Reply #57: 2 May 1933: Trade unions are abolished and their leaders arrested. [View All]

[Hannah Bell]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/germany/hitlerconsolidaterev_print.shtml


Schacht was an active supporter of the Nazi Party before its accession to power on 30th January, 1933, and supported the appointment of Hitler to the post of Chancellor. After that date he played an important role in the vigorous rearmament program which was adopted, using the facilities of
the Reichsbank to the fullest extent in the German rearmament effort.... On 3rd May, 1935, he sent a memorandum to Hitler stating that "the accomplishment of the armament program with speed and in quantity is the problem of German politics, that everything else therefore should be subordinated to this purpose..."

http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/tgmwc/judgment/j-defendants-schacht.html


After the Nazi takeover of power the re-armament became the topmost priority of the German government. Hitler would then spearhead one of the greatest expansions of industrial production and civil improvement Germany had ever seen.

Third Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, one of the most influential Nazi figures of the time, and Hjalmar Schacht, a Nazi ecomomist who introduced a wide variety of schemes in order to tackle the effects that the Great Depression had on Germany, were the main key players of German rearmament policies.

Dummy companies like MEFO were setup to finance the re-armament; MEFO obtained the large amount of money needed for the effort through the Mefo bills, a certain series of credit notes issued by the Government of Nazi Germany.<5> Covert organizations like the Deutsche Verkehrsfliegerschule were established under a civilian guise in order to train pilots for the future Luftwaffe.

Although available statistics don't include non-citizens or women, the massive Nazi re-armament policy, almost led to full employment during the 1930s. Real wages in Germany, however, dropped by roughly 25% between 1933 and 1938.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_re-armament