Lesson video

Hello, welcome to History here at Oak National Academy.

My name's Mr. Newton, and I'll be your teacher today guiding you through the entire lesson.

Right, let's get started.

When Hitler came to power, he promised national revival and a strong Germany.

Part of his promise involved re-arming the nation and boosting the economy.

By 1941, a few years into the Second World War, it's appeared that Hitler had delivered on these promises.

But soon a turning point came in Nazi Germany's war efforts when dreams of a quick conquest turned into a desperate struggle to survive.

Today we'll explore how Hitler's vision of Total War pushed Germany's economy and its people to the breaking points.

And we'll ask what's happens when a country puts everything, every factory, every farm, every person into the hands of war? What does it look like when a government values victory more than its own people's survival? By the end of this lesson, you'll be able to describe how the Second World War affected Nazi Germany and its economy.

Before we begin, there are a few key words that we need to understand.

Total War is a type of war where the entire country is involved, all people, soldiers, and civilians must contribute.

The government redirects the whole economy, industry, and society to support the war efforts.

Labor is the work, especially physical work done for wages.

And rationing is a system where the government controls how much food, fuel, or goods each person can have during shortages.

Everyone gets a fixed amount to ensure fair distribution.

Refugees are people forced to flee their homes due to war, danger, or disaster, often with nowhere to go.

And morale is the emotional and psychological state of a person or group.

It reflects levels of confidence, hope, or despair, especially during dangerous or difficult situations.

Today's lesson is called the Nazi Economy and World War II, and the lesson is split into two parts.

In the first part, we'll look at Total War and labor shortages.

We'll explore how Hitler's government tried to mobilize every aspect of society to fuel the war efforts.

And why despite their efforts, they faced serious shortages, especially of workers.

Then in second parts, we'll shift focus to the hardships on the home front.

We'll consider what life was like for ordinary German citizens from rationing and bombing raids, to the emotional toll of defeat and constant loss.

Right, let's start the lesson with Total War and labor shortages.

So the Second World War brought Germany early glory, but by 1941, its war economy was straining under Allied industrial power.

So the question here is what went wrong? Hitler had long prepared for war by re-arming Germany and building a self-sufficient economy, and this was tied to military expansion.

The Second World War began in 1939, and by 1941, German forces had quickly conquered much of Europe.

At home, Germans enjoyed the early rewards of war rising employment, regaining lost territory, and access to the resources of conquered countries.

Hitler appeared to have fulfilled his promise of national revival, and many Germans embraced the war as a shared mission.

However, in 1941, the course of the war began to turn.

Germany invaded the Soviet Union expecting another quick victory, but instead suffered its first major defeats.

That same year, the United States entered the war, allying with Britain and the Soviet Union.

Now facing enemies on multiple fronts, Hitler was warned that Germany's economy and factories could no longer compete with the overwhelming industrial power of the Allies.

These factories could now produce more weapons, more vehicles, and of better quality, than Germany's increasingly strained war economy.

Germany's economy, and its people, were about to be stretched beyond their limits.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding, which of the following events or developments marked a turning point for Germany in the Second World War? Select three correct answers.

A, Germany's economy and factories struggled to match Allied industrial outputs.

B, Germany suffered its first major defeats in the Soviet Union.

C, Hitler was forced to resign from military leadership.

D, the United States entered the war against Germany.

Pause the video, have a think and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back, and well done if you need the correct answers were A, Germany's economy and factories struggled to match Allied industrial output.

B, Germany suffered its first major defeats in the Soviet Union and D, the United States entered the war against Germany.

Okay, let's continue.

So in 1942, Albert Speer took charge of Germany's war production driving a Total War economy where civilian needs came last.

So let's dive deeper into Speer's role and the concept of Total War.

Hitler appointed Albert Speer as minister of armaments.

A skilled organizer, Speer streamlined war production, standardized equipment, and increased output, even under the pressure of Allied bombing.

He famously claimed he could build arms faster than the Allies could bomb.

When we think about war, our minds usually jump straight to the battlefield, soldiers, tanks, combat, et cetera.

But often the most decisive factor in winning or losing war happens far from the front lines.

Take a look at this image on the left.

It shows a German fighter plane inside a factory.

There are no guns firing here, but this is still a battlefield of sorts, why? Because wars aren't just fought with bullets and bombs, they're fought with resources, organization, and production power.

