In 1933, when the Nazi Party came to power, it had two main aims – to reduce unemployment, and to make Germany as strong an economic and military power as possible, so that the humiliating and devastating defeat of the Great War could never happen again. In order to achieve their aims, there were plans devised that were to shape the future of Germany in the coming years.
The main stages involved in economic recovery were as follows: the New Plan – 1933-1936 – under Hjalmar Schacht where the focus was on reducing unemployment and the balance of payment deficit – ensuring the government spending matched government income; the Four Year Plan – 1936-1940 – under Goering, that focused more on speedy rearmament as Hitler wanted to go to war and acquire Lebensraum, living space.
The economic policies included everything from giving the Mittelstand their required state of lifestyle – which had worsened throughout the years leading to the rise of the Nazis as big business had ousted them from the market – jobs to unemployed people, stabilising the economy, controlling imports into the country, to preventing inflation of the currency and developing autarky – self-sufficiency in producing own goods and raw materials especially in times of war. With such deteriorating economic conditions, it is overwhelming, the amount of pressure that the Nazis put on themselves and the promises they made to the Germans, such that the achievement of these aims seems implausible; this sheds light on the fact that although they sounded reassuring and promising, in actuality these economic policies were not likely to last for very long as another one of Hitler’s major, and probably most important aim was rearmament, and that significantly affected how far the economy progressed during the years 1933-39.
Following the New Plan, in the early years, the Nazi economic policy was under the control