Nazi Economic Recovery and Rearmament

1. How did the Nazi Regime attempt to win the loyalty of its workers? Define the following:

a. Strength Through Joy program: The Strength Through Joy program was a way of rewarding workers for their hard work by offering them benefits for their free time. For example, it gave workers cheap theatre and cinema tickets, organized courses, trips, sports events, and price-cuts for luxurious cruise liners. Therefore, the Nazi Regime attempted to win the loyalty of its workers by giving them great free time benefits for all their hard work they do for Germany.

b. Volkswagen Beetle (the people's car): The Volkswagen Beetle was also known as the people's car because a certain amount of the workers' pay check was cut in order to save money for the worker to get a volkswagon beetle. This was an attempt to make the workers and Germans feel like Germany was prospering and becoming stronger. Since it became a symbol of prosperity many workers wanted to continue to work in order to add to the manufacturing of the volkswagon beetles, to make them feel apart of Germany's prosperity; therefore they became loyal to the weekly cuts and the Nazis for this cause.

c. Beauty of Labor movement: The Beauty of Labor movement was a movement where working conditions were improved for workers. Fore example, washing facilities ad low-cost canteens were introduced to workplaces for the first time, which made many workers thankful for better working conditions. Since the Nazis gave them better working conditions they became loyal to the Nazis.

2. Define the following Farming Programs. Be sure to provide the pros and cons of each program:

a. Reich Food Estate: The Reich Food Estate was the distribution of farmers' produce across markets in Germany, which benefited the farmers by guaranteeing them a market for their goods and at guaranteed prices so they would always expect to get money for their goods. A con for the Reich Food Estate is the more efficient farmers had to go through the same processes as the less efficient farmers, which held back the more efficient farmers because now they had more competitors that they couldn't really compete with since the goods were all at the same prices.

b. Reich Entailed Farm Law: The Reich Entailed Farm Law was the protection given to peasant farmers for their farms. The benefit was the banks could not take their land if they weren't paying loans or mortgages, which basically guaranteed that the farms would stay in the peasants hands. A con to the law was that the banks gave out less loans to the farmers for fear that they would never pay off their loans or mortgages, so less farms were made and therefore less production of goods.

3. Define Volksgemeinschaft. (Hint: It is in the reading, plus my notes): Volksgemeinschaft literally means national community. It was the term and movement Hitler made to encourage Germans to think of themselves as part of a "national community," where they would see all of each other as equals. So they would not see each other as workers or as farmers but as Germans. Hitlers' aims for this movement was to make Germans feel superior than any other country and be willing to put Germany before themselves. Also, Volksgemeinschaft was directed solely to pure Aryan Germans, not towards Jewish people or any other race because they were inferior and Hitler wanted to build a strong Germany that consisted only of pure Aryans. Not only was race discriminated in Volksgemeinschaft, but individuality and individual rights were looked down upon because Hitler felt it individual liberty was incompatible with a strong people's community, or volksgemeinschaft.