Behind every soldier is a supply line.

Behind every tank is a factory, and behind every victory is an economy that can keep up with the demands of war.

So Speer's role in streamlining war production wasn't just helpful, it was absolutely crucial.

By reorganizing factories and boosting efficiency, he helped keep Germany's war machine running even as pressure mounted on every front.

So as we study Nazi Germany's war effort today, remember this, the war was being fought just as much here, in factories and on the home front, as it was in the trenches and on the battlefield.

On the 21st of March, 1942, a decree followed, all sectors of the German economy were reorganized to serve the war effort.

This marked a turning point in Germany's transition to Total War, a strategy where every aspect of society and the economy was mobilized for military purposes.

Civilian needs were sacrificed for military goals.

Eventually, three quarters of Germany's money and resources would be spent on the war.

To keep up with demand, workers were pushed into exhausting double shifts, often with few breaks or protections.

Speer, however, couldn't find enough workers to keep the factories going.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

What I want you to do here is working with your partner, discuss what Total War meant in Germany from 1942 onwards.

So pause the video, have a quick discussion, and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back.

So you could have discussed the following.

You might have said something like Total War in Germany meant that all parts of society and the economy were focused on supporting the military.

Civilian needs were sacrificed and most resources were used for the war efforts, and workers faced exhausting conditions to keep up reproduction.

So as labor shortages deepened, Nazi Germany turned to over 7 million foreign forced laborers.

So the reason that labor shortages were so severe was because millions of men were fighting at the front.

And this meant the factories back home lacked workers.

The Nazi's solutions to this was brutal.

By 1944, over 7 million foreign workers, many from conquered lands, were brought to Germany.

Many lived in appalling conditions, malnourished, overworked, and housed in barbed wire camps.

Civilians saw them on the streets, exhausted, uniformed, and silent.

Despite growing labor shortages, the Nazi regime remained reluctant to fully mobilize women for heavy industry.

However, increasing numbers of women returned to roles in nursing, clerical work, and domestic service.

These were jobs seen as extensions of their traditional responsibilities.

Though these roles supported the war efforts, Nazi ideology continued to limit their wider use in the workforce.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

How did Nazi Germany respond to severe labor shortages during the war? A, they encouraged mass immigration from neutral countries.

B, they ended military conscription to free up factory workers.

C, they increased wages to retract more male workers.

D, they used forced labor from conquered countries.

Pause the video, have a think, and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back and well done if you knew the correct answer was D, they used forced labor from conquered countries.

Okay, great, let's move on to task A.

And what I want you to do here is discuss the following questions.

So question one is, why was Total War adopted in Nazi Germany by 1942? And question two is, what were the consequences of the introduction of Total War in Nazi Germany from 1942 onwards? So you can have this as a discussion or you can jot down some ideas on a piece of paper.

Pause the video, have a go at a task, and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back, and well done for having a go at that task.

So let's look at the first question, why was Total War adopted in Nazi Germany by 1942? So you could have generally talked about the initial World War III success, which eventually turned to failure for Nazi Germany.

Could have mentioned the early victories, 1939 to 1941, the gaming of territory and resources.

However, Germany then suffers major defeats in the Soviet Union and the USA enter the war in 1941.

And you could have expanded on that point by saying that Germany now faced a global conflict against powerful enemies on multiple fronts.

And this meant that Germany's factories couldn't keep up with Allied production.

Allied industries could produce more and better weapons, vehicles and equipment.

And that Hitler was warned that without full mobilization, Germany couldn't win.

For the second question, what were the consequences of the introduction of Total War in Nazi Germany from 1942 onwards? You could have said that it resulted in an economic reorganization that all sectors of the economy focused on war.

And you could have used that stat that 75% or three quarters of resources were used for military, not civilian purposes.

He could have gone on to talk about the working conditions and that workers were forced into exhausting double shifts to meet the demand.

And he could have said that Albert Speer was appointed minister of armaments and he streamlined production and increased output despite those Allied bombings.

He could have talked about the issue with millions of men at the front fighting, now created a worker shortage, and this resulted in forced labor being introduced.

And over 7 million foreign workers being used by 1944.

And that there was an impact on women.

And although they weren't fully mobilized due to Nazi ideas of gender roles, many were allowed to work in what the Nazis deemed acceptable roles to support the war effort, but there were limits on the types of jobs they could have.

