No one factor can
explain the Holocaust and Hitler's ascendancy, but the economy can
not be ignored. Economic crises provide the opportunity for new
and/or radical groups to come to power, and Hitler came to power
during one of the largest, the Great Depression. However, an economic
crisis is not necessarily enough for a new regime to hold power; this
requires continued popular support after taking over. An economic
recovery can bolster a new regime's popularity and thus its efficacy,
but a continuing economic decline can weaken the regime. Nazi
Germany produced a strong recovery, and this may have strengthened
the Nazi state.
As Staub explains,
difficult life conditions can lead to frustration and often people
cope by joining an ideological group. A period of mass unemployment
and increased competition for scarce resources could create such
difficult life conditions, and allow for the rise of new and/or
radical groups. Indeed, in the current recession, some radical groups
have gained more support than ever before. For instance, Greece's
Coalition of the Radical Left more than quintupled their support from
2009 in the 2012 elections, in the midst of Greece's economic
crisis.1
The Nazis too likely benefited enormously from Germany's economic
troubles. As explained in Apocalypse: The Rise of Hitler,
the Nazi Party performed relatively poorly in the 1928 elections, but
after the onset of the Great Depression, their vote share rapidly
rose. The Great Depression certainly can't completely explain
Hitler's rise; after all, the US was hit by the brunt of the Great
Depression, and this simply brought a centrist party to power.
Nevertheless, even in America, the Great Depression changed the
political landscape. While laissez-faire Republicans had dominated
since the Civil War, Roosevelt's victory brought America Keynesian
economics and the welfare state. This change in political regimes may
have required an economic recovery.
While
Roosevelt enacted only limited Keynesian policies, unemployment did
fall, and the public rewarded the Democrats with further gains in
both 1934 and 1936; during this period, Roosevelt was able to
implement two waves of New Deal legislation. However, when Roosevelt
turned to austerity in 1937, the economy went back into recession,
the Democrats lost big in the 1938 midterms, and the New Deal ground
to a halt.2
While in America, Keynesian policies were limited and recovery
incomplete before the war, one country did institute massive deficit
spending and restore full employment, Nazi Germany.3
If a strong economic recovery can provide a regime with greater
popular support, Germany's rapid recovery could have strengthened the
Nazi government and helped create the opening for the Nazis to engage
in genocide.
Certainly
this hypothesis is speculative; after all, the relation between
economic recovery and political power in America may not translate
well to a totalitarian state. On the other hand, the Nazis, like any
other political party, were not immune to public pressure; as
Friedlander reveals, the Nazis moved their death camps outside of
Germany after the T4 killings sparked public opposition. However, as
Kulka describes (Ordinary Men-Afterword), the German populace limited
its opposition to Jewish persecution, and their indifference gave the
Nazis the freedom to push through the Final Solution. The strong
economic recovery could help explain this indifference. The German
public may not have been happy with some of the extreme measures
taken against the Jews, but if the Nazis were succeeding where the
Weimer Republic failed, why fuss over the fate of the Jews?
Even
if this hypothesis is correct, and the German economic recovery
constituted one cause of the Holocaust, it is hardly a complete
explanation. After all, the Nazis advanced the Final Solution as they
began to lose the war rather than in a time of German triumph. In
addition, the Nazis recruited collaborators from European countries
which received no economic benefit from the Nazis' deficit spending.
Nevertheless, the economy may be one piece of the explanation for why
the Nazis came to power and then received support from the German
people as they committed genocide.
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