Besides their racial policies, what other polices did the Nazi party have?

by RexReaver

What policies did the Nazi's have on healthcare, welfare, education, employment, criminal justice etc.

tayaravaknin

Something we can look at is the Nazi platform. This is something I've recently done a lot of research on, and referred to a lot, so let's take a look!

Economic policy by the Nazis, as found in their pamphlet in 1932...

Employment:

Notable things include:

  • Unemployment benefits burden the economy, but job creation stimulates the economy: Tolerating unemployment means a brutal deprivation of rights for the productive people’s comrade. He is robbed of his freedom to earn his living by his own efforts. He is robbed of the ability to support himself, and is forced to rely on miserable public support, which is constantly being cut. The working people does not want to sell its right to life for these few pennies, but rather demands the right to work.

  • Focus on domestic production: The following steps must be taken to refocus the German economy on the domestic market: Promoting the fertility of German soil by land reclamation. Building developments with single-family houses for workers to promote the deproletarianization of working people, strengthening the purchasing power of workers, and encouraging a reduction in the industrial working day. Building roads, canals, etc., to support the domestic exchange of goods, settling people in the East, and loosening the hold of big cities.

Land Reclamation:

Notable things include:

  • a) Draining land: 8.5 million hectares. The increase in production is 80 marks per hectare, or 680 million marks in total. b) Marling meadows and fields: 2 million hectares. This will result in an increase in production of 50 marks per hectare, or 100 million marks. c) Cultivatable moor lands: 1,900,000 hectares, increasing production by 300 marks per hectare, or 570,000,000 marks. d) Cultivatable barren land: 600,000 hectares, increasing production by 200 marks per hectare, or 120 million marks. e) Redistributing lands in need of improvement: 5 million hectares, increasing production by 25% to 50%, or at least 500 million marks. f) Land to be gained by river control, dams, and dikes: not yet determined.

(All of these were public works projects, obviously, so public works were an integral part of their economic policy).

  • Build more houses: Each worker willing and able to buy a single-family house will receive a 40% subvention from the government. If he has a job, he can borrow the rest from a state bank, which will guarantee favorable terms and a quick decision. If he is unemployed, he will be paid for helping to build the settlement (the larger the building program is, the greater can be the number of unskilled workers). A percentage of his pay will go toward the purchase of a single-family house. The terms will be at least as favorable as for the first group. The plan is to build 400,000 private homes per year. That will provide employment for one million people.

Finances:

Notable things include:

  • Assuming the rest of the policies reduce unemployment etc.: Savings for the unemployed; office and town payments for unemployment support of 33% of wages, or 25% of the total costs. Increased revenues for social security: 16% of wages, or 12% of total costs. Increased taxes: 15% of total costs.

  • Since 50% of total costs will come from savings and increased revenues on the part of the government, 70% to 80% of total costs will quickly be available. The remaining 20% to 30% can be financed by credit. Such a limited increase in credit is no danger to the stability of our currency.

  • This will involve providing credit for manufacturing standard products that are in demand and can be stored. These include grain, fertilizers, coal, metals, etc., which will receive subventions under the condition that the products be sold at specified prices and that large numbers of new workers be hired.

Foreign Trade:

Notable things include:

  • It would be an irresponsible waste to accept a negative balance of payments with foreign countries in the future. The German people does not exist in order to accept the surplus production of other peoples.

  • National Socialism demands that the needs of German workers no longer be supplied by Soviet slaves, Chinese coolies, and Negroes. National Socialism is determined to eliminate the barriers between the cultural level of German workers and German farmers. Therefore, import restrictions must be implemented when the result will be work for the German worker or the German farmer. National Socialism opposes the liberal world economy, as well as the Marxist world economy. Instead, it demands that each people’s comrade be protected from foreign competition.

  • Therefore, a guideline of National Socialist policy is to cover the German people’s needs by its own production as far as possible, securing the amount in excess of domestic production from friendly European states, particularly if they are wiling to accept industrial products from Germany as payment.

Foreign Currency Supplies:

Notable things include:

  • We will work out a reduction in interest with our foreign creditors, making it equivalent to the rate of interest they charge borrowers in their own countries.

  • Under a National Socialist state, the flow of money and capital abroad will only happen if approved by the state German Foreign Bank (Foreign Currency Office). The German Foreign Bank will coordinate all foreign currency and other valuables within the German banking system. National Socialism will insure that the bleeding dry of the German economy will cease. These measures will contribute to ending the existing system of starvation.

That should give you an idea of some of their economic policies. What about healthcare?

One of the first Nazi laws, passed July 14, 1933, was the “Law for the Prevention of Progeny of Hereditary Disease,” intended to “consolidate” social and health policies in the German population and prohibit the right of reproduction for persons defined as “genetically inferior.” After 1933, the connection between the theory and practice of politicized medicine advocated by many in Weimar Germany became actual in Nazi Germany.

Source: http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/national-health-care-medicine-in-germany-1918-1945#axzz2urAQbrk9

Nazis in general continued with a universal healthcare system advocated by Bismarck at least 50 years earlier (I think it was 60-70, or so). Hospitals and doctors, while working without goal of profit, work in a society that is supposed to attempt to insure everyone, and it remains a multi-payer model, so it's not the same as the universal model we see in countries like the UK today.

On education:

Very nationalistic, and the Nazis had great support from teachers (especially non-Jewish ones, of course). They also had great clout amongst them, but generally education was simply approached the same way as previously, just with increased nationalism (though it had already been pretty nationalistic) and with increased focus on biological superiority.

That's about all I really can talk on, but that should give you an idea!