Can someone explain the economic policy of pre-war NSDAP Germany?
Hitler mentioned in one of his Four-Year Plan speeches that the Reichsmark was backed by production rather than gold. How does this work?
Did companies retain profits as they do in capitalism?
He significantly reduced unemployment by putting people to work on infrastructure projects like the railway system and the autobahn. But how was this achieved without printing money and causing inflation?
My brain only knows jewish economics.
>Did companies retain profits as they do in capitalism?
Yes but you have to keep in mind that companies were also regulated, the idea was to insure every company was ultimately acting in the interest of Germany.
>Reichsmark was backed by production rather than gold.
I believe that was a simplified way of saying that the gold standard was out of date and the Third Reich ultimately saw the truth of chartalism, or what is today called MMT, the idea that money as a unit of account ultimately owes itself to government writ, and nothing else which in reality means that value is based on the labor within a nation, not on the amount of gold, or any other metal or tradable good.
I think the logic used is that money is created by the state, but the state is the will of the people, hence ultimately all money is backed by the labor of the people.
>But how was this achieved without printing money and causing inflation?
A lot of money came from borrowing which is how most states prevent increased spending from leading to inflation. Although like I said above there was also a lot of taxation and regulation when there was money that was printed to get money out of the money supply that would otherwise cause inflation. Another reason there was no inflation could be simple that Germany and much of the world was in a depression with intense deflationary pressure, meaning if anything government money printing and spending was just returning the value of money to a normal rate.
Ultimately his policies worked because Hitler was dedicated to doing "whatever worked" rather than anything ideological. The question was never "what economic ideology do I follow" it was "what works?"