| THE HANDSTAND | 2ndWINTER2011 November-December |
How Hitler Tackled Unemployment and
Revived Germany’s Economy
By - Mark Weber
From: IHR News <news@ihr.org>
November 2011
http://www.ihr.org/other/economyhitler2011.html
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 the
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 a 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.
Workers’ income continued to rise even after the outbreak of war. 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, sport
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 the 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. “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 the 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 peasant 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.”
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: / 37 “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. / 38
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.” / 39
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.
An interesting comparison of the American and German approaches to the
Great Depression appeared in a 1940 issue of the Berlin weekly Das
Reich. Titled “Hitler and Roosevelt: A German Success, An American
Attempt,” the article cited the “parliamentary-democratic system” of the
United States as a key factor in the failure of the Roosevelt
administration’s efforts to restore prosperity. “We [Germans] began with
an idea and carried out the practical measures without regard for
consequences. America began with many practical measures that, without
inner coherence, covered over each wound with a special bandage.” / 40
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. / 41
Hitler himself once made a striking comparison of the
social-political-economic systems of the United States, the Soviet
Union, and Germany. During a speech in late 1941 he said: / 43
“We’ve now gotten to know two [social-political] extremes. 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.”
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. / 43
“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.” / 44
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: / 45
“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 has 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 …”
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.” / 46 “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 Germany history.
Throughout Europe he had millions of admirers.” / 47
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. R. Grunberger, The Twelve-Year Reich (1971), p. 187; David
Schoenbaum, Hitler’s Social Revolution (Norton,1980 [softcover]), p. 100.
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.
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. 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.)
38. 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.”
39. William E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal (New
York: Harper & Row, 1963 [softcover]), pp. 346-347.
40. From Das Reich, May 26, 1940. Quoted in John A. Garraty, “The New
Deal, National Socialism, and the Great Depression,” The American
Historical Review, Oct. 1973, p. 934. Source cited: Hans-Juergen
Schröder, Deutschland und die Vereinigten Staaten (1970), pp. 118-119.
41. 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)
42. Hitler address in Berlin, Oct. 3, 1941.
43. Daily Express (London), Nov. (or Sept.?) 17, 1936.
44. John Lukacs, The Hitler of History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1997), pp. 95-96
45. 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.
46. J. Fest, Hitler: A Biography (Harcourt, 1974), p. 9. Quoted in: S.
Haffner, The Meaning of Hitler (1979), p. 40.
47. J. Toland, Adolf Hitler (Doubleday & Co., 1976), pp. 407. 409.
-- November 2011