Great, now that we've explored how Germany shifted to a Total War economy and the major labor shortages that followed, let's turn our attention to how all of this affected ordinary people.

In this section, we are focusing on the hardships on the home front, on the everyday realities faced by German civilians during the war.

We look at how rationing, bombing, and constant fear changed daily life and how the pressure of war crept into every home, every street, and every family.

So Germany had endured rationing since 1939, but as the war dragged on, hunger deepened and shortages touched every home.

German families saw their portions shrink, meat and fats were scarce, everyday essentials like soap, toilet paper, and even footwear became scarce luxuries.

Some Germans had to wear wooden clogs instead of shoes.

Coal, which was the main source of heating and energy at the time, was reserved for factories and the military.

And this meant that many homes were left bitterly cold through the winters.

Children grew up knowing hunger.

Women cued for hours for basics like bread or potatoes, often only to find the shelves bare.

So take a look at the image on the left, shows a woman, a refugee, carrying her rations.

By the later years of the war, rationing wasn't just inconvenient, it became a daily struggle for survival.

For example, people were rationed to one egg per week.

Hot water was also rationed to two days per week.

Instead, people lived on black bread, watery soup, or potatoes, and sometimes even substitute foods.

For example, a coffee might be made from roasted acorns or barley because real coffee was no longer available.

So when we talk about rationing, we're not just talking about smaller portions, we're talking about years of cold winters, queuing for hours, families scraping together whatever they could just to get by.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

What I want you to do here is complete this sentence with the correct missing word.

In wartime Germany, blank, were fixed amounts of food or goods given to civilians as shortages worsened.

Pause the video, fill in the blank, and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back, let's see how that sentence should have read.

In wartime Germany, rations were fixed amounts of food or goods given to civilians as shortages worsened.

Okay, let's continue.

By 1943, Germany was retreating from Russia and facing mounting casualties on the Eastern Front.

The image on the left shows the view from a German tank on the Eastern Front, somewhere in Ukraine.

The snow-covered landscape gives us a glimpse into the brutal conditions that soldiers faced.

And it's important to remember that the weather itself was often as much an enemy as the opposing army.

Temperatures on the Eastern Front could drop below minus 30 degrees Celsius, especially during the Russian winters.

Weapons froze, engines stalled, soldiers struggled with frostbite, hunger and exhaustion.

Many died not just from battle wounds, but from exposure, disease or simply the cold.

These freezing, punishing conditions reached their peak in one of the most infamous battles of the entire war, the Battle of Stalingrad.

It was here that the cold, the hunger, and the relentless Soviet resistance combined to deliver Germany its first major defeat.

Around 100,000 German soldiers were killed, and 91,000 more were taken prisoner, most of whom would never return home.

Soviet forces were now pushing the Nazi army back toward Germany.

On the Eastern Front as a whole, by the end of 1942, 10.

5 million Axis troops had been killed, wounded, or captured, including 327,000 German dead.

For the first time, Hitler's invincibility was shattered in the public eye.

Morale on the home front began to collapse.

As families were overwhelmed by telegrams announcing lost or missing loved ones.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

How did the rising number of German casualties, especially on the Eastern Front, affect civilians at home? A, civilians demanded more military victories from the government.

B, families began to lose hope and public morale started to collapse.

C, it led to food, riots and strikes in major cities.

D, the number of volunteers for the Eastern Front increased.

Pause the video, have a think and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back and well done if you the correct answer was B, families began to lose hope and public morale started to collapse.

If these hardships weren't enough, Allied bombing raids aimed to destroy German industry and morale even further.

While the Soviet army was advancing from the east, the British and American air forces were aiming to crush German morale from the skies.

The photo on the left shows an American bomber mid attack releasing its payload over a German military factory.

You can see the smoke rising in the distance, a direct hit on an industrial target.

In the early years of the Allied bombing campaign, the main objective was strategic, to weaken Germany's ability to fight by targeting its war industries.

For example, factories, railways, oil refineries, and armaments plants.

The goal was simple, if you cripple production, you cripple the army.

Factories like the one pictured here, were essential to building weapons, vehicles and ammunition.

Destroying them meant slowing down the Nazi war machine and making it harder for Germany to keep up with the Allies overwhelming in industrial power.

