Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

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ljadw
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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#376

Post by ljadw » 02 Jul 2018, 19:29

Sid Guttridge wrote:Hi ljadw,



My point was that it was Nazi policy to remove women from the workplace and into the home and a third of a million did so within less than two years of the Nazis coming to power.





Cheers,

Sid.
Your point is wrong :it is the opposite .
3 examples
In 1933 46,9 % of women between 14/65 had a job, in 1939 : 49,2 %
In 1933 2,3 million women were working in the agriculture, in 1939 : 3,2 million .An increase of 40 %.
In 1933 1,205 million women were working in the industry, in 1939:1,846 million .An increase of 50 %.
The reason is that the economy was going better but that because of the war there were less available male workers and that the industry had to use women .
In the other industrialized countries, it was the opposite : there there were still countless of unemployed men , and thus less women with a job .

Sid Guttridge
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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#377

Post by Sid Guttridge » 03 Jul 2018, 19:47

Hi ljadw,

You'll have to put a source up, as I cannot find online any reference to the percentages you quote.

However, I have found a reference that in 1937 the Nazi Party reversed its earlier policy that women could only get a marriage loan if they left the labour force and female participation began to rise thereafter. It also says this was to prepare for the absence of men during war and women's presence rose to a third of the total as a result.

I see that the German labour force was 34,801,000 in 1933 and 37,865,000 in 1939. However, over the same period the population had grown (largely through territorial expansion) from some 65,000,000 to about 80,000,000 Germans. 3 million more jobs amongst 15,000,000 more people? Seems unlikely but I have no current explanation. It implies that a large number of people had left the workforce, mostly in the Alt Reich - presumably including those who became regular servicemen, conscripts in the Wehrmacht and RAD.

Cheers,

Sid.
Last edited by Sid Guttridge on 03 Jul 2018, 20:24, edited 2 times in total.


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Lamarck
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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#378

Post by Lamarck » 03 Jul 2018, 20:07

For a variety of reasons, by 1938 unemployment in the Third Reich was almost gone. The fact that the Anschluss provided economic benefits to Austria is one of the main reasons why so many Austrians between 1918-1938 favoured it.

Sid Guttridge
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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#379

Post by Sid Guttridge » 03 Jul 2018, 20:36

Hi lamarck,

Or that is what the Nazis would have us believe.

However, this discussion is at present investigating how this may be at least partly illusory.

The only obvious economic benefits to reach the Austrian population in the few weeks between the German occupation and the Anschluss plebiscite were large German food hand-outs designed to act as electoral bribes. However, promises to reduce unemployment to levels apparently prevailing in Germany were certainly also influential. However, their apparent benefits would presumably only have become measurable later in the year when conscription and RAD service began, Jews had been squeezed out of all public and much private employment and replaced by Austrians, etc., etc..

Cheers,

Sid.

ljadw
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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#380

Post by ljadw » 03 Jul 2018, 21:13

Sid Guttridge wrote:Hi ljadw,

You'll have to put a source up, as I cannot find online any reference to the percentages you quote.

However, I have found a reference that in 1937 the Nazi Party reversed its earlier policy that women could only get a marriage loan if they left the labour force and female participation began to rise thereafter. It also says this was to prepare for the absence of men during war and women's presence rose to a third of the total as a result.

I see that the German labour force was 34,801,000 in 1933 and 37,865,000 in 1939. However, over the same period the population had grown (largely through territorial expansion) from some 65,000,000 to about 80,000,000 Germans. 3 million more jobs amongst 15,000,000 more people? Seems unlikely but I have no current explanation. It implies that a large number of people had left the workforce, mostly in the Alt Reich - presumably including those who became regular servicemen, conscripts in the Wehrmacht and RAD.

Cheers,

Sid.
Source =
Die Sozio-Ökonomische Entwicklung von Haushalter mit Weiblichen Haushaltsvorstand in 20.Jahrhundert.(available on the web )

Sid Guttridge
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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#381

Post by Sid Guttridge » 04 Jul 2018, 10:22

Hi ljadw,

Interestingly, your source also shows a decline in female representation in all industries from 29.3% in 1933 to 25.2% in 1939.

At the same time there is a rise in female representation in agriculture which is explained by two facts - firstly 400,000 men moved to better paid jobs (perhaps replacing the women in industry?) and the conscription of other men to the armed services.

The rise in overall female participation is also put down two factors - the economic boom (which was to a degree artificially fuelled on debt [much of which was reneged on in early 1939] and the plunder of gold reserves such as those of Austrian, Czechoslovakia, Danzig, etc.) and war preparations.

It still looks as though the German employment "miracle" was somewhat artificial - fueled on debts that were not honoured, one-off factors such as windfall gold seizures, the redirection into armaments of German workers' savings, the artificial stimulus of war preparations and the mass subtraction of over a million men from the workforce for military conscription and labour service.

It was understandable that many Austrians could not see this in 1938, hidden, as it was, behind a blizzard of propaganda, but we are in a position now to see that much of Nazi Germany's apparent pre-war economic boom was the artificial product of smoke and mirrors.

In the Blair years in the UK, public debt nearly doubled to fuel an apparent boom, only for it to be exposed by the depression that set in in 2009. Nazi Germany was facing an even more severe economic situation had war not broken out. It was already reneging on debts in early 1939.

For Austrians, though they could not be expected to know it, Anschluss with Germany in 1938 may have been the economic equivalent of becoming a passenger on the Titanic at its last port of call in 1912!

Cheers,

Sid.

