Oct. 1973 (Vol. 78, No. 4), p. 944. (Garraty
taught history at Michigan State University and at Columbia University, and
served as president of the Society of American Historians.)
39. John A. Garraty,
“The New Deal, National Socialism, and the Great Depression,” The American
Historical Review, Oct. 1973 (Vol. 78, No. 4), p. 917, incl. n. 23. Garraty
wrote: “Certainly full employment was never approached in America until the
economy was shifted to all-out war production … American unemployment never
fell much below eight million during the New Deal. In 1939 about 9.4 million
were out of work, and at the time of the 1940 census (in March) unemployment
stood at 7.8 million, almost fifteen percent of the work force.”
40. William E.
Leuchtenburg, Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal (New York: Harper
& Row, 1963 [softcover]), pp. 346-347.
41. Hitler
Reichstag address of Dec. 11, 1941.
42. Hitler
address in Berlin, Oct. 3, 1941.
43. During a
visit to Berlin in the 1930s, former US president Herbert Hoover met with
Hitler’s Finance Minister, Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk, who explained at length
his government’s economic policies. While acknowledging that these measures
were beneficial for Germany, Hoover expressed the view that they were not
suitable for the United States. Government-directed wage and price policies, he
believed, would be contrary to the American notion of personal freedom. See:
Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, Es geschah in Deutschland (Tübingen/
Stuttgart: 1952), p. 167; The influential British economist John Maynard Keynes
wrote in 1936 that his “Keynesian” policies, which to some extent were embraced
by the Hitler government,” “can be much easier adapted to the conditions of a
totalitarian state” than in a country where “conditions of free competition and
a large degree of laissez-faire” prevail. Quoted in: James J. Martin, Revisionist
Viewpoints (1977), pp. 187-205 (See also: R. Skidelsky, John Maynard
Keynes: The Economist as Savior 1920-1937 [New York: 1994], p. 581.);
Research in recent years shows that greater ethnic diversity reduces levels of
social trust, and the workability of social welfare policies. See: Robert D.
Putnam, “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century,”
Scandinavian Political Studies, June 2007. See also: Frank Salter, Welfare,
Ethnicity, and Altruism (Routledge, 2005)
44. Daily
Express (London), Nov. (or Sept.?) 17, 1936.
45. John
Lukacs, The Hitler of History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997), pp.
95-96
46. S. Haffner,
The Meaning of Hitler (New York: Macmillan, 1979), pp. 27-29. First
published in 1978 under the title Anmerkungen zu Hitler. See also: M.
Weber, “Sebastian Haffner's 1942 Call for Mass Murder,” The Journal of
Historical Review, Fall 1983 (Vol. 4, No. 3), pp. 380-382.
47. Niall
Ferguson, The War of the World (New York: Penguin, 2006), pp. 245-246,
248. Sources cited: Albrecht Ritschl, Deutschlands Krise und Konjunktur
(Berlin, 2002); Gerhard Bry, Wages in Germany, 1871-1945 (Princeton,
1960).
48 J. Fest, Hitler:
A Biography (Harcourt, 1974), p. 9. Quoted in: S. Haffner, The Meaning of
Hitler (1979),
p. 40.
p. 40.
49. J. Toland, Adolf
Hitler (Doubleday & Co., 1976), pp. 407. 409.
-- November 2011 and February 2012
Mark Weber is a historian, author and current affairs analyst. He studied
history at the University of Illinois (Chicago), the University of Munich,
Portland State University and Indiana University (M.A., 1977).
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