What were Hitler's economic reforms
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When Adolf Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, he introduced policies aimed at improving the economy. The changes included privatization of state industries, autarky, and tariffs on imports. Wages increased by 10.9% in real terms during this period.
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Economy of Nazi Germany
The German economy, like those of many other western nations, suffered the effects of the Great Depression with unemployment soaring around the Wall Street Crash of 1929.[1] When Adolf Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, he introduced policies aimed at improving the economy. The changes included privatization of state industries, autarky, and tariffs on imports. Wages increased by 10.9% in real terms during this period.[2] However, reduced foreign trade meant rationing in consumer goods like poultry, fruit, and clothing for many Germans.[3]
The Third Reich and German-occupied Europe; forced labour predominantly from Nazi-occupied Poland and the Nazi-occupied Soviet union.
The Nazis believed in war as the primary engine of human progress, and argued that the purpose of a country’s economy should be to enable that country to fight and win wars of expansion.[4] As such, almost immediately after coming to power, they embarked on a vast program of military rearmament, which quickly dwarfed civilian investment.[5] During the 1930s, Nazi Germany increased its military spending faster than any other state in peacetime,[6] and the military eventually came to represent the majority of the German economy in the 1940s.[7] This was funded mainly through deficit financing before the war, and the Nazis expected to cover their debt by plundering the wealth of conquered nations during and after the war.[8] Such plunder did occur, but its results fell far short of Nazi expectations.[9]
The Nazi government developed a partnership with leading German business interests, who supported the goals of the regime and its war effort in exchange for advantageous contracts, subsidies, and the suppression of the trade union movement.[10] Cartels and monopolies were encouraged at the expense of small businesses, even though the Nazis had received considerable electoral support from small business owners.[11]
Nazi Germany maintained a supply of slave labour, composed of prisoners and concentration camp inmates, which was greatly expanded after the beginning of World War II. In Poland alone, some 5 million citizens (including Polish Jews) were used as slave labour throughout the war.[12] Among the slave labourers in the occupied territories, hundreds of thousands were used by leading German corporations including Thyssen, Krupp, IG Farben, Bosch, Blaupunkt, Daimler-Benz, Demag, Henschel, Junkers, Messerschmitt, Siemens, and Volkswagen, as well as Dutch corporation Philips.[13] By 1944, slave labour made up one quarter of Germany's entire work force, and the majority of German factories had a contingent of prisoners.[14]