# Hitler, did life get any better for the so called "right kind" of Germans?" **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 12, 2025, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitler-did-life-get-any-better-for-the-so-called-right-kind-of-germans/1014238 "2025-02-12T15:41:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitler-did-life-get-any-better-for-the-so-called-right-kind-of-germans/1014238/1 "2025-02-12T15:41:30Z")
Sorry if The question seems a little dark. With all that’s going on today it just got me to thinking: why do people willingly give up their freedom for a dictatorship? And the best answer I could come up with is they think that they are going to be the winners in their new society. And everyone else will suffer. (That’s actually the cherry on top of the Sundae for them) It leaves me wondering though: did Germans who checked all the right boxes have a better life under Hitler’s reign? Or were they just completely duped? I’m guessing the latter is the answer. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitler-did-life-get-any-better-for-the-so-called-right-kind-of-germans/1014238/2 "2025-02-12T15:43:38Z")
Mods I tried to fix the title but couldn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitler-did-life-get-any-better-for-the-so-called-right-kind-of-germans/1014238/3 "2025-02-12T15:49:09Z")
(Simplistic view) Some number rode the wave and then escaped to South America or someplace when the roof crashed in. I suspect that number is quite small, and a much larger number did okay for a while and then got bombed to death, or sent to a Soviet labor camp, or some other dire outcome. The situation is not similar to the current situation in the US (if that is your point). Hitler was not only a dictator, he was an aggressor on an alliance of other nations. He had the deluded courage of his convictions, that Germany was invincible. If Trump becomes a dictator, his interest will be securing wealth and power for himself, and everyone else can go to hell, even (possibly especially) most of his own family. He may rattle some sabers but only in the interest of supposedly securing better trade deals. The US will probably not be bombed and conquered. So the most likely comeuppance to any of Trump’s allies is losing favor with the boss and being “fired” (i.e. loss of position, status, and money). ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitler-did-life-get-any-better-for-the-so-called-right-kind-of-germans/1014238/4 "2025-02-12T15:57:14Z")
I think they did, but a lot of that was due to the their Weimar predecessors who had managed to weather the economic storm and get the economy vaguely back on track. It looked like they had done enough to fend off the attack on democracy and hold onto power in the 1932 election, but it was not to be obviously (no comparisons to 2024 here of course ☹ ). The Nazis were able to take credit for the economy they created. In addition to that massive public works projects are a not a terrible way to get out of an economic slump. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitler-did-life-get-any-better-for-the-so-called-right-kind-of-germans/1014238/5 "2025-02-12T16:03:42Z")
Thanks for the great reply. But yeah I definitely don’t want this thread to be about Trump vs Hitler. I’m more curious about how it worked out for the Germans at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitler-did-life-get-any-better-for-the-so-called-right-kind-of-germans/1014238/6 "2025-02-12T16:11:39Z")
Fair enough. Just bear in mind that Hitler and his followers had 12 years of power, leading to ignominious defeat and death. 12 years isn’t a very long time. That wasn’t because he had power, but because of what he used that power to do (fight a war). If he had not fought that war, the right sort of German would have had a pretty good time of it, more or less indefinitely. That is, of course, a hypothetical not a fact. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitler-did-life-get-any-better-for-the-so-called-right-kind-of-germans/1014238/7 "2025-02-12T16:25:32Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > I’m more curious about how it worked out for the Germans at the time. I guess you have to clarify which time period you are talking about. Germany from 1929 to 1933 was an economic mess (as was most of the world, to be fair). Once Hitler was given the [executive authority](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933), it was run as a dictatorship of the Nazi party. During the period between that and German invasion of Poland (1939), there was massive government spending on (illegal) military development. This was paid for by expropriation of private assets and issuing debt. Unemployment dropped from 6 million to under 1 million. So, by at least some measures it was “good” as long as you didn’t have the SA or SS knocking on your door. But real wages also dropped by 25% - so maybe not so good? But I think most of that was a mirage. You can’t spend like that forever, and there are only so many companies you can seize. So the plan was always war, and war is pretty much never good for the common person. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitler-did-life-get-any-better-for-the-so-called-right-kind-of-germans/1014238/8 "2025-02-12T16:37:14Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > If he had not fought that war, the right sort of German would have had a pretty good time of it, more or less indefinitely. That is, of course, a hypothetical not a fact. I’m not sure. Spinning up a huge war machine is a pretty good way to make a weak economy look stronger than it is, at least in the short term. (Observe Putin’s resilience to fairly stiff sanctions.) Without that, it’s hard to see where the (superficial) prosperity comes from. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitler-did-life-get-any-better-for-the-so-called-right-kind-of-germans/1014238/9 "2025-02-12T16:44:21Z")
Mostly, the believers felt that they were working toward building a better world. A few of them lived really well and the others had been convinced that they were in a struggled that would eventally bring about the shining goal. It is human nature to pursue “progress”, so their difficulties were merely the cost of advancement. And the opposition worked _for_ them: nothing steels one’s resolve quite as effectively as hatred from those _others_. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitler-did-life-get-any-better-for-the-so-called-right-kind-of-germans/1014238/10 "2025-02-12T18:06:45Z")
