Benton L. Bradberry- Life in Germany under Hitler

When Hitler came to power, Germany was hopelessly bankrupt and deeply in debt. The Treaty of Versailles had imposed crushing reparations requirements on the German people, demanding that Germany pay all the costs incurred by the Allied nations during World War I.. This was totally unrealistic because the combined costs of the war totaled three times the value of all property in Germany, completely beyond Germany’s ability to pay. At the same time that the Treaty required Germany to pay these unrealistic reparations, other measures in the Treaty, i.e. taking her coal mines, her merchant fleet and her richest farmlands and giving them to other countries, reduced her ability to pay even further. As unrealistic as these demands were, France nevertheless demanded that they be paid, and paid on time, and then sent the French army in to occupy the Rhineland for the purpose of enforcing these reparations payments. The German army was limited by the Treaty to only 100,000 men, too small to resist an invasion, or to even effectively police the country.

Germany was in a double bind. She had no choice but to pay the reparations, but pay with what? To meet the scheduled payments, the German government resorted to printing money, which, predictably, created inflation. Once inflation began, private currency speculators jumped in to try to make money off the inflation by selling the mark short. This caused the German mark to plummet in value, setting off an inflationary spiral which quickly zoomed out of control. The Jews totally dominated finance and the financial markets in Germany, and nearly all of these currency speculators were Jews. Their role in setting off the inflation received wide publicity and was therefore well known by the German people. The inflation went out of control, to the extent that at its worst, a wheelbarrow full of marks could not buy a loaf of bread.

The thrifty German middle class who had always been careful savers, were ruined en masse by the inflation, as their life savings simply evaporated before their eyes. The value of the mark decreased so rapidly that prices were adjusted upwards several times a day. To compensate, employers began to pay their employees twice a day. With their pay in hand, these poor German people literally ran to a store, any store, to purchase almost anything of value before the price was adjusted upwards again. Almost any item or real asset was preferable to their handfuls of marks which were losing their value by the hour. This wild consumer spending set off an economic boom in Germany for a time, though that soon deflated. Due to the velocity of the inflationary spiral, prices went up so fast that people could not buy enough food with the wages they earned. They began desperately selling off all their personal possessions just to buy enough food to keep themselves and their families alive as wages and salaries lagged far behind the rapidly increasing prices. Pawn shops proliferated. Countless homes, farms and commercial buildings were lost to private banks. Those with access to foreign capital, especially dollars, began buying up property all over Germany for pfennigs on the mark. The private banks and the pawn shops were owned almost entirely by Jews, and the Jews were the ones who had access to foreign capital. The Jews, as a result, grew rich off the inflation, while ordinary Germans were reduced to living in hovels, and in many cases, starving to death.

According to the British historian Sir Arthur Bryant in “Unfinished Victory,” 1940:

“It was the Jews with their international affiliations and their hereditary flair for finance who were best able to seize such opportunities. They did so with such effect that, even in November 1938, after five years of anti-Semitic legislation and persecution, they still owned, according to the Times correspondent in Berlin, something like a third of the real property in the Reich. Most of it came into their hands during the inflation. But to those who had lost their all this bewildering transfer seemed a monstrous injustice. After prolonged sufferings they had now been deprived of their last possessions. They saw them pass into the hands of strangers, many of whom had not shared their sacrifices and who cared little or nothing for their national standards and traditions.”

The 1923 inflation resulted in the largest transfer of wealth from one group to another -- that is, from the Germans to the Jews -- in all of German history, and, as might have been expected, feelings of bitter resentment developed toward the Jews because of it.

As if this were not enough, the inflation was soon followed by a global depression which hit the already fragile German economy especially hard. Germany’s unemployment rate at the depth of the depression was the highest in Europe at 30%; even higher than that of the United States, which stood at 24%. Germany’s depression was not just worse than America’s Great Depression, it was much worse. Anguished parents in Germany watched helplessly as their children starved to death. People lost their homes. Shanty towns of hovels constructed of shipping crates and the like sprang up all around Germany’s cities and in the forests. To keep alive, they made communal pots of soup out of anything they could scrounge up, such as turnips, potatoes, and even grass.

