Changes in the lives of German people 1933–1939

Hitler promised to restore Germany's pride, end unemployment and create a unified Volksgemeinschaft — a national community. Between 1933 and 1939 the Nazis pursued sweeping social policies that touched every household. The benefits were uneven, the costs sometimes invisible at the time, and the experience varied hugely depending on whether you were a German worker, a German woman, a German Jew or someone the Nazis labelled "asocial".

Workers

• Unemployment had been 6 million in 1933; by 1939 it was officially 0.3 million. This was achieved through:
  • Public works — autobahns, public buildings, drainage schemes (Reich Labour Service or RAD, compulsory for 18-25-year-old men from 1935).
  • Rearmament from 1935 — armaments factories employed millions.
  • Conscription from 1935 — 1.4 million men in the army by 1939.
  • Removing women and Jews from official statistics ("invisible unemployment").
• DAF (German Labour Front) under Robert Ley replaced trade unions. Workers had no strike rights, but did receive guaranteed jobs and slightly higher real wages by 1939.
• Strength Through Joy (KdF) — leisure programme: subsidised cruises, theatre tickets, sports, even the Volkswagen Beetle scheme (workers paid 5 marks/week into a savings book; few ever received a car).
• Beauty of Labour (SdA) — improved canteens, lighting and sports facilities at work.

Women

Nazi policy reversed Weimar's trend toward equality. The "ideal" Nazi woman was the Three Ks — Kinder (children), Küche (kitchen), Kirche (church).

• Marriage loans (Sept 1933) of 1000 marks — a quarter wiped off for each child.
• Mother's Cross (1938) — bronze, silver or gold for 4, 6 or 8 children.
• Women removed from civil service (1933), medicine (1936), university posts.
• By 1939, with rearmament soaking up male workers, women were quietly encouraged back into industry.
• Lebensborn (1936) — homes for "racially pure" unmarried mothers to bear future SS children.

Education and youth

• Curriculum rewritten — race science (15% of biology), militarised PE, antisemitic literature.
• All teachers had to join the Nazi Teachers' League. Jewish teachers dismissed.
• Boys: Hitler Youth (HJ) compulsory from 1936; military training, ideology, sport.
• Girls: League of German Maidens (BDM) — homemaking, motherhood, racial purity.
• Religious education marginalised; many parents complained about the new "Nazi schools".

Persecution of minorities and antisemitic policy

Nazi racial ideology classed German Jews as the chief enemy and outlined a "Aryan" Volk. Persecution escalated in stages:

• April 1933 — boycott of Jewish shops; first laws excluding Jews from civil service, schools and the legal profession.
• 1935 — Nuremberg Laws. Reich Citizenship Law stripped Jews of citizenship; Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour banned marriages between Jews and non-Jews.
• 1936 Olympics — temporary easing of antisemitic signs for international visitors.
• 1938 — Anschluss with Austria brought 200,000 more Jews under Nazi rule; Austrian Jews lost rights overnight.
• November 1938 — Kristallnacht. After the murder of a German diplomat in Paris by a Jewish teenager, Goebbels ordered a state-sponsored pogrom. 91 Jews killed, 7,500 shops destroyed, 267 synagogues burned, 30,000 Jewish men sent to concentration camps. Jewish community was fined 1 billion marks for the damage caused.
• By 1939, Jews could not own businesses, attend public schools or universities, sit on park benches, or — increasingly — leave Germany legally without surrendering their assets.

The Roma and Sinti, mentally and physically disabled, gay men, Jehovah's Witnesses and political prisoners were also persecuted. The T4 Programme (1939) began the murder of disabled Germans by injection, gas or starvation — a precursor to the Holocaust.

Standard of living — winners and losers

Winners:

• Skilled industrial workers — full employment, KdF, marginally rising real wages.
• Big business and farmers — protected by tariffs and government contracts.
• Young Aryan families — child benefits, marriage loans, holidays.

Losers:

• Jews and other minorities — excluded by law; assets seized.
• Women in professional careers — pushed out of public roles.
• Trade unionists, communists, social democrats — imprisoned or in exile.
• Anyone who openly criticised the regime — Gestapo and concentration camps.

How effective was the Volksgemeinschaft idea?

Strong points:

• Surface unity: rallies, uniforms, mass events.
• Pride in apparent economic recovery and military strength.
• Many ordinary Germans report later that they enjoyed the early Nazi years.

Weak points:

• The community defined itself by who it excluded.
• Class differences persisted — workers' wages rose less than profits.
• Religious tensions continued; church attendance held steady.
• Persecution of minorities undermined the moral claim of unity.

A high-quality answer judges that the Volksgemeinschaft worked partially for a privileged majority but rested on the systematic exclusion of millions.