How Far Did Economic Restrictions Caused the Nazis to Fail in World War II - Essay Example

ESSAY QUESTION: HOW FAR DID ECONOMIC RESTRICTIONS CAUSE THE NAZIS TO FAIL IN WORLD WAR II? By Presented to Introduction The Nazi Party was a political party that practiced Nazism in Germany and was active between the years 1920 and 1945. It emerged from the German nationalist, racist and populist Freikorps paramilitary culture which fought against the communist uprisings in post World War 1 Germany (Bel, 2009). World War II was a worldwide war that happened between 1939 and 1945 and involved a majority of the world power nations. They eventually formed two opposing alliances; the allies and the axis. The world was in a state of total war and the major participants actually used all their economic, industrial and scientific knowhow in war efforts. It’s the deadliest of the wars that have been experienced in the human history as it left an estimated 85 million people dead (Frei, 2002). The war began in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland and France and the United Kingdom officially declared war on Germany. In the years 1939 to 1941, Germany formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Germany and controlled much of the European nations. The war eventually ended when Germany was invaded by the Allies alliance and the capture of Berlin City and Germany subsequently surrendered in May 1945. Discussion From the onset of his reign, Adolf Hitler regarded economic issues as something of secondary importance. He and the Nazis held strong idealist concepts of history with the belief that economic concerns and issues were not worth their time and consideration. Hitler blamed the previous German governments for relying more on peaceful economic development than expansion through war (Bel, 2009). The Nazi party basically did not have a clearly defined economic program. Hitler was opposed to capitalism and supported socialism, but not Marxist socialism. He usually gave conflicting statements on socialism in that in private he would encourage private initiatives and property while in other occasions he would urge the government to regulate the use of property for the good of the whole nation. He went ahead to say that the basic feature of Nazi’s economic theory is that they have got no theory at all. While not following any economic philosophy at all, Hitler would attack the economic systems in other countries using Anti Semitic themes (James, 2001). He majorly associated the Jews with both communism and capitalism, concepts which he greatly opposed. He also believed that ruthless competition for survival in a nation was important and healthy as it promoted superior individuals to higher ranks in the society, leaving the weaker ones languishing in poverty. Under the leadership of Hitler, Germany changed to a fascist totalitarian state which controlled nearly all aspects of the life of its citizens. He was appointed the Chancellor of Germany by the then president of Weimar Republic, Paul Von Hindenburg in 1933. When Hindenburg died in 1934, Hitler combined the powers of both the Chancellery and the Presidency and became a dictator (Bel, 2009). The Nazi party started by eliminating all the opposition parties and consolidating its power. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazi party restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment. The Nazi had come to power in the midst of the great depression where unemployment rate was 30 percent. Hitler had appointed Hjalmar Schacht as the minister of economics in 1934. Schacht inherited the economic policies of the preceding government which included a large public works program supported by deficit spending. Decreased unemployment meant that the standards of living went downhill and thus rationing of goods like food and clothing. The Nazi election program also included nationalization of the major industries (Bel, 2009). Between 1934 and 1938, the government of Germany obtained some of its revenue from privatization. Among the privatized companies were several banks among them Commercial Banks in Germany and Commerz- und Privatbank. The banks were tasked with providing technical facilities for covering government expenditure instead of them making important investment decisions. Other companies which were privatized were Deutche Reinchbahn (German Railways Company),Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG (United Steelworks Company) and Vereinigte Oberschlesische Huttenwerke AG which controlled all the metal production, coal and steel industry. A number of ship building companies were also sold some ship building companies. Schacht being the finance minister kept the interest rates low and government budget deficits. The massive budget deficits were usually funded by public works (Black, 2003). The result of all this was a rapid decline in unemployment that had not been experienced by any country during the great depression. But this did not help the average German as it meant that most of the essential goods such as food, clothing, metal and wood were rationed. The rationing later extended to the use of fuel and car production which greatly affected most Germans as they could not be able to drive. Hitlers first two years in powers were entirely devoted to consolidating power within the Nazi regime. He thus appointed some prominent Nazi leaders such as Hermann Goring, Werner Von Blomberg and Wilhelm Frick in key government positions (Joes, 2004). He pulled Germany out of the League of Nations and violated the Versailles Treaty. He quickly gained control of all government and political institutions and also eliminated his political rivals. Hitler became the official head of state and chief of the armed forces when President Hindenburg died in August 1934. Once he gained internal control within his government, Hitler started mobilizing Germany’s resources for military conquest and racial denomination in Central and Eastern Europe (Frei, 2002). Germany’s mythical enemy, the Jews were ruthlessly attacks in anti Semitic mass propaganda which ended in the physical destruction of the Jews in Himmlers concentration camps. Foreign relations in Germany were also aimed at preparing for war, improvement of their military position, acquisition of strong allies and division of their enemies. He was able gain neutrality of the Soviet Union (under the Molotov- Ribbentrop Pact) in 1939 and also gains alliances with Italy (pact of steel) and Japan for the coming war. Hitler began the Second World War in 1st Sep 1939 and initially it did not bring about major changes in the German economy. This is because they had spent the last six years preparing for the war and had devoted a large portion of the economy on military production. France and Britain declared war on Germany and this temporarily put Germany off balance and they turned their military machine west (Joes, 2004). However, Germany’s major conquest