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===[[File:Sorelia.png|frameless]][[File:Corptism.png|frameless]] Nazi Economics[[File:Statesoc.png|frameless]][[File:Statecap.png|frameless]]=== |
===[[File:Sorelia.png|frameless]][[File:Corptism.png|frameless]] Nazi Economics[[File:Statesoc.png|frameless]][[File:Statecap.png|frameless]]=== |
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It is sometimes claimed that Nazism was an anti-capitalist ideology, deemed as a “Third Position” other than both Communism and Capitalism. However, neither Hitler nor any Nazi ideologues ever have qualified themselves as a “Third Position”—a term which appeared only years after the collapse of XXth century European fascist regimes, as a set of neo-fascist political ideologies that developed in the context of the Cold War. In fact, economics wasn't a structuring part of the Nazi ideology, as it has always been an accessory, or secondary aspect of it which primarly served its rhetoric depending on the context, resulting in a lack of any coherent theory. Hitler actually believed that the lack of a precise economic programme was one of the Nazi Party's strengths, saying: "The basic feature of our economic theory is that we have no theory at all". This led Nazism to align with German capitalists’ interests and integrate the then traditional capitalist mode of production in its economic policies and ideology. To Hitler, "the capitalists have worked their way to the top through their capacity, and as the basis of this selection, which again only proves their higher race, they have a right to lead." Nazi ideology indeed held entrepreneurship in high regard, and private property was considered a precondition to developing the creativity of members of the German race in the best interest of the economy, and therefore the nation. |
It is sometimes claimed that Nazism was an anti-capitalist ideology, deemed as a “Third Position” other than both Communism and Capitalism. However, neither Hitler nor any Nazi ideologues ever have qualified themselves as a “Third Position”—a term which appeared only years after the collapse of XXth century European fascist regimes, as a set of neo-fascist political ideologies that developed in the context of the Cold War. In fact, economics wasn't a structuring part of the Nazi ideology, as it has always been an accessory, or secondary aspect of it which primarly served its rhetoric depending on the context, resulting in a lack of any coherent theory. Hitler actually believed that the lack of a precise economic programme was one of the Nazi Party's strengths, saying: "The basic feature of our economic theory is that we have no theory at all". This led Nazism to align with German capitalists’ interests and integrate the then traditional capitalist mode of production in its economic policies and ideology. To Hitler, "the capitalists have worked their way to the top through their capacity, and as the basis of this selection, which again only proves their higher race, they have a right to lead." Nazi ideology indeed held entrepreneurship in high regard, and private property was considered a precondition to developing the creativity of members of the German race in the best interest of the economy, and therefore the nation. Thus, in spite of their rhetoric condemning big business prior to their rise to power, the Nazis quickly entered into a partnership with German business leaders. Industrialists massively supported the Nazi accession to power once his accession to power was seen as unavoidable, from about mid-1932 onwards, and what oppositon was initially present among them disappeared as they decided to collaborate with the new regime following private interests and/or political and ideological affinities, and thus as early as February 1933. That month, after being appointed Chancellor but before gaining dictatorial powers, Hitler made a personal appeal to German business leaders to help fund the Nazi Party for the crucial months that were to follow. He argued that they should support him in establishing a dictatorship because "private enterprise cannot be maintained in the age of democracy" and because democracy would allegedly lead to communism. He promised to destroy the German left and the trade unions, and in the following weeks, the Nazi Party received contributions from seventeen different business groups, with the largest coming from IG Farben and Deutsche Bank. The leaders of German capitalism therefore collaborated with the Nazis during their rise to power, and were willing partners in the destruction of political pluralism in Germany. In exchange, owners and managers of German businesses were granted unprecedented powers to control their workforce, collective bargaining was abolished and wages were frozen at a relatively low level. The Nazis granted millions of marks in credits to private businesses, and many businessmen had friendly relations to the Nazis, most notably with Heinrich Himmler and his Freundeskreis der Wirtschaft. German capitalists received substantial benefits from the Nazi state after it was established, including high profits monopolies and cartels. In this way, privatization was a tool in the hands of the Nazi Party to facilitate the accumulation of private fortunes and industrial empires by its foremost members and collaborators. This would have intensified centralization of economic affairs and government in an increasingly narrow group of collaborators to the Nazi regime made of capitalist leaders and economic elites. The Nazi government in 1930s Germany undertook a wide scale privatization policy. The Nazis privatized public properties and public services, only increasing economic state control through regulations already practiced by prior conservative governments. The government sold public ownership in several State-owned firms in different sectors. In addition, delivery of some public services previously produced by the public sector was transferred to the private sector, mainly to organizations within the Nazi Party. Ideological motivations do not explain Nazi privatization. However, political motivations were important. The Nazi government may have used privatization (worth to note that back in this time word "privatization" had opposite meaning of what we have today) as a tool to improve its relationship with big industrialists and to increase support among this group for its policies. |
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The economy of Nazi Germany has even before the war been significantly relying on a maintained supply of slave labor comprised of homeless people, homosexuals, alleged criminals as well as political dissidents, communists, Jews, and anyone else deemed "undesirable" by the regime. They were systematically imprisoned in labor camps, a network of 457 complexes with dozens of subsidiary camps, scattered over a broad area of German-occupied Poland, which exploited to the fullest the labor of their prisoners, in many cases working inmates to their death. During the war, prisoners and civilians were brought into Germany from occupied territories. About 5 million Polish citizens (including Polish Jews) went through them. The shortage of agricultural labor was filled in german rural areas by forced laborers from the occupied territories of Poland and the Soviet Union, whose children were usually murdered inside special centers known as Ausländerkinder-Pflegestätte. Leading German companies including Thyssen, Krupp, IG Farben, Bosch, Blaupunkt, Daimler-Benz, Demag, Henschel, Junkers, Messerschmitt, Philips, Siemens, Walther, and Volkswagen, on top of Nazi German startups which ballooned during this period, and all German subsidiaries of foreign firms including Fordwerke (Ford Motor Company) and Adam Opel AG (a subsidiary of General Motors), relied heavily on slave labor : by 1944, one-quarter of Germany's entire work force was made up of slave labor, and the majority of German factories had a contingent of prisoners. |
