Workers and Peasantry in Nazi Germany

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  • Created by: Zobby
  • Created on: 14-05-16 17:23

Did lives of workers/peasants improve?

Workers
+ Public works schemes - 'Strength Through Joy' - Volkswagen or People's Car/'Beauty of Labour' 
+ German Labour Front
- Management + government were able to limit worker's freedom of movement
- German Labour Front - used to monitor workers/real wages in Third Reich did not increase dramatically/disobedience, strikes or absenteeism dealt with harshly
- Rearmament were amongst the biggest beneficiaries and meant People's cars rarely received/ workers least won over by Volksgemeinschaft, not many workers could afford cruises from by STJ
Peasants
+ Blood and soil ideology
+ Many debts were written off
+ Reich Entailled Farm Law
- Resented imposition such as hens required to lay 65 eggs/yr
- Migrated to towns and cities
- Peasantry could not compete with larger landowners + much land lost to fortifications
- During war goreign slave labour intro'd on farms, was direct contradiction to blood and soil

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Why Hitler replaced TU's with GLF?

  • TU's had mass membership + powerful connections to alternative ideologies Socialism + Communism. WC not traditional voters of the Nazis
  • Nazi's had workers in the title so made an effort to win over that group
  • German organised Labour had previously shown industrial muscle to Nazism and potentially threat to future stability of Nazis
  • The effects of the Depression was still evident, TU's weakened
  • Banning TU's part of desire to extend consideravble power was part of Legal Revolution allowing Hitler to legitimise this actions. Strict regulation of workforce + working practice essential to plan for strengthening his control
  • GLF set up to replace German TU's acting as means of controlling workforce. Hitler's key aim was to break power of TU's politically and economically by controlling organisation of Labour
  • GLF means of increasing industrial production + would help bond people together as part of National Commnity. Where there were no divisions based on class, region + German's would be united in their support for Hitler
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Why Nazi regime intro'd Reich Entailled Farm Law?

  • Meant farm ownership was fixed - small peasant farmers could not lose land via debts and they could sell it. Reason being focal point of Nazi propaganda
  • Blood and soil ideology - peasantry true Germans, not polluted by 'foreign blood', ensured German not Polish farmers, 
  • Forbade division of land among sons and only first born son could inherit - land more productive as boundaries would not take up space
  • Some respects ensured security of ownership but farmers could not gain loans from banks for more fertiliser and machinery as they could not offer up land for security
  • As law not possible and many agricultural labourers, including sons who did not inherit land, continued to migrate to towns in search of better paid work
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