By the beginning of 1933, the misery of the German people was virtually universal. At least six million unemployed and hungry workers roamed aimlessly through the streets looking for anything to eat or any way to earn a few pfennigs with which to buy food. The government paid unemployment benefits, but only for six months, after which, nothing, and what it paid was pitifully inadequate. These unemployed men had families to feed, so that altogether some 20 million Germans, a third of the population, were at the point of starvation.

The cost of welfare amounted to 57% of the total revenue taken in by the government. The entire society was at the point of collapse. Those lucky enough to still have jobs were not much better off, as their salaries and wages had been sharply reduced. The intellectuals were hit as hard, or harder, than the working class. The unemployment rate of university graduates was 60%. Well educated people could be seen on the streets of Berlin with signs on their backs saying they would accept any kind of work. But there was no work. Hardest hit of all were the construction workers, 90% of whom were unemployed.

Farmers had also been ruined by the two economic disasters; the inflation followed a few years later by the depression. Many had been forced to mortgage their homes and land, but then, when the economy “crashed,” the value of real estate declined to the point that by 1932, to use the parlance of today, they were “under water” in loan to value ratio. Those who could not meet the interest payments saw their homes and farms auctioned off, the result of which was that those with access to foreign currencies (again, mainly Jews) grew rich off the misery of the hapless ordinary Germans. In 1931 and 1932, 17,157 farms, with a combined total of 1.15 million acres, were liquidated in this way.

Germany’s industries, once the envy of the world, saw drastic reductions in production. Thousands of factories had closed down, resulting in a 50 percent decrease in gross industrial production compared to what it had been in 1920. Exports had also dropped by an astounding 75 percent. Germany’s central bank, the Reichsbank, was in danger of collapse due to the growing number of outstanding loans going into the red, while at the same time foreign loans were being called in.

It was estimated during that time that no more than around 100,000 people in all of Germany were able to live without financial worries. Germany was a nation of 65 million people living in gut-wrenching misery caused by a variety of problems, including the imposed burdens of the Versailles Treaty, industrial stagnation, horrific unemployment, and serious political instability. The situation became so bad that between 1929 and 1933 some 250,000 Germans committed suicide out of despair and hopelessness. The birth rate in Germany dropped from 33.4 per thousand to just 14.7 per thousand. Even this birth rate was achieved only because of the higher birth rate in the countryside. In the 50 largest cities, there were more deaths than births. In Berlin, deaths exceeded births by 60 percent. This morass of misery caused many to submit to the allures of Communism, making a Communist takeover of the country a real possibility. The Weimar government proved itself totally incompetent to deal with this multiplicity of crises, with its various factions squabbling impotently as Germany teetered on the brink of disaster.

Germany’s situation was further aggravated by the unrestrained competition of its 25 regional states whose governments were often in direct conflict with policies of the central Reich government. These states, such as Bavaria, Prussia, Wurttemberg and Saxony, had ancient origins, and only a few years before, that is, before the 1871 consolidation of Germany, they had been independent, sovereign monarchies. Not surprisingly, they jealously guarded the power and privileges which still remained. Germany was a federation, with a weak central government and each of the 25 states was still ostensibly sovereign. Getting them to work together for the greater good of Germany was nearly impossible. Germany had become a country that was ungovernable.

March 21, 1933, Hitler strolls toward the Garrison Church in Potsdam (Suburb of Berlin) for a ceremony to open the new Reichstag session. Hitler became Chancellor in January,1933.