The economy of Nazi Germany has even before the war been significantly relying on a maintained supply of slave labor comprised of homeless people, homosexuals, alleged criminals as well as political dissidents, communists, Jews, and anyone else deemed "undesirable" by the regime. They were systematically imprisoned in labor camps, a network of 457 complexes with dozens of subsidiary camps, scattered over a broad area of German-occupied Poland, which exploited to the fullest the labor of their prisoners, in many cases working inmates to their death. During the war, prisoners and civilians were brought into Germany from occupied territories. About 5 million Polish citizens (including Polish Jews) went through them. The shortage of agricultural labor was filled in german rural areas by forced laborers from the occupied territories of Poland and the Soviet Union, whose children were usually murdered inside special centers known as Ausländerkinder-Pflegestätte. Leading German companies including Thyssen, Krupp, IG Farben, Bosch, Blaupunkt, Daimler-Benz, Demag, Henschel, Junkers, Messerschmitt, Philips, Siemens, Walther, and Volkswagen, on top of Nazi German startups which ballooned during this period, and all German subsidiaries of foreign firms including Fordwerke (Ford Motor Company) and Adam Opel AG (a subsidiary of General Motors), relied heavily on slave labor : by 1944, one-quarter of Germany's entire work force was made up of slave labor, and the majority of German factories had a contingent of prisoners. |
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'''Economic policies of the Third Reich :''' |
'''Economic policies of the Third Reich :''' |
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*Hitler appointed Hjalmar Schacht, right-wing liberal economist, as President of the Reichsbank in 1933 and Minister of Economics in 1934. Hjalmar Schacht created a scheme for deficit financing, in which capital projects were paid for with the issuance of promissory notes called Mefo bills, which could be traded by companies with each other, and which was vastly used for the Reich's military expansion. |
*Hitler appointed Hjalmar Schacht, right-wing liberal economist, as President of the Reichsbank in 1933 and Minister of Economics in 1934. Hjalmar Schacht created a scheme for deficit financing, in which capital projects were paid for with the issuance of promissory notes called Mefo bills, which could be traded by companies with each other, and which was vastly used for the Reich's military expansion. He opposed policy of German re-armament insofar as it violated the Treaty of Versailles and (in his view) disrupted the German economy. And was resigned as President of the Reichsbank in January 1939. In 1944, Schacht was arrested by the Gestapo. |
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*While other Western capitalist countries strove for increased state ownership of industry during the same period, after the Nazis took power, industries were massively privatized. The Nazis transferred public ownership into the private sector and handed over public services to private organizations. Banks, such as the four major commercial banks in Germany which had all come under public ownership during the prior years (Commerz– und Privatbank, Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft, Golddiskontbank and Dresdner Bank), Germany's railway lines, shipping lines, shipyards, welfare organizations, and more were privatized. |
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*The Nazis were hostile to the very idea of social welfare, upholding instead the social darwinist concept that the weak and feeble should perish. By the 1930s, the Great Depression had caused mass unemployment in Germany, and it had become politically untenable for the Nazis to write off the destitute as not worth helping. The Nazi regime thus established the NSV as the single Nazi Party welfare organ on 3 May 1933. The NSV wasn’t in fact social welfare, as the Nazis explicitly designed and ran it so that it could be granted only to individuals who could prove their value to the Volksgemeinschaft (the national/racial community). It also restricted its assistance to individuals of "Aryan descent" who met a range of conditions to be deemed worthy of support, officially stating that its aim was to promote "the living, healthy forces of the German people.” The list of those excluded from NSV benefits was composed of "alcoholics, tramps, homosexuals, prostitutes, the 'work-shy' or the 'asocial', habitual criminals, the hereditarily ill (a widely defined category) and members of races other than the Aryan.” |
*The Nazis were hostile to the very idea of social welfare, upholding instead the social darwinist concept that the weak and feeble should perish. By the 1930s, the Great Depression had caused mass unemployment in Germany, and it had become politically untenable for the Nazis to write off the destitute as not worth helping. The Nazi regime thus established the NSV as the single Nazi Party welfare organ on 3 May 1933. The NSV wasn’t in fact social welfare, as the Nazis explicitly designed and ran it so that it could be granted only to individuals who could prove their value to the Volksgemeinschaft (the national/racial community). It also restricted its assistance to individuals of "Aryan descent" who met a range of conditions to be deemed worthy of support, officially stating that its aim was to promote "the living, healthy forces of the German people.” The list of those excluded from NSV benefits was composed of "alcoholics, tramps, homosexuals, prostitutes, the 'work-shy' or the 'asocial', habitual criminals, the hereditarily ill (a widely defined category) and members of races other than the Aryan.” |
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*Real wages in Germany dropped by roughly 25% between 1933 and 1938. Along with the abolition of the right to strike, workers were also in large part rendered unable to quit their jobs. Labor books were introduced in 1935, and the consent of the previous employer was required in order to be hired for another job. |
*Real wages in Germany dropped by roughly 25% between 1933 and 1938. Along with the abolition of the right to strike, workers were also in large part rendered unable to quit their jobs. Labor books were introduced in 1935, and the consent of the previous employer was required in order to be hired for another job. |