But as the war went on, the Allies began to believe that damaging factories wasn't enough.

They also wanted to break the spirit of the German people, to make them lose hope and pressure their government to surrender.

And that's when the bombing strategy shifted.

From 1942 onwards, Britain adopted a strategy called area bombing.

This was deliberately targeting large urban areas or entire cities to destroy industry and break civilian spirits.

Cities like Hamburg, Cologne and Dresden were reduced to rubble and smoke.

The fire bombing of Hamburg in the summer of 1943 killed thousands of civilians in just a few days.

Survivors described the sky as a sea of flame.

Rising heat drew in air with a howling force turning streets into fire filled furnaces.

Cellars, once thought to be safe, suffocated many.

Altogether Allied bombing raids killed between 400,000 and 500,000 civilians across Germany by the end of the war.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

Which of the following were major effects of the Allied bombing campaign on Germany? Select three correct answers.

A, the collapse in public morale.

B, the complete surrender of the German army in 1942.

C, the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians.

D, the widespread destruction of German industry and major cities.

Pause the video, select your three correct answers, and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back and well done if you knew the correct answers were A, a collapsing public morale, C, the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians, D, the widespread destruction of German industry and major cities.

So Allied bombing shattered Germany's cities leaving millions homeless.

Image on the left shows the aftermath of Allied bombing in Hamburg, one of Germany's largest cities.

And what you're looking at here is an entire residential area.

Rows of apartment blocks now hollowed out, roofless and burned to the ground.

This kind of destruction was the result of area bombing, also known as carpet bombing.

And looking at this image, we can see where the name comes from.

Entire sections of the city were bombed so heavily and so completely that it was as if the bombs had been carpeted across the landscape, leaving almost nothing untouched.

The bombings also caused massive destruction to Germany's infrastructure.

Water, gas, electricity, and transport systems collapsed in many cities.

Firestorms and explosions, ruptured pipelines and flooded roads, while unexploded bombs made clear up efforts very dangerous.

Millions of Germans were on the move, fleeing the Soviet advance, or made homeless by these Allied air raids.

Some sought refuge in the countryside.

Others became refugees within their own country, searching for shelter in a land of ruins.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding, what's happened to many civilians as a result of the bombings and the Soviet advance? A, they fled and became refugees within their own country.

B, they joined the resistance against Nazis.

C, they were conscripted into the army.

Pause the video, have a think and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back.

And well done if you knew the correct answer was A, they fled and became refugees within their own country.

So as Allied armies advanced from east and west, Nazi promises of triumph gave way to silence and surrender.

The Nazi regime tried to maintain morale with propaganda, glorifying sacrifice, promising victory.

But the mood in Germany had changed, victory no longer felt possible.

Letters from the battlefront spoke of loss and retreats.

In June 1944, the Allies landed in Normandy, D-Day.

From the west, British and American forces pushed into German-held territory.

Image on the left shows the D-Day landings.

And this was one of the most significant turning points in the entire war.

You're looking at the Allied forces, America and British and Canadian troops having landed on the beaches of Normandy, France and beginning the liberation of Western Europe.

The D-Day landings marks the moment the war quite literally came back to Hitler's doorstep from the west.

But while this was happening, another enormous threat was closing in from the east.

The Soviet red army was advancing across Eastern Europe, pushing Nazi forces back towards Germany.

So by late 1944, and into 1945, Germany was trapped, squeezed between Allied forces from the west and the Soviets from the east.

By May 1945, with Berlin surrounded and in ruins, Germany surrendered.

The nation's cities were devastated, its economy shattered, and its people broken.

The same streets where Nazi flags once flew and victories were loudly celebrated, now echoed with silence and defeats.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

What I want you to do here is working with your partner, discuss why many Germans stopped believing Nazi propaganda that aimed to keep morale high by the end of the war.

Pause a video, have a quick discussion, and then come right back.

Okay, great, welcome back.

Hopefully you had some great discussions there.

And you may have answered something like the following.

So you could have said that because Allied forces were closing in from both the east and the west, cities were being destroyed, and letters from soldiers spoke of retreat and defeat, and this made it clear that victory was no longer possible.

Okay, great, let's move on to the first part of task B.

And what I want you to do here is simply list the ways Germans faced hardships on the home front between 1942 and 1945.

Pause the video, have a go at the task, and then come right back.

