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World War I (1914-1918) caused economic and manpower losses in Germany which led to a decade of economic woes, including hyperinflation in the mid-1920s. Following the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the German economy, like those of many other western nations, suffered the effects of the Great Depression, with unemployment soaring. When Hitler became Chancellor in 1933 he introduced new policies to improve Germany's economy, including autarky and the development of German agriculture by imposing tariffs on agricultural imports.〔Adam Tooze, ''The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy'' (2008)〕 These changes—including autarky and nationalization of key industries—had a mixed record. By 1938 unemployment was practically extinct. Wages increased by 10.9% in real terms during this period. However, nationalization and a cutting off of trade meant rationing in key resources like poultry, fruit, and clothing for many Germans.〔Evans, Richard J. "Business, Politics, and War." The Third Reich in Power. New York: Penguin, 2006. 392. Print〕 In 1934 Hjalmar Schacht, the Reich Minister of Economics, introduced the Mefo bills, allowing Germany to rearm without spending Reichsmarks but instead paying industry with Reichsmarks and with Mefo bills (Government IOU's) which they could trade with each other. Between 1933 and 1939 the total revenue amounted to 62 billion marks, whereas expenditure (at times comprising up to 60% rearmament costs) exceeded 101 billion, thus causing a huge deficit and national debt (reaching 38 billion marks in 1939 and coinciding with Kristallnacht (November 1938) and with intensified persecutions of Jews and the outbreak of World War II.)〔http://varldenshistoria.se/files/bonnier-his/pdf/SHIS_0731.pdf 〕〔 H .P. Willmott ''World War II'', p. 18 〕 ==Political economy of Nazi Germany== Early in his political career, Adolf Hitler regarded economic issues as relatively unimportant. In 1922, Hitler proclaimed that "world history teaches us that no person has become great through its economy but that a person can very well perish thereby", and later concluded that "the economy is something of secondary importance".〔Henry A. Turner, ''Hitler's Einstellung'', 1976, p. 90–91〕 Hitler and the Nazis held a very strong idealist conception of history, which held that human events are guided by small numbers of exceptional individuals following a higher ideal. They believed that all economic concerns, being purely material, were unworthy of their consideration. Hitler went as far as to blame all previous German governments since Bismarck of having "subjugated the nation to materialism" by relying more on peaceful economic development than on expansion through war. For these reasons, the Nazis never had a clearly defined economic programme. The original "Twenty-Five Point Programme" of the party, adopted in 1920, listed several economic demands (including "the abolition of all incomes unearned by work," "the ruthless confiscation of all war profits," "the nationalization of all businesses which have been formed into corporations," "profit-sharing in large enterprises," "extensive development of insurance for old-age," and "land reform suitable to our national requirements"),〔Lee, Stephen J. (1996), Weimar and Nazi Germany, Harcourt Heinemann, page 28〕 but the degree to which the Nazis supported this programme in later years has been questioned. Several attempts were made in the 1920s to change some of the program or replace it entirely. For instance, in 1924, Gottfried Feder proposed a new 39-point program that kept some of the old planks, replaced others and added many completely new ones. Hitler refused to allow any discussion of the party programme after 1925, ostensibly on the grounds that no discussion was necessary because the programme was "inviolable" and did not need any changes. At the same time, however, Hitler never voiced public support for the programme and many historians argue that he was in fact privately opposed to it. Hitler did not mention any of the planks of the programme in his book, ''Mein Kampf'', and only talked about it in passing as "the so-called programme of the movement". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Economy of Nazi Germany」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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