If you want to get a look at Hitler's campaign promises, a good place to start would be his "Appeal to the German People," his first national radio address, delivered on February 1, 1933.

Hitler's themes here:

• End the influence of Communism in Germany.

• Restore Germany as a fully independent power.

• Reinterpret German identity along the lines of Nazi racial theories.

• End unemployment.

• Bail out German farmers.

• Put German government finances in order.

As we all know, of course, Hitler failed in virtually every respect by the end of his time in power. Judged on a shorter timeline, one might be tempted to point to some benefits of his rule. "He did a lot for Germany," one might say. "If he'd been killed in 1938, he'd be remembered as a hero."

We see a lot of that. What that tired argument misses is the gaping hole here, the promise Hitler ripped to shreds. That's the promise to set Germany's finances in order.

From the moment he took office, Hitler embarked on a dizzying spending spree. He drastically reduced unemployment by increasing government spending. By the time World War II broke out, Germany's government was spending twice what it was getting in tax revenue, and total government debt was at 120 percent of GDP. The government was quietly paying its largest vendors in coupons for future tax refunds. A large part of the motivation behind Germany's persecution of Jews was the hope to extract money and property from Jews fleeing Germany - in 1938, the "Reich Flight Tax" brought in two percent of government revenue. The seizures of Austria and Czechoslovakia were immediately followed by the seizure of their gold reserves, to replenish the Reich's dwindling stocks and shore up Germany's collapsing currency in international trade.

Had Hitler never gone to war - had he been killed or died before 1939 - the nature of his gamble would have been exposed. The German people would realize they'd been fleeced to spend billions on an investment that would only pay off in the event of a war, a war intended to strip land and treasure from Germany's neighbors.

And even putting all that aside, many of his promises rang hollow. For example, hundreds of thousands of Jews and other racial undesirables were stripped of citizenship and struck from official unemployment numbers. Legal barriers were set up to keep women out of the workplace. His promise to help Germany's sick and elderly took a dark, twisted turn as Nazi sterilization and euthanasia programs began - and were swiftly shut down due to public outcry. Hitler's rhetoric often turned back to German farmers, who he held up as the nation's backbone. In the early days of Nazi rule, new government entities were set up to help farmers and cancel or renegotiate debt, but early good will faded as rural labor left for the army or new factory jobs (again, funded with deficit spending). Rising costs were offset by rising prices, but the Reich Food Estate, a government entity set up to buy food, interfered with the free market and irritated many farmers.