Okay, well done for having a go at that task.

And your list might look slightly different from mine, but you could have answered in the following way.

So you could have mentioned rationing deepened over time with meat and fats becoming rare; soap, toilet paper and shoes were scarce and fuel shortages.

And this meant that many homes were unheated during winter.

You could have talked about the news of military losses, millions of war casualties, soldiers taken prisoner, and you could have talked about the Allied bombing campaigns, area bombing in cities like Hamburg and Dresden leaving hundreds of thousands killed.

And the collapse of infrastructure, water, electricity, and transport were destroyed in all these cities.

And because of this and in wars, generally, this resulted in mass refugees, millions fleeing advancing Soviet troops, or made homeless due to bombings.

And the final defeat and collapse in morale, these first defeats in the Second World War shattered the illusion that Hitler and his army were invincible.

And then as we get towards the end of the war, get the D-Day landings and the Soviet advance into Germany, Berlin's surrounded and destroyed by 1945, the morale was collapsing, cities ruined, the economy broken, and a sense of collective defeat.

Okay, great, let's move on to the second part of task B.

And we can see here Izzy and Alex are discussing the impact of the war on the German people.

So let's read Izzy first.

"The German people suffered immensely during the latter stages of the war.

Their cities were turned into ruins, their families broken by hunger, grief, and displacement." Okay, now let's read Alex's point of view.

"The German people endured the war with remarkable strength.

Factories kept running under Allied bombing and workers made sacrifices with discipline.

Morale stayed high for much of the war, only falling after major defeats and the invasion of Germany itself." So we can see there then two slightly different views on the impact the war had on Germany.

So your task is to decide who do you agree with more about the impact of the war on the German people, Izzy or Alex.

Once you've made that decision, I want you to explain your choice.

Pause the video, have a go at the task, and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back and well done for having a go at that task.

So there's many ways that you could have written your paragraphs or compare your answers with the model answer I have here.

So if you agreed with Izzy whose main point was there was a huge impact on the German people.

You could have written something like , I agree more with Izzy because it shows how badly the German people suffered under Total War.

After 1942, most of the economy was focused on the war effort, meaning civilian needs were ignored.

Rationing worsened and people lacked basics like soap and shoes.

Bombing destroyed cities like Hamburg killing many civilians.

As the Soviet army advanced and cities were bombed, millions became refugees, fleeing their homes with nowhere to go.

Alex stated that morale stayed high, but morale collapsed after defeats like Stalingrad.

Families got telegrams about missing or dead soldiers, and the pressure on workers increased.

Alex downplays the suffering caused by labor shortages and constant bombing.

Izzy gives a more realistic view of life for ordinary people.

Alternatively, your answer may include agreeing with Alex, who felt that the impact of war was less severe on the German people.

So you could have written, I agree more with Alex because he shows how Germans kept going despite difficult conditions.

Speer kept factory production high, even under bombing.

Workers did long shifts and the economy stayed focused on war, adopting a Total War approach.

Alex is right that morale was strong at first.

Many Germans supported the war early on, especially when Germany was winning and gaining territory.

Propaganda also helped morale.

Izzy focuses only on suffering, which was more common later in the war.

Alex gives a fuller picture by showing how people adapted.

Although Izzy is correct about bombing and hardship, Alex explains why Germany held out for so long.

Okay, great, let's summarize today's lesson, the Nazi economy and World War II.

Early World War II victories gave way to defeat after Soviet resistance and US entry in 1941.

Germany's war economy struggled as Allied industry outproduced its weapons and equipment.

Speer's Total War reforms increased arms output, but shifted all resources away from civilian needs.

Labor shortages led to forced labor; over 7 million foreigners worked in harsh conditions by 1944.

Rationing, bombing, and refugee crises worsened after 1942, as millions fled advancing Soviet troops or lost homes to air raids, leading to severe civilian hardship.

German morale collapsed after huge war casualties, crushing military defeats like Stalingrad, D-Day landings, relentless Allied bombings and the Soviet advance deep into Germany.

Well done, everyone.

And today we've seen that war is never just fought on battlefields and that behind every tank and soldier is a vast system of production, labor, and sacrifice.

As defeat loomed, the illusion of strength collapsed, and with it so did the promises that had once fueled Hitler's rise.

It's powerful reminder that the true cost of war is also paid far from the front line.

See you next time.