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Lamarck
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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#382

Post by Lamarck » 27 Jul 2018, 21:10

There is no point in discussing how true the Nazi economic recovery was, but rather how many Austrians were persuaded to vote for the Anschluss in 1938 because of how the Nazis portrayed the Third Reich economically in 1938. By 1938, German citizens were doing much better than they were during the Weimar Republic.

There were other factors such as uniting ethnic Germans under one state but for many Austrians the economic prospects that were promised by the Nazis undoubtedly convinced a reasonable amount of Austrians to vote for the Anschluss in the 1938 referendum.

Remember, by 1937 the Nazis were interested in annexing Austria because of the raw materials and labour.

Sid Guttridge
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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#383

Post by Sid Guttridge » 28 Jul 2018, 09:47

Hi Lamarck,

You are absolutely right. It was the perceptions of Austrians that were important in terms of public opinion at the time of the plebiscite and there was a lot of Nazi propaganda to say that Germans were doing well.

However, that said, it was not actually true that "German citizens were doing much better than they were during the Weimar Republic". In fact, consumption was often much lower in the late 1930s than it had been in the late 1920s. (A little more on that later, as I don't have the reference on me now). What Hitler was holding out to Germans seems to have been "Jam tomorrow" - the hope of a better future, not the reality of a better present.

Cheers,

Sid
Last edited by Sid Guttridge on 28 Jul 2018, 10:20, edited 1 time in total.

Sid Guttridge
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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#384

Post by Sid Guttridge » 28 Jul 2018, 09:59

Hi Lamarck,

You have above claimed that there was no Austrian physical resistance to the Anschluss.

This, of course, was at least partly down to Schussnigg ordering that there should be none.

However, I have found the following in The Schellenberg Memoirs that indicates that there was at least one attempt at physical resistance:

"Without any warning I found myself put in charge of the security measures for (Hitler's) tour of Vienna.....suddenly a report came in that three suspected persons had been arrested at a bridge. They had admitted that the bridge was mined and that they were there to set off the charge..... (Hitler) was due at the bridge in 8 minutres..... I.....drove rapidly to the spot. It took a few minutes to examine the explosive charges and try to make sure that they had been made harmless...... He passed over it safely."

Cheers,

Sid.
Last edited by Sid Guttridge on 28 Jul 2018, 10:21, edited 2 times in total.

Sid Guttridge
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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#385

Post by Sid Guttridge » 28 Jul 2018, 10:06

Hi Guys,

Finally, to return to the original question in the thread title, it occurs to me that Austrian national identity may have been rather different and less consolidated in the early 1920s than it is now.

Austria as we know it was really an accumulation of the assorted German possessions of the Hapsburgs left over after the break up of their multi-national empire after WWI. What are now Austria's provinces had been acquired by the Hapsburgs at different times in different circumstances and they had different self perceptions. For example, in the early 1920s Vorarlbergers toyed with the idea of applying to join Switzerland rather that remain in newly independent, post-WWI, Austria.

In the early 1920s it may therefore have been rather more difficult for Hitler to identify himself with Austrian nationalism than it is now that the state's identity is more consolidated.

Cheers,

Sid.

ManfredV
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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#386

Post by ManfredV » 28 Jul 2018, 10:38

Hapsburg? Habsburg!

ljadw
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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#387

Post by ljadw » 28 Jul 2018, 12:19

Sid Guttridge wrote:
04 Jul 2018, 10:22
Hi ljadw,

Interestingly, your source also shows a decline in female representation in all industries from 29.3% in 1933 to 25.2% in 1939.

At the same time there is a rise in female representation in agriculture which is explained by two facts - firstly 400,000 men moved to better paid jobs (perhaps replacing the women in industry?) and the conscription of other men to the armed services.

The rise in overall female participation is also put down two factors - the economic boom (which was to a degree artificially fuelled on debt [much of which was reneged on in early 1939] and the plunder of gold reserves such as those of Austrian, Czechoslovakia, Danzig, etc.) and war preparations.






Cheers,

Sid.
The women representation was artificially high in 1933, as the economic crisis was hurting especially men and women were thus overrepresented .In 1939 the situation became'' normal'' again'.

Sid Guttridge
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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#388

Post by Sid Guttridge » 31 Jul 2018, 19:35

Hi ljadw,

What do you mean, "artificially high" and "normal"?

Is there a recommended level for female employment?

An intrigued Sid.

Sid Guttridge
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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#389

Post by Sid Guttridge » 31 Jul 2018, 19:38

Hi ManfredV,

Habsburg? Habsburg!

Cheers,

Sid.

ljadw
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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#390

Post by ljadw » 01 Aug 2018, 09:43

Sid Guttridge wrote:
31 Jul 2018, 19:35
Hi ljadw,

What do you mean, "artificially high" and "normal"?

Is there a recommended level for female employment?

An intrigued Sid.
In''Die Aufbau des Österreichische Arbeitsmarkte'' I found the following :(my translation )
Number of employees and workers in Austria in 1934
men : employed : 922,670 /not employed 428,766 / % of not employed of the total : 31,58
women :employed : 455,044 / not employed 161972/ % of not employed of the total : 26,19

On P 16, the author gives 3 reasons for the (relative ) decrease of male employment :
1 Structural change in the production : the " male " sectors were more hurt
2 Technical change : women could do the work of men
3 Women were cheaper (IMO,this was the most important ): it was cheaper to use women for a partial job,than men .
These reasons applied not only to Austria.
The result was that relatively, female employment was going up, although the absolute number of working women could also decrease . When the economy was going better, the % of working men was going up and the % of working women was going down,although the absolute number of working women also could go up .

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