These were the conditions that existed in Germany when Hitler and the National Socialists came to power in 1933. But as if the situation were not bad enough, conditions were made worse by the worldwide Jewish boycott of German goods which immediately followed Hitler’s election to the Chancellorship. The immediate result of the boycott was a precipitous 10% drop in German exports, which were already disastrously low, which then threw even more people out of work. The boycott also attempted to strangle the German economy by cutting off funding from international Jewish banks. International Jewry had declared war on Germany with the intention of undermining and destroying the already fragile German economy in order to discredit and destroy the National Socialists (“Nazis”) who had just been elected into office. Germany was already at the point of collapse, and the boycott might well have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

These were the conditions when Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. After assessing the situation, Hitler gave a speech to the German people in which he said that the difficulties facing Germany were so dire that he needed emergency dictatorial powers in order to confront them. “German people, give us four years time, after which you can arraign us before your tribunal and you can judge me!”

The Reichstag responded overwhelmingly. On March 23, 1933, the Reichstag voted 441 to 84 to pass the Enabling Act into law, which gave Hitler the 4 years of emergency dictatorial powers he said he needed to resurrect Germany’s economy. “The great venture begins,” Hitler said. “The day of the Third Reich hascome.”

Hitler knew from the start that the task he had set for himself would be immense and difficult to accomplish. He knew that Germany would have to be transformed from top to bottom, beginning with the very structure of the state. The old class structure would have to go and a new German society, imbued with a new civic spirit would then take its place. He also intended to free Germany from foreign hegemony (the Versailles Treaty) and to restore German honor in the world. But the first and most immediate task would be to put the six million unemployed back to work.

Hitler intended not only to put men back to work, but to give prestige and honor to the concept of “work,” itself. Germany had traditionally been stratified by “class,” with a privileged class at the top, including the industrialists, and the working class at the bottom, who were considered by the upper class to be nothing more than “instruments of production.” In the eyes of the capitalists, “money” was the important element in a country’s economy. To Hitler’s way of thinking, that conception was upside down. Hitler believed that “money” was only an instrument, and that “work” was the essential element in an economy. Work was man’s honor, blood, muscle and soul, Hitler believed.

“All work which is necessary ennobles him who performs it. Only one thing is shameful-- to contribute nothing to the community.”

“Nothing falls into a man’s lap from heaven. It is from labor that life grows.”

“Social honor recognizes no distinction between the employer and the employed. All of them work for a common purpose and are entitled to equal honor and respect.” Adolf Hitler

Hitler wanted to put an end to the class struggle and to reestablish the priority of the human being as the principle factor in production. Germany could do without gold to finance industry, he believed. In any case, Germany was broke and didn’t have any gold. Other things could be used to finance industry, and he would find them, but “work” was the indispensable foundation for industry and for the economy. The worker had been alienated from society in Germany because he had traditionally been treated with disdain and contempt. Hitler believed that to restore the worker’s trust in the fatherland, he would from now on have to be treated as an equal, not as a socially inferior “instrument of production.” Hitler argued that under previous so-called democratic governments, those who ran these governments failed to understand that in the hierarchy of national values, “work” is the very essence of life. Mere matter, either steel, or gold, or money of any kind, is only a tool.

What Hitler intended was a total revolution. “The people,” he said, “were not put here on earth for the sake of the economy, and the economy does not exist for the sake of capital. On the contrary, capital should serve the economy, and the economy in turn should serve the people.” It would not be enough to reopen the thousands of closed factories, put the people back to work and continue with business as usual. Unless things were drastically changed, the workers would remain, as they had been before, nothing more than living machines, faceless and interchangeable. Hitler was determined to establish a new moral balance between the workers and capitalism. He was determined that capital was to be used in its proper function as a tool to facilitate what the workers create with their labor. “It will be the pride of my life,” Hitler said, “if I can say at the end of my days that I won back the German worker and restored him to his rightful place in the Reich.”

Hitler knew that such a revolution could not be achieved as Germany was presently structured. The 25 different states that made up Germany continued to compete with each other and to initiate policies that conflicted with those of the central government in Berlin. No coherent national program for economic recovery could be initiated as long as this condition existed. The revolution could also not succeed as long as there were dozens of political parties and thousands of deputies of every conceivable stripe, all squabbling and competing with each other. There would have to be centralization and control if the revolution were to succeed. There were also the Communists (mostly Jews) who continued assiduously in their efforts to undermine the German state and turn it into a Russian style Soviet Socialist Republic. The Communists would also have to be dealt with.

