Hitler: Economy and Foreign Policy

During Hitler's reign over Nazi Germany, advances were made within the economic and foreign policy, benefiting the country in the years before WWI, and fortifying its power.

After World War 1 and the severe reparations the Treaty of Versailles imposed, along with the Wall Street Crash of 1923, Germany was led to a decade of economic problems. When Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, he introduced new efforts to improve Germany's economy. He instituted autarky, which discouraged most trade with other nations and emphasized economic self-sufficiency, created jobs, and cut unemployment levels. Hitler and the Nazi party proclaimed that "we are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system". (Craig, 2005)

When the Nazis came into power, Germany was in the midst of a depression, with unemployment rate at 30%. Hitler appointed Hjalmar Schacht as his economic minister, who continued the economic policy used to combat the effects of the depression, called the Keynesian policy, which relied on large public works programs supported by deficit spending. New economic policies were then introduced, which manipulated the freedom provided by the gold standard to keep interest rates low and government budget deficits high, with massive public works funded by large budget deficits. The result was an increasingly rapid decline in unemployment. This Keynesian economic policy was supplemented by the boost to demand provided by the rearmament and spending of the military.

With unemployment rate down, many new jobs were being created due to the demand for arms, as well as the "Reinhardt Program" for infrastructure development, which constructed dams, autobahns, railroads, and other civil works. Cars and other forms of motorized transport became increasingly popular, and the German motor industry boomed. The overall standard of living was up for the majority of Germany, and employment levels rose substantially.