How did Hitler get the starting capital to revitalize the German economy?

by lastmartian
ParkSungJun

He didn't revitalize the German economy: this is a common misconception.

Ignoring the blog information, I can confirm that the data on this page is roughly accurate.

For German GDP we have:

Year GDP % Growth
1919 156 591
1920 170 235 8.71%
1921 189 511 11.32%
1922 206 188 8.80%
1923 171 318 -16.91%
1924 200 557 17.06%
1925 223 082 11.23%
1926 229 363 2.81%
1927 252 321 10.00%
1928 263 367 4.37%
1929 262 284 -0.41%
1930 258 602 -1.40%
1931 238 893 -7.62%
1932 220 916 -7.52%
1933 234 778 6.27%
1934 256 220 9.13%
1935 275 496 7.52%
1936 299 753 8.80%
1937 317 783 6.01%
1938 342 351 7.73%

The most interesting years to note here are 1923 and 1929-1932. 1923 was the worst year of the hyperinflation combined with the general strike and the Occupation of the Ruhr. 1929-1932 is thought to be the worst years of the Great Depression.

Now, the theory that Hitler somehow magically improved the German economy would suggest that without Hitler did something in 1933 that spurred GDP growth. Which it seems to do here. But GDP growth after 1934 tends to trend downward rather than upward, and it never quite reaches the recovery levels of the financial disasters post 1919 and 1923. This is explained because Hitler essentially redistributed economic growth that would normally have gone to capitalist enterprises specifically into military and heavy industry. This generates a short-term but ultimately unsustainable growth that would lead to economic collapse (as Hitler noted to his generals in April 1939, that without the conquest of Poland and a wartime economy, Germany would be in severe trouble).

In addition, compare it to Austria's GDP, which didn't benefit from Hitler's policies until some time after the Anschluss in 1938:

Year GDP % Growth
1919 14 503
1920 15 571 7.36%
1921 17 236 10.69%
1922 18 784 8.98%
1923 18 597 -0.99%
1924 20 754 11.59%
1925 22 161 6.77%
1926 22 536 1.69%
1927 23 216 3.01%
1928 24 295 4.64%
1929 24 647 1.44%
1930 23 967 -2.75%
1931 22 044 -8.02%
1932 19 769 -10.32%
1933 19 113 -3.31%
1934 19 277 0.85%
1935 19 652 1.94%
1936 20 238 2.98%
1937 21 317 5.33%
1938 24 037 12.75%

Notice by the time the Anschluss took place, Austria's economy was reaching the same levels of post-war/crisis growth and recovery both post-war and after 1923. And Austria's economy was not as robust as Germany's, either. This would lead me to the conclusion that Hitler in fact had nothing to do with the improvement in the German economy: had the DNVP retained power we likely would have seen a similar economic trend to that of Austria.