Hitler took a series of steps to secure absolute power over Germany which was necessary to impose a coherent recovery program. First, he abolished the independent local governments of the 25 states in Germany and replaced them with Reich Commissioners answerable only to Hitler and the National Socialist regime.

Then he cracked down on the Communists. The SA and the SS rounded them up by the thousands and locked them up in the newly constructed “re-education center” at Dachau near Munich -- later called a “concentration camp.” 78% of the membership of the Communist Party in Germany was Jewish. Therefore, to arrest a Communist was almost always to arrest a Jew. It was not that Jews were being singled out for arrest because they were Jewish. They arrested the Communists who almost all happened to be Jews. Hitler saw the Communists as enemies of the German people.

By centralizing federal power in Berlin, and by locking up the Communists, Hitler put an end to the constant squabbling and working at cross purposes among the states and began to create rational, consistent policies and programs necessary for national recovery. Step by step, Hitler implemented his plan.

On May 2, 1933, Hitler outlawed the trade unions and ordered the SA to arrest the trade union leaders, who also happened to me mostly Jews. These too went to Dachau. Hitler then established the “German Labor Front” as the only labor organization allowed in Germany, and placed Dr. Robert Ley in charge. Ley, an intelligent and industrious man, had been an aviator in the war (WWI) and worked as a chemist before joining the National Socialist Party. Ley confiscated the money of the labor unions and used it to fund his “Strength Through Joy” program, a broad based program to improve the working and living standards of Germany’s workers. As part of his program, Ley ordered two new cruise-liners to be built which were used to take German workers on foreign holidays. In 1938 an estimated 180,000 people went on cruises to places such as Madeira and the Norwegian fjords. Others were given free holidays in Germany.

The Strength Through Joy program also built sports facilities, paid for theater visits, and financially supported traveling cabaret groups. Although the German worker paid for these benefits through compulsory deductions, the image of people being given holidays and subsidized entertainment was of great propaganda value for the National Socialist government. It also vastly improved the lives of German workers.

The Strength Through Joy program also subsidized the development of the People’s Car, known as the Volkswagen. The American auto maker, Henry Ford, was an enthusiastic supporter of Hitler in his plan to reshape the German culture in favor of the working man. In fact, Hitler said, in 1931, “I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration.” Hitler’s (and Ley’s) mass production of the Volkswagen car was modeled on Ford’s formula of mass production, low prices, and high wages for workers. Ford also shared Hitler’s opinion of the Jews.

By abolishing the labor unions, Hitler was able to hold down wages to give industry a chance to prosper and grow. It has been said that labor unions are in the business of extortion. They extort ever higher wages out of factory owners by strikes and threats of strikes, by slowdowns and often by sabotaging machinery and equipment, all of which is extremely deleterious to industrial growth and development. The aims of labor unions can be summed up by a comment made by the American labor leader, Samuel Gompers. When asked what the labor unions wanted, he said, “More.” Even though self-defeating in the end, labor unions never stop demanding ever higher wages and benefits, until eventually they put the company out of business. By outlawing the labor unions and establishing the government controlled “German Labor Front,” Hitler was able to maintain a fair wage level for all German workers, not just the members of trade unions, and at the same time to end the strangulation effect of the trade unions on German industry.

On July 14, 1933 the Communist Party and the Social Democrat Party were banned. Party activists still in the country were arrested and sent to the concentration camp. Hitler decided that while they were at it, they would clean up Germany in other ways, as well. The Gestapo began arresting and incarcerating beggars, prostitutes, homosexuals, alcoholics and anyone who refused to work, or who was “work shy,” as they put it. A law was then enacted banning all political parties except for the National Socialist Party.

