Did workers lives improve in Nazi Germany- No.

[Socialist Scum]

Two autobahn workers were grumbling about the back-breaking work, poor housing and bad food they had to put up with. Then a woman aged about thirty and wearing a Nazi Women's league badge entered the train compartment. The two men continued their conversation. After just a few minutes she gazed sternly at the two workers, and remarked, "Is this whining really necessary? You should be grateful that you have work and thank the fuhrer for getting rid of unemployment!"

The older of the two said quietly, "Listen here, young woman: We work outdoors in all kinds of weather, shovelling dirt for 51 pfennigs an hour. Then there are deductions and the "Voluntary" contributions they take out automatically, and 15 pfennigs a day for a straw mattress in a draughty wooden barracks, and 35 pfennigs for what they ladle out of a cauldron and call dinner- slop you wouldn't touch, I guarantee it! Six months ago we were still getting 66 pfennigs and hour, and now they're pusing us harder and harder."

"Let it go, Karl." the younger one said, but his friend forged ahead I'm trained as a printer. In the summer of '33 I lost my job. I collected unemployment until the spring of '34- and that was a lot better then what I'm doing now. At least I was home, with my family, and now and then I could pick up some odd jobs, or I could work in the garden. Now I'm in compulsory service, with ten days' holiday a year! That's enough to do a man in, I'm telling you!"

"Forget it Karl" the younger one intervened again, "The lady isn't interested."

"But she should be! Listen, at the start of '33 there were over six million unemployed, and now there is 2 million. That much is true. But it's also true that at the beginning of '33 I was earning good money in my own trade and was home- and now we work ourselves to the bone and the wages keep going down- It's sixteen marks net per week now. The whole thing stinks, and somebody's got to say it!"

The women remained silent for a while. What he had said had clearly affected her.


***


Here are the working days for these workers:
4.45- Get up
4.50- Gymnastics
5.15- Wash, make beds
5.30- Coffee break
5.50- Parade
6.00- Work.
15.00- Lunch
15.30- Drill
18.45- Cleaning
19.15- Parade
19.30- Announcements
19.45- Supper
20.00- Singing
22.00- Lights out

Were workers treated better in Nazi Germany? No.

[Killfacer]

Surely the Nazi's came to power, just as Weimar Germany's economy was spiralling down under a mountain of debt? I seem to remember studying it in history, the build up to war created thousands of jobs. Sure, some people may have worked harder and been payed less, but more people were employed.

[ls]

Hopefully, people on Stormfrock are having aneurysms reading this. :D

Fascists never will treat people according to their needs though, well, I'm wrong, they would treat people according to their (own) needs :D but not the peoples'.

[Socialist Scum]

Surely the Nazi's came to power, just as Weimar Germany's economy was spiralling down under a mountain of debt? I seem to remember studying it in history, the build up to war created thousands of jobs. Sure, some people may have worked harder and been payed less, but more people were employed.

They worked far harder and were paid far less.

[S. Zetor]

"The average gross hourly wage fell from the index figure of 129.5 in 1929 to 94.6 in 1932, i.e., by more than 35%. [..] However, since the price of foodstuffs declined by nearly 20% in the same period, and the price of industrial goods fell by a similarly high percentage, the decline in real wages was not as steep as would appear from the abrupt plunge of nominal wages. [..]

"What, then occurred after the Nazis' seizure of power? The average gross hourly wage increased from the index figure of 94.6 in the year 1933 to 100 in 1936 and 108.6 in 1939. Despite full employment, therefore, the average gross hourly wage in 1939 was far below the level 1929, when it had reached 129.5. [..] Taking into account the vast increase in wage deduction (which rose from less than 10% to more than 20% of the total mass of wages) it can be estimated that the annual income actually at the disposal of the wage earners fell back from RM 2215 in 1929 to RM 1700 in 1938. This constitutes a drop of approximately 23%. The cost of living was approximately 7% higher in 1938 than in 1933 and hence probably about 10% lower that in 1929. Before the Second World War, therefore, the real wages of the German worker under National Socialism had already fallen by more than 10% as compared with the pre-crisis period, despite the considerable increase in production (in 1938 it was 25% above the 1929 level) and the rise in the average productivity of labour (in 1938 it was approximately 10% higher than in 1939 [maybe a typo, should it be 1929? ]) achieved under Nazi rule. It is little wonder that under such conditions the mass of profit shot upwards: from RM 15.4 billion in 1929 and RM 8 billion in 1932 to RM 20 billion in 1938 (these figures refer to all forms of profit, including commercial and bank profits and undistributed company profits.) [..]

