In 1933 when Hitler came to power over 6 million Germans were unemployed. Hitler’s most important task was to solve this problem. As during his election campaign, he had promised he German people “work and bread” and now he had to deliver.

Hitler’s fist action was to set up a Reicharbeitsdienst or RAD. This was a National Labour Service organisation that gave men jobs in public work programs. This included building schools, hospitals and a network of motorways, the Autobahns. Members of the RAD had to live in special camps and wear military uniform. There were given a bed and free meals but got only pocket money as wages. However for many like in the RAD was better than life with no work at all.

The results of Hitler’s efforts to combat unemployment look very impressive, at first sight.

However this dramatic fall in unemployment levels was not all due to the creation of new jobs. Many Jews and women were forced out of their jobs and this made way for unemployed German men to take their place. However the women and Jews who had lost their jobs were not counted on the unemployment register. The Nazi’s considered Jews an inferior race and believe that women should stay at home so neither of these groups contributed to unemployment statistics.

A key factor in the fall in unemployment was the Nazi rearmament program. Hitler planned to make Germany a strong independent nation and to achieve this he needed a strong large army. In March 1935 he started compulsory military service for young men and set up an air force. The army went from 100,000 in 1933, to 1.4 million in 1939. That’s 1.3 million of the unemployed register with no real improvement to the economy. Hitler also spent 46 billion marks to equip this new army and by 1939, 65% of investments were going into rearmament programs.

So did Hitler really solve Germany’s economic problems?
Although workers may have lost their trade unions under the Nazi’s, the average wage in 1936 was 35 times the dole money in 1932. But as far as unemployment goes, Hitler more decreased the unemployment figures than actually decreasing unemployment. By excluding Jews and women from the statistics and introducing conscription the figures were made to look better than the real state of the German economy. The long-term effects of Hitler’s policies were not to be seen as WW2 interrupted his program. If Hitler had carried on with this approach, it is likely the German economy would have collapsed.