All of these measures were met by hysterical propaganda diatribes in the international Jewish press in which events were exaggerated out of all proportion to their actual significance. Labor unions, the Communist party and all other left wing movements and organizations had been specifically targeted by Hitler and the National Socialists as “enemies of the German people.” As Jews were highly disproportionately represented in the labor unions and all other left wing movements and organizations, they were disproportionately arrested and incarcerated at Dachau. This was described in the international Jewish press as an attack upon the Jews. The National Socialists were accused of specifically singling out and arresting Jews, simply because they were Jews. In reality, there was, at this time, no specific National Socialist program to target Jews, per se. Nevertheless, international Jewry made the most of this opportunity in their anti-German propaganda campaign.

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Hitler Revives the German Economy

In a very short period of time, Hitler engineered what was and remains probably the greatest economic turnaround in history. People went from starving to full employment, and became so prosperous that ordinary workers were given vacations abroad, paid for by the German Labor Front, the government’s labor organization. Germany went from hopelessly bankrupt to massively restoring, and even expanding, its infrastructure. The world’s first superhighway system, the “Autobahn,” was a shining example. Mass production of the Volkswagen, which literally means “people’s car,” was another. General Eisenhower was so impressed by the German Autobahn system that when he became president years later, he initiated the superhighway system for American -- a direct replication of the German Autobahns. Hitler also pursued a policy of “autarky,” meaning, national “self sufficiency.” That is, Germany would limit imports and produce its own consumer goods, in so far as possible. Hitler transformed Germany from a seemingly irreversible deep depression into the most vibrant economy in Europe.

Hitler’s government had reduced unemployment from 6,014,000 in January 1933, when he became chancellor, to less than 338,000 by September 1936. At the same time, wages also dramatically increased. German trade was prospering, and deficits of the cities and provinces had almost disappeared. Contrary to official historiography, expenditures for armaments had been minor up to this point, and played no part in Germany’s economic recovery.That came later.

Unemployment was eliminated at first, primarily by increased government spending on public works. Germany’s basic infrastructure, such as railways, roads, dockyards, and public building projects, were improved and expanded. There was also indirect government support to private works projects. At the same time, taxes were sharply reduced to create an incentive for hiring more workers. The increase in wages injected into the national economy was followed by increased consumer spending, which itself led to job increases. Hitler’s policy of “autarky” (national self-sufficiency) had the effect of creating “wealth creating” jobs in manufacturing which was necessary to sustain long term economic growth. By 1936 there was a labor shortage, especially in the building and metallurgical trades.

Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh traveled widely in Germany at this time. In his book Autobiography of Values, Charles Lindbergh wrote, “The organized vitality of Germany was what most impressed me: the unceasing activity of the people, and the convinced dictatorial direction to create the new factories, airfields, and research laboratories…”

His wife drew similar conclusions. “…I have never in my life been so conscious of such a directed force. It is thrilling when seen manifested in the energy, pride, and morale of the people—especially the young people,” she wrote in “The Flower and the Nettle.”

To counter the effects of the international Jewish boycott of Germany, including the financial strangulation, Hitler simply went around the international bankers by creating a new currency issued by the German government instead of borrowing it from the Jewish owned central bank. This new currency was not backed by gold, but by the credibility of the German government. The new mark was essentially a receipt for labor and materials delivered to the government. Hitler said, “For every mark issued, we required the equivalent of a mark’s worth of work done, or goods produced.” The government paid workers in these new marks and the workers spent them on other goods and services, thus creating more jobs for more people. In this way the German people climbed out of the crushing debt imposed upon them by the International bankers (read, Jewish bankers). Within two years Germany was back on her feet. It had a solid, stable currency with no debt and no inflation.

Germany even managed to restore foreign trade, despite the international Jewish bankers’ denial of foreign credit to Germany and despite the global boycott by Jewish owned industries and shipping. Germany got around the boycott and the capital strangulation by exchanging equipment and commodities directly with other countries using a barter system that cut the bankers completely out of the loop. The Jewish boycott actually boomeranged. While Germany flourished -- because barter eliminates national debt, interest on the debt, and trade deficits -- Jewish financiers were deprived of the money they would have earned on these activities. This, of course, only intensified International Jewry’s determination to undermine and destroy the National Socialist regime.

