This seems to be a personal opinion article. Much has been written about the Nazi rise to power. The first four years of Hitler's rule, starting in 1933, were good for Germany. He got Germany out of the postwar depression. If he'd left office after four years, he'd be remembered as the Savior of Germany. After four years, things started to go bad; two more years and WWII was under way.
The Nazi party was closely allied with big companies. That was by design, and there was no secret about it. That's what "national socialism" was all about - industry and government working together. It worked more like crony capitalism in practice, and less well over time.
One of the big problems in a dictatorship is how the second tier of control works. The leader can't decide everything. There has to be delegation. But how? Regional delegation results in regional leaders powerful enough to challenge the national leader. Delegation by subject area (ministries) sometimes works, but the military and security apparatus usually becomes the center of power. Delegating power to businesses is a bit safer, especially if you don't let them become monopolies in their sector. The Nazi Party used all three forms of delegation, which the author describes as a mess. It's not an unreasonable way to run things, though.
With any economic policy, including those, it depends on who you are. He did get people jobs, albeit many of which were semi-disguised military training. However, he did it by progressively and systematically pushing the jewish population out, and looting them of their possessions.
A cynical way to look at a fair segment of economic policy is that it exists as solutions to the desire of "I want your stuff"- and at the extreme end of both left and right, the answer is outright theft and murder.
Nazi Germany prepared for war and many people had to work for that. Germany had less unemployment. But the things produced, were for a huge war machine. Financed with debt and the hope to loot other countries. In other areas the youth was forced to work for the regime.
Many people were happy that they were employed. 1933-39 Soon many of them or their relatives were dead, because their work created the ships, the tanks, the planes, the weapons, the industry for the war.
This large reduction of unemployment was what people thought of being successful economic policy. If you talked to people from that time, they saw Hitler's policy in rosy pictures. After the mass unemployment, suddenly there was hope. But it wasn't for long. The financing was not sound. The purpose was clear: fight a war, either win or die.
>The first four years of Hitler's rule, starting in 1933, were good for Germany. He got Germany out of the postwar depression. If he'd left office after four years, he'd be remembered as the Savior of Germany.
Unless you were, you know, Jewish. Or communist. Or a worker in general.
> The Nazi Party ... It's not an unreasonable way to run things, though.
The Nazi party was closely allied with big companies. That was by design, and there was no secret about it. That's what "national socialism" was all about - industry and government working together. It worked more like crony capitalism in practice, and less well over time.
One of the big problems in a dictatorship is how the second tier of control works. The leader can't decide everything. There has to be delegation. But how? Regional delegation results in regional leaders powerful enough to challenge the national leader. Delegation by subject area (ministries) sometimes works, but the military and security apparatus usually becomes the center of power. Delegating power to businesses is a bit safer, especially if you don't let them become monopolies in their sector. The Nazi Party used all three forms of delegation, which the author describes as a mess. It's not an unreasonable way to run things, though.