actually lay on the East and they prepared for a war campaign. However, their Germanic England alliance was broken off and German Naval operations collapsed due to lack of reinforcement and military materials. Germany was restricted access to the world market and basic commodities such as petroleum, sugar, coffee, chocolate and cotton became extremely scarce. They replaced petroleum with coal gasification while relying on Romanian oil fields at Ploiesti (Richard, 2006). They depended on Sweden for iron ore production and Spain and Portugal provided them with tungsten. Switzerland was a Neutral trading partner of Germany until the declaration of the war of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union henceforth provided Germany with massive supplies of grain and raw materials and designs for battleship and they in return paid with industrial machinery. Germany’s economic dependence on the Soviet Union ceased in the spring of 1940 when the Soviet Union asked for compensation in the form of two chemical plants. Germany declined the arrangement and its military intervened. In June of 1941, German troops advanced to Russia in what was known as Operation Barbarosa (Keegan, 1997). Hitler regarded this as Germany’s final struggle for existence and living space, and also for the creation of the new order of German racial discrimination. However, after several advances in the Russian soil, they were stopped by the winter weather and failed to reach their three major goals which were Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad. After a year from this incident, the western allies started advancing their territories in Germany. From the onset of the war, Nazi Germany had maintained a clear supply of slave labour from the undesirable people in the society such as the homeless, homosexuals, criminals, communists among others (Michael, 2002). In 1942, the proportion of Germanys military spending grew rapidly as the government was forced to use more and more of government finances in fighting a losing battle. Civilian factories were put under military administration and use. By the end of 1944, the entire Germany economy was dedicated to military production. This resulted in a dramatic rise in military production but all this was insufficient to reach out the allied bombers (Richard, 2006). Allied bombings started destroying German factories and cities at a very rapid rate and eventually German war economy collapsed in 1945. The whole German nation, from very young boys to old men were mobilised and set at the front of the war, with no training whatsoever or equipment. As this was happening, Hitler withdrew almost entirely from the public, his orders were increasingly erratic and he refused to listen to the advice from his military counsellors. The Russian troops entered the suburbs of Berlin and Hitler went into his last stage of desperation in his underground bunker in Berlin (Richard, 2006). He ordered Germany destroyed and expelled his trusted friends, Himmler and Goring from the Nazi party and then committed suicide on 30th April, 1945. During the war, Germany was met with opposition from individuals and groups of people. However, these groups were unable to mobilise political opposition from German citizens. Being an authoritarian type of regime, Nazi Germany would never entertain any opposition. The opposition groups came from different classes of the society and so would not be able to work together. Some of the mistakes the Axis alliance committed during the war which led to their eventual failure were; Italy’s invasion in Greece; This was in 1940 and the Italian troops were faced with a counter attack from the Greeks and 530, 000 Italian troops were sent back. Hitler came to Italy’s rescue and Greece was completely defeated in 1941 (James, 2001). This however meant that Germany had to commit troops at a very critical time and this consequently delayed its attack on Russia by five weeks. Japans attack on Pearl Harbour; This infamous attack happened in 1941 where the Japanese achieved limited victory. American aircrafts were out in the sea and were untouched but they later striked Japan six months later in the Battle of Midway. The Japanese could not handle Americans level of technology as was witnessed when they dropped two deadly atomic bombs in Japan in 1945. The Axis inability to convince Spain and Turkey to join the war; At the time of the war, Spain was led by a fascist dictator, Francisco Franco who did not allow his troops to join the Axis despite the fact that Spain was a member of the Axis alliance. Turkey had declared itself neutral at the start of the war and in 1941; it joined a non aggression pact with Germany. However in 1944, Turkey declared war on the Axis powers (Kennedy, 2001). Hitler’s declaration of war on the United States Soon after the attack on Pearl Harbour, the U.S. declared war on Japan but not Germany. However, Hitler declared war on the U.S in 1941 on which it was under no obligation to do so. This step raised the U.S into a super power and thus assisted the Allies during the war. Conclusion From the onset of World War II, the Nazis under the leadership of Adolf Hitler were a very strong group. Furthermore its Axis allies, Japan and Italy had the military capability of defeating the Allie powers. However, with Hitler being a dictator, he would never listen to any advice from his military chiefs. The Nazi as a party did not fail in World War II, but its strategies during the war made them fail. The problem started when the government embarked on privatisation of the major companies in the country in a bid to attain socialism. However this was the wrong move because when government fortunes depleted, civilian factories were put under the administration of the military and by 1944, the whole of Germany’s economy was pumped into warfare. The whole of this economic failure in the Nazi party was brought about by the fact that Hitler did not regard economic issues to be of importance in his regime. References Bel, G. 2009. Against the mainstream: Nazi privatisation in 1930’s Germany. The Economic History Review. Black, J. 2003. World war two: A military history. New York: Routledge Press. Frei. N. 2002. Adenauer’s Germany and the Nazi past: The politics of amnesty and integration. New York: Columbis University Press. James, H. 2001. The deutche bank and the dictatorship 1933- 1945. New York. Oxford University Press. Joes, A. 2004. Resisting rebellion: The history and politics of counter insurgency. Lexington. University Press of Kentucky. Keegan, J. 1997. The second world war. London. Pimlico Press. Kennedy, D. 2001. Freedom from fear: The American people in depression and war, 1929- 1945. New York: Oxford University Press. Michael, T. 2002. The business of genocide. North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press. Richard, E. 2006. Business, politics and war: The third Reich in power. New York: Penguin Publishers. Read More