“Through an independent monetary policy of sovereign credit and a full employment public works program, the Third Reich was able to turn a bankrupt Germany, stripped of overseas colonies, into the strongest economy in Europe within four years, even before armament spending began.” (Henry C.K. Liu, “Nazism and the German Economic Miracle,” Asia Times (May 24, 2005).

Hitler becomes the most popular leader in the world

The German economic miracle did not escape the notice of foreign leaders who heaped praise on Hitler at every opportunity. David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of Britain wrote:

“I have now seen the famous German leader and also something of the great change he has affected. Whatever one may think of his methods-- and they are certainly not those of a parliamentary country, there can be no doubt that he has achieved a marvelous transformation in the spirit of the people, in their attitude towards each other, and in their social and economic outlook.

“He rightly claimed at Nuremberg that in four years his movement had made a new Germany.

“It is not the Germany of the first decade that followed the war-- broken, dejected and bowed down with a sense of apprehension and impotence. It is now full of hope and confidence, and of a renewed sense of determination to lead its own life without interference from any influence outside its own frontiers.

“There is for the first time since the war a general sense of security. The people are more cheerful. There is a greater sense of general gaiety of spirit throughout the land. It is a happier Germany. I saw it everywhere, and Englishmen I met during my trip and who knew Germany well were very impressed with the change.

“One man [Hitler] has accomplished this miracle. He is a born leader of men. A magnetic and dynamic personality with a single-minded purpose, a resolute will and a dauntless heart.

“He is not merely in name but in fact the national Leader. He has made them safe against potential enemies by whom they were surrounded. He is also securing them against the constant dread of starvation which is one of the most poignant memories of the last years of the War and the first years of the Peace. Over 700,000 died of sheer hunger in those dark years. You can still see the effect in the physique of those who were born into that bleak world.

“The fact that Hitler has rescued his country from the fear of repetition of that period of despair, penury and humiliation has given him an unchallenged authority in modern Germany.

“As to his popularity, especially among the youth of Germany, there can be no manner of doubt. The old trust him; the young idolize him. It is not the admiration accorded to a popular leader. It is the worship of a national hero who has saved his country from utter despondence and degradation.

“To those who have actually seen and sensed the way Hitler reigns over the heart and mind of Germany, this description may appear extravagant. All the same it is the bare truth. This great people will work better, sacrifice more, and, if necessary, fight with greater resolution because Hitler asks them to do so. Those who do not comprehend this central fact cannot judge the present possibilities of modern Germany.

“That impression more than anything I witnessed during my short visit to the new Germany. There was a revivalist atmosphere. It had an extraordinary effect in unifying the nation.

“Catholic and Protestant, Prussian and Bavarian, employer and workman, rich and poor, have been consolidated into one people. Religious, provincial and class origins no longer divide the nation. There is a passion for unity born of dire necessity.

“The divisions, which followed the collapse of 1918, made Germany impotent to face the problems, internal and external. That is why the clash of rival passions is not only deprecated but temporarily suppressed.

“I found everywhere a fierce and uncompromising hostility to Russian Bolshevism, coupled with a genuine admiration for the British people with a profound desire for a better and friendlier understanding of them. The Germans have definitely made up their minds never to quarrel with us again, nor have they any vindictive feelings towards the French. They have altogether put out of their minds any desire for the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine.

“But there is a real hatred and fear of Russian Bolshevism, and unfortunately it is growing in intensity. It constitutes the driving force of their international and military policy. Their private and public talk is full of it. Wherever you go you need not wait long before you hear the word ‘Bolshevism’, and it recurs again and again with a wearying reiteration.

“Their eyes are concentrated on the East as if they are watching intently for the breaking of the day of wrath. Against it they are preparing with German thoroughness.

“This fear is not put on. High and low they are convinced there is every reason for apprehension. They have a dread of the great army, that has been built up in Russia in recent years.

