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The history of the world economy - Polyak GB

28.5. German economy

The post-war economy

Etatizirovannym most of the First World War among the leading countries in Europe turned out to be the economy of Germany. This is not only a kind of political form of German capitalism, developed based on the concept of "educational protectionism" of the German historical school, but also extreme stress all resources, which require long-term aggressive war by Germany. The collapse of the political system as a result of defeat in war, the enormous human and material losses, the hardest conditions of the Versailles peace treaty for Germany were the main factors in the prolonged post-war crisis and the subsequent stagnation of the economy. Only since the mid 20-ies became noticeable trend towards improvement, there have been positive changes in the development of the individual, especially the new, monopolized industries, relatively fast growth of foreign trade turnover.

Dawes Plan and Young

To a large extent this was due to the US commitment and leading European countries to restore the balance, impaired as a result of Germany's defeat in the war, their desire to pay off the high social tensions within the country and prevent its rapprochement with the USSR, as well as the possibility of penetration of socialism in Western Europe.

Dawes Plan (1924-1929) - a new reparations plan, named after the head of the International Expert Council, the American banker Charles Dawes was adopted with these same goals. The plan provided significant relief of reparation payments, which was confirmed later Locarno Agreement of 1925, with the establishment of hard foreign control for clearly defined sources of reparation payments. In addition, the plan called for the selection of large US lenders of loans for fiscal consolidation in Germany and a set of direct investments in its economy. Altogether during the implementation of this plan was able to get Germany, mainly from the US and to a lesser extent the UK, loans amounting to about 21 billion. Marks.

Given the unfavorable economic situation in Germany, the financial experts of the creditor countries took the decision to change the German reparations payments system. Dawes Plan in 1929 was replaced by the Young Plan, named the new chairman of the International Expert Council, president of the electrical trust financier Morgan O. Young. New plan to help limit the total amount of reparations, narrowing down the number of sources of revenue budget and profit from the railways and abolishing reparations payments to the Fund from the industry profits, which releases additional internal means for its further development. At the same time abolished the financial control of economies of Germany. However, during the crisis the Young Plan was actually canceled.

The crisis of 1929-1933. The economic policy of fascism

The dependent position sufficiently fragile German economy opredelshyu depth of the crisis of 1929-1933 in the country. Its lowest point it reached in 1932, affecting primarily the industrial sector (68 thousand companies went bankrupt.), The banking sector, caused huge unemployment (about 8 million people.); Termination of assistance from the leading countries, is also experiencing a serious crisis, exacerbated the situation in Germany.

The failure mode of the Weimar Republic to effectively counter the economic crisis, aggravation of social contradictions, the pursuit of the monopolies to restore the lost positions on the world markets, a growing nostalgia for a fairly wide public circles of citizens in the former greatness of the German Empire in a sharp drop in living standards, indifference to domestic problems in Germany by governments other countries were the main factors in the establishment of the fascist regime in the country in 1933

Economic policy was fascism pronounced statist character. Despite the fact that Hitler came to power at the stage ended the fall of the economy, anti-crisis measures were of an extraordinary nature, as pursued not only tactical objectives O economy in growth mode, but mainly strategic, military and political goals - the return of the lost territories and markets, further expansion of the boundaries of the state, finally, the conquest of world domination.

This strategy is actually defined forms and methods of bringing the country out of the crisis, the main content of which becomes all-out militarization of the national economy. To this end, the Nazi leadership, emphasis was placed on the reduction of militarily significant heavy industry and the fuel industry, the creation of enterprises producing military equipment, which required enormous concentration of resources in the hands of the state. Therefore, the Nazis created a powerful apparatus of state regulation of the economy, which was the main lever of concentration of financial, commodity, manufacturing, food, human and other resources. A number of adopted laws on compulsory cartelization of economy, on the preparations for the construction of the German organic farms, about the defense of the empire and the other allowed to establish tight state control over 2/3 of the industrial potential. The organization of the national labor law has created a legal framework for the establishment of a system of forced labor. Guide economies of Germany was carried out from a central location - the Main Economic Council, to reallocate funds, manpower and raw materials primarily in the military complex, due to civil industries.

Serial production of field guns

Thus, under the fascist dictatorship in the absence of the necessary funds for large-scale military investments, cut off aid from other countries, finally, the country's self-isolation (autarky) methods of state regulation originally acquired pronounced lines, administrative forms. Rapidly going expansion of the public sector in the economy, which, in particular, was associated with a policy of "Aryanization" of enterprises, or rather, their owners confiscation of Jewish property and the nationalization of the disloyal to the regime of entrepreneurs. At the same time growing the share of state participation in joint stock companies.

Such an intervention of the state in economic life has been very effective and allowed the Nazi regime during 1934 to end the crisis, especially in heavy industry, and on this basis to ensure rapid growth. However, it should be noted that Germany's success in overcoming the crisis were very bleak, since not eliminated national economic imbalances which were the cause of it, but rather deepened them. The increased 25-fold over 1932-1936. appropriations for military construction were far ahead of the pace of growth of public investment in transport (rose over the same period four times), public administration (by half), housing (1.7 times). Continuation of the policy of militarization of the economy, so that did not solve the problem of optimal recovery of economic proportions, expand domestic and foreign markets, improvement of the financial system and many others. However, the Nazi government, as already mentioned, and did not seek to address these problems.

Only the outbreak of external aggression could temporarily push the imminent economic disaster. Therefore, since 1935, Germany increasingly drawn into military conflicts and ultimately unleashes the Second World War put an end to fascism itself.

Fascist model of the creation of the state system of regulation is large enough group of countries was used, taking into account national specificities, level of economic development that reaches, as a rule, the average mark, and often is below. These countries are well known as satellites of Germany in World War II. The exceptions were the highly developed countries - allies of Germany - Italy and Japan.