When the Nazi Party came to power in January 1933 under Adolf Hitler, they aimed to create a dictatorship - this they had achieved by the Summer of 1934. However, they also spoke of the mass rearmament of the military forces, becoming economically self-sufficient and also of creating jobs for the German people. The Nazi Party made significant propaganda gains out of a supposedly improved standard of living for ‘racially pure’ German citizens. Wages for German workers supposedly grew, new organisations such as ‘Strength Through Joy’ were established to cater for the needs of workers and the Nazis even had a scheme whereby German’s could save for a ‘Volkswagen Beetle’ or, the ‘People’s Car’. However, Goering himself said that the the focus of Germany should be on the purchase of military hardware rather than foodstuffs; “Guns make us strong, Butter only makes us fat!” This leads us to the important question; did the standard of living fundamentally improve in Germany between 1933-1939?
In this episode, Patrick argues that the standard of living for German people did demonstrate improvements between 1933-1939, while Elliott (@thelibrarian6) contends that the standard of living did not fundamentally improve.
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