“An exceptionally violent anti-German campaign of abuse printed in the Russian official Press and propelled by the official Moscow radio has revived the suspicion in Germany that the Soviet Government are contemplating mischief.”-- David Lloyd George, Daily Express, 9/17/1936

Winston Churchill, who would later become Hitler’s most obstinate enemy when German economic power began to again challenge that of Great Britain, had this to say in 1935 -- (before he became the front man for the Jewish Focus group):
“In fifteen years that have followed this resolve, he [Hitler] has succeeded in restoring Germany to the most powerful position in Europe, and not only has he restored the position of his country, but he has even, to a very great extent, reversed the results of the Great War.. .the vanquished are in the process of becoming the victors and the victors the vanquished.. .whatever else might be thought about these exploits they are certainly among the most remarkable in the whole history of the world.”

“.. .and the achievement by which the tables have been turned upon the complacent, feckless and purblind victors deserves to be reckoned a prodigy in the history of the world and a prodigy which is inseparable from the personal exertions of life thrust on a single man.. .

“Those who have met Hitler face to face in public, business, or on social terms, have found a highly competent, cool, well-informed functionary with an agreeable manner, a discerning smile and few have been unaffected by a subtle personal magnetism.

“Nor is this impression merely the dazzle of power. He exerted it on his companions at every stage in his struggle, even when his fortunes were in the lowest depths.. .

“One may dislike Hitler’s system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated I should hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations.”-- Winston Churchill, 1935

Douglas Reed, British journalist, playwright, novelist and author of many books about Europe between the wars and after World War Two provided the following observation about the economic transformation of Germany under Hitler:

“Germans in their country are not less well cared for than the English people in theirs, but better. You are faced with a country immensely strong in arms and immensely strong in real wealth-- not in gold bars in a vault of the national bank, but industry, agriculture, the thrift and energy of the work people, and the conditions of life they enjoy.

“In Germany now they have a mighty organization, equipped with full powers, for improving the lot of the work people in factories and workshops. Their engineers and social workers and artists go into the factories and see what needs to be done. They say that a shower room, recreation room, a restaurant, a medical clinic, a dental clinic is needed and these are provided. They have a civic sense, a social conscience, a feeling of the community of German mankind-- in spite of the bestial concentration camps-- which youlack.”

John L Garvin, editor of the London Sunday paper, “The Observer,” wrote:

“Last May, I returned, bringing my family for another sojourn, after two years spent in other European countries. I found a Germany which has advanced miraculously from the point of 1933. I found political solidarity, a wholesome tone in the life of city dweller and country dweller alike.

“I found living costs materially reduced and an unmistakable optimism on every hand. In every quarter I found the same answer to my questioning: Profound belief in the genius of the Leader, love and admiration for him as an individual. My observations have covered a wide range of social classification.

“I have talked with the humblest type of laborers, with merchants, professional men. I have yet to discover a dissenting voice to the question of loyalty to the Fuehrer. My two young daughters are attending German public schools and are receiving an education which in thoroughness could be equaled in few countries.”

And this from Lord Lothian, British Ambassador to Washington, written June 29, 1937: “I think that it must be admitted that National Socialism has done a great deal for Germany. It has undoubtedly cleaned up Germany in the ordinary moral sense of the word. The defeatism, the corruption so manifest a characteristic in the days after the war has disappeared, at any rate from public view. It has given discipline and order and a sense of purpose to the great majority of young people who in earlier days did not know where to go or what they were livingfor.”

In an article which appeared in the New York Times on July 12, 1935, John H. Holmes, Pastor of Community Church wrote:

“The spectacle of Germany today is a tremendous experience. Fifteen years after the war in which the allied powers thought they had destroyed her, Germany is on her feet again. As compared with 1922 and 1931, when I last saw Germany, the change is miraculous. The people are confident, enthusiastic and courageous. They have recovered their morale. In 1931 the German people were going to pieces. But now they are themselves again, no doubt about that! The masses of the people are increasingly with Hitler. I have been fooling myself all along that this was not so, but now I know it is so.”