"From 1932 to 1938 the total nominal wages at the disposal of the wage earners rose by 69%, the number of those employed by 56%, the level of output by 112% and the number of hours worked 117%. It is scarcely surprising that under such conditions the mass of surplus-value directly accruing to capital increased by 146%."

Ernest Mandel, Late Capitalism, p. 159-160. NLB (1975)

[Rjevan]

It is idiotic to assume that the Nazis ever cared about the working people. Everything Hitler did was solely for preparing for the war. He had no idea about economic matters, as he admitted himself, he had only the luck that many of the reforms and plans, developed by one of his predecessors, chancellor Brüning (who got unpopular for his strict austerity policy) made an impact in the 30s.
As Socialist Scum and S. Zetor showed it's a myth that the life of the average worker in Germany improved in the 3rd Reich - quite the contrary!

[Raúl Duke]

This is some good/interesting historical fact about Nazi Germany.


Although, I'll be even more happier if I could see similar statistics on Fascist Italy and Spain, I want to see all those "fascist experiments" discredited (on the whole "it helped workers" argument).

[Melbourne Lefty]

I dont think it was ever argued that fascist economics helped workers economically.

Yet Hitler and Mussolini before the war were very popular amongst the populations of their countries.

I cant be bothered looking up the references but observers from the U.S and the U.S.S.R both reported that people were happy under their new rulers even if they had less.

This is a contradiction that deserves some pondering.

[AnthArmo]

Although he called it "National Socialism". The Nazi Germany economy was more accurately described as an extreme version of Keynesian economics. Hitler gave constant corporate handouts to those corporations that were making profits, and socialized the losses of many of the massive corporations, similar to Bush's bailout package.

And Worker rights were absolutely appalling. Jews and POW's were used for slave labour. Trade unions and strikes were made illegal. And the right to quit was eventually taken away as well.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Comparing average wages is susceptible to error. Keep in mind Nazi Germany had a very strong welfare state that required more taxes out of the individual income than the Weimar Republic.

[LOLseph Stalin]

I do have to admit that the life of an average worker probably wasn't better in Nazi Germany than previously in the Weimar Republic, but there were actually more jobs created helping the high unemployment rates. The whole militarism part of Fascist ideology could be contributed to that. Obviously the Nazis needed workers to build military equipment.

[Robespierre2.0]

Even though conditions were as miserable as during the Weimar period, the working class supported the Nazi government because of the feeling of unity and togetherness the government gave them after the chaos and division of the 20s.

This feeling is a good thing- that same feeling is what compelled the peoples of the USSR to complete the 5-year plans, and something that the modern communist movement needs to keep in mind if it wants to win over the masses. The difference, however, is that National Socialism is a bourgeois caricature of socialism, and thus, all the effort expended in the name of this unity was directed against other peoples for the benefit of the German bourgeoisie.

On the flip side, look at the sheer number of people who have to take antidepressants to function in individualistic post-industrial society.
(It's kind of hilarious, if you think of it. These people are absolutely miserable, and yet when you get in a discussion about politics with them, they'll talk about how the people in the USSR and DPRK were/are oppressed.)

[Comrade B]

Forgetting one big, lovely part of the German worker's life.
My grandfather, Emil, was a trained wheel maker/carpenter, his cousins and relatives were lumberjacks and other similar professions. When the benevolent giver of work Hitler came along, all these people were drafted into the army and sent to various lovely work environments, such as North Africa (several family deaths, 1 POW sent into forced labor in UK for several years), France (Emil parachuted into here, was captured, we can assume his unit was killed), Stalingrad (1 froze to death, I believe one was blown up, or torn to unrecognizable bits by machine gun fire), and our favorite, the magical land of disappearing on a trip to the "hospital"!!!

please, note the sarcasm above...

A lot of people were sent to their deaths. Their jobs were filled by those from positions that were not considered as important/ concentration camp slave labor.

These stormfronter kids are dumb asses to think that anything positive came out of Hitler. They may enjoy beating the skulls in of scrawny teenagers, but I wonder if they would enjoy fighting as much when guns, frost bite, starvation, and their families being killed is involved.

[LOLseph Stalin]

These stormfronter kids are dumb asses to think that anything positive came out of Hitler. They may enjoy beating the skulls in of scrawny teenagers, but I wonder if they would enjoy fighting as much when guns, frost bite, starvation, and their families being killed is involved.

Way too true. I'm sure they would think differently if it was them being sent to fight in...Stalingrad!