Life in Nazi Germany 1933–39

Nazi rule was experienced unevenly. Some Germans (especially "Aryan" workers + women fitting the ideal) saw concrete improvements; others (Jews, communists, gay men, disabled, Roma) faced escalating persecution.

Women

Nazi ideology: women's role was Kinder, Küche, Kirche (children, kitchen, church).

• Forced out of professional jobs (1933 Law for the Encouragement of Marriage); married women dismissed from civil service
• Marriage loans (1933): 1,000 RM, with one quarter forgiven for each child; aimed at boosting birth rate
• Mother's Cross (1939): bronze (4 children), silver (6), gold (8)
• League of German Maidens (BDM) trained girls 14–18 in domestic + ideological roles
• Women's organisations homogenised under NS-Frauenschaft

Reality: The economy needed female workers from 1937 — many returned to work despite ideology.

Young people

Education completely Nazified:

• Curriculum: race studies, eugenics, glorified history, German + maths reframed in nationalist context
• Boys: physical training, paramilitary drills
• Girls: domestic skills + motherhood preparation
• Hitler Youth for boys 14–18 (compulsory from 1936); Jungvolk for younger boys; BDM for girls; Jungmädel for younger girls

By 1939: ~7 million in Hitler Youth.

Resistance: Edelweiss Pirates (working-class youth), Swing Kids (jazz fans). Both attacked Hitler Youth members.

Workers

Trade unions banned May 1933, replaced by DAF (German Labour Front) — compulsory membership, no right to strike.

Strength Through Joy (KdF): subsidised holidays, theatre tickets, cruises. Built loyalty. The "people's car" Volkswagen was promised but never delivered to subscribers.

Beauty of Labour: improved factory facilities (canteens, sports grounds).

Wages and unemployment: unemployment fell from 6M (1933) to ~0.3M (1939) due to:

• Public works (autobahns from 1933)
• Rearmament from 1935 (Hermann Göring's Four-Year Plan 1936)
• Conscription reintroduced 1935

But wages rose only modestly, work hours rose, and consumer goods stayed scarce. Workers paid for the "miracle" with reduced living standards in many indicators.

Persecution of minorities

Jews — escalating from 1933

Year	Measure
1933	Boycott of Jewish shops (April); Jewish civil servants dismissed (Law for Restoration of Professional Civil Service)
1935	Nuremberg Laws — Reich Citizenship Law (Jews not citizens) + Law for the Protection of German Blood (banned Jewish-Aryan marriages)
1938	"Aryanisation" of Jewish businesses (sold cheaply to Aryans)
1938	Kristallnacht (9–10 November) — coordinated pogrom: ~7,500 Jewish shops destroyed, 191 synagogues burned, ~91 Jews killed, ~30,000 Jewish men sent to concentration camps. Triggered by assassination of Ernst vom Rath in Paris. Jews fined 1 billion RM "for the damage"

By 1939, ~half of Germany's pre-1933 Jewish population had emigrated.

Other persecuted groups

• Roma + Sinti: also subject to Nuremberg-style racial laws; many sent to camps
• Gay men: Paragraph 175 strengthened; ~50,000 convicted; ~10,000 in concentration camps
• Disabled: T4 programme (from 1939) — "euthanasia" of disabled adults + children, ~70,000 killed before public protests led to its formal end (programme continued covertly)
• Jehovah's Witnesses: refused to swear loyalty to Hitler; many in concentration camps
• Black Germans: forced sterilisations of mixed-race children of WW1 occupation

Economic recovery — was it real?

Yes: unemployment plummeted; visible infrastructure (autobahns, public buildings); rearmament restored military pride; cars + radios more common.

No (or qualified): funded by deficit financing + plundering Jewish wealth; living standards rose less than headlines suggest; consumer goods scarce; war was the "exit strategy" that Schacht warned about.