In his book, Defense of Germany, British scholar G.E.O. Knight wrote:

“Last July, feeling that the Press of this country was willfully lying and conducting a political campaign against Germany, I resolved to go to Berlin and make free and independent investigation. I was determined to do pretty much as I pleased when I got there, and no one interfered with my movements.

I found Germany, comparatively speaking, a free country, much freer than some of its neighbors. My own views were not always acceptable to my many friends, among whom I can count Jews and Gentiles, Nazis and Communists, Democrats and Socialists. Soon I found that being a Nazi does not preclude one holding views that few Labor men in my own country would dare to express to their ‘comrades’ of the national Labor Party.”

The general improvement in the standard of living of the German people under Hitler’s regime put Germany well ahead of all other nations at that time, including the United States. The National Socialist regime implemented a viable social security program for retirement. The working conditions were drastically improved, and the German people were provided opportunities for leisure and recreation after work.
The same level of prosperity and social benefits for all its citizens have rarely been achieved anywhere in the world, either before or since then.

German society under National Socialist rule was also very democratic, with regular elections of representatives to a legislature. It was not democratic in the same sense as in the United States today. The German form of democracy, as an expression of the popular will, was assured by the right to organize plebiscites to express the desires of the people.

“The result of the revolution [National Socialist revolution] in Germany has been to establish a democracy in the best sense of the word. We are steering towards an order of things guaranteeing a process of a natural and reasonable selection in the domain of political leadership, thanks to which that leadership will be entrusted to the most competent, irrespective of their descent, name or fortune. The memorable words of the great Corsican [Napoleon] that every soldier carries a Field Marshal’s baton in his knapsack, will find its political complement in Germany.” -- Adolf Hitler

“In England, under democracy, you do not put experts in charge of your affairs, but distribute favors among men of a small class without especial qualification for the posts they receive. This is the misuse of democracy in the interest of class, the betrayal of democracy, and it is the cause of our woes, past, present and to come.”-- Douglas Reed, in “Disgrace Abounding”

“What the German nation has ardently desired for centuries is henceforth a reality; one single, fraternally united people, liberated from the mutual prejudices and hindrances of past times.” -- Adolf Hitler

“The will of the people is the will of the government, and vice versa. The new political structure raised in Germany is a kind of ennobled democracy; i.e., the government derives its authority from the people, but the possibility of misinterpreting the peoples will or of sterilizing it by the intervention of parliamentary methods has been eliminated altogether.”— Dr. Joseph Goebbels

“The movement was consolidated together in one Reich a people who were hitherto kept in disunion but various lines of division.. .religious divisions, class divisions, professional divisions, political divisions and the territorial divisions into the various autonomous federal states. This unification is now an historical fact. Nationalism has founded a genuine folk community.

“Formerly the votes of the people were distributed among several political parties. Eventually the number of these parties came to thirty-six. They had no great common platform to offer to a people who were struggling to live. They carried on their political campaigns against one another in a quarrel over paltry and selfish issues.

“Today the people of Germany vote for one leader and one party in a consolidated unity that has never before been dreamed of. Following the disappearance of the political parties, which fought only for their own ends and kept the nation divided, great and common vital problems were presented to the people so that they might understand which ideals were worth striving for and for which sacrifices would have to be made. The whole of Germany was aroused to struggle for these great questions which are of vital importance to a nation’s existence.” -- Rudolf Hess.

“The parliamentary principle of decision by majorities only appears during quite short periods of history, and those are always periods of decadence in nations and States.” -- Adolf Hitler

“. . . Hitler has repeatedly taken the opportunity of consulting the nation and has each time obtained its wholehearted approval of his policy and methods of government.” -- Cesare Santoro, “ Hitler Germany, Vivisection”

“I myself was and still am a child of the people. It was not for the capitalists that I undertook this struggle; it was for the German working man that I took my stand.” -- Adolf Hitler

The Myth of German Villainy
Benton L. Bradberry