The wealthy industrialists did pretty well out of the early Nazi years. Then their physical assets like factories & railroads all got bombed out of existence in the 1942-1945 timeframe. As noted, a lot of ordinary Germans went from unemployed to employed early on. And for sure many of them enjoyed a certain amount of happiness at seeing the people their propaganda had taught them to hate being rounded up and “deported” to ze camps. But any “better” was doomed to be fleeting, war or not, since the way Hitler achieved the rapid economic progress was simply by sowing the seeds of subsequent economic disaster. The war just meant they had physical damage and lots of dead in addition to the second economic collapse his maneuvers had baked in. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitler-did-life-get-any-better-for-the-so-called-right-kind-of-germans/1014238/11 "2025-02-12T18:13:18Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Fair enough. Just bear in mind that Hitler and his followers had 12 years of power, leading to ignominious defeat and death. 12 years isn’t a very long time. That wasn’t because he had power, but because of what he used that power to do (fight a war). If he had not fought that war, the right sort of German would have had a pretty good time of it, more or less indefinitely. That is, of course, a hypothetical not a fact. Sure. But my guess is that’s probably a matter of reversion to the mean. When things are as bad as they were in Weimar Germany, there’s (most likley) no place to go but back up. It’s possible things might have been even better with someone else who wasn’t a dictator. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitler-did-life-get-any-better-for-the-so-called-right-kind-of-germans/1014238/12 "2025-02-12T18:23:35Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > It leaves me wondering though: did Germans who checked all the right boxes have a better life under Hitler’s reign? Sure, many did, maybe even most… for awhile. Things of course went terribly south at the end. But for awhile, remember, Germany was recovering from the depression. So people, naturally, were better off. They would almost certainly have mostly been better off anyway even with a moderate government that was a continuation of the Weimar republic, because recovery from the Depression was inevitable. If you were a German in 1937, “are you better off than you were four years ago?” would have, in the vast majority of cases, elicited an honest answer of “ja.” In 1945, with your house blown to splinters by bombing and many of your relatives dead, you’d have had a very different opinion. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitler-did-life-get-any-better-for-the-so-called-right-kind-of-germans/1014238/13 "2025-02-12T19:23:38Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > But for awhile, remember, Germany was recovering from the depression. So people, naturally, were better off. They would almost certainly have mostly been better off anyway even with a moderate government that was a continuation of the Weimar republic, because recovery from the Depression was inevitable. Indeed, and as mentioned, the regime also “pumped up” the economy with the ramping up of industrial capacity for purposes of rearmament and the launching of various public works and services programs – but that growth would not have been long-term sustainable especially with Nationalsocialist ideological notions of economic autarky. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitler-did-life-get-any-better-for-the-so-called-right-kind-of-germans/1014238/14 "2025-02-12T19:57:54Z")
> [@Jas09](#): > > But I think most of that was a mirage. You can’t spend like that forever, and there are only so many companies you can seize. So the plan was always war, and war is pretty much never good for the common person. It was great for the industrialists like Frederich Flick, and also a pretty good time for a while for foreign business interests such as IBM, Coca-Cola, and the Ford Motor Company. For the average non-Jewish German citizen, the Nazi regime spent a lot of money (most of it as noted by @Jas09, illegally expropriated from Jews and resistors) to prop up the economy and reduce unemployment but it was not a situation that was viable indefinitely. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitler-did-life-get-any-better-for-the-so-called-right-kind-of-germans/1014238/15 "2025-02-12T20:11:57Z")
Well, for the German Jews who considered themselves to be the former and not so much the latter, not so hot. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitler-did-life-get-any-better-for-the-so-called-right-kind-of-germans/1014238/16 "2025-02-12T20:14:22Z")
Yeah, that’s a good point. There were definitely a large number of folks who assumed they were the “right kind” of Germans, only to find out partway through that they most definitely were not. An important lesson in going along with the demonization of any minority group - you never know when the definition of who is the demon might change. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitler-did-life-get-any-better-for-the-so-called-right-kind-of-germans/1014238/17 "2025-02-12T21:12:17Z")
Many years ago I had a friend whose grandfather was a WWI veteran who emigrated shortly before the invasion of Poland. He was rather an open, jovial sort, and I asked him once what life for the average German was in the late 1930s; he thought for a moment, then said it was rather like being in the trenches: if you stuck to the path that had been dug out for you, you were relatively safe; stick your head over the edge to see what was going on outside and you were likely to get it shot off. So economics aside, the average “good German” had to be very careful in a society where your neighbor might be a Gestapo informer, and where listening to the BBC (or any outside radio) could well get you a long stretch in a concentration camp. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitler-did-life-get-any-better-for-the-so-called-right-kind-of-germans/1014238/18 "2025-02-12T21:48:55Z")
On that point, there was this sickening interview in 1997’s The Nazis: a Warning from History, of a stupid old woman who’d denounced her neighbor: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/Iw9newgsEyU/hqdefault.jpg "Denunciation - Oral History - Nazis Warning from History") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw9newgsEyU) ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2025, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitler-did-life-get-any-better-for-the-so-called-right-kind-of-germans/1014238/19 "2025-02-13T14:39:55Z")
So this makes me wonder: Among the Germans who were wealthy before the war, were most of them still wealthy after? Or, to the extent we can generalize, were most of them wiped out? ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2025, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitler-did-life-get-any-better-for-the-so-called-right-kind-of-germans/1014238/20 "2025-02-13T20:02:32Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > With all that’s going on today it just got me to thinking: why do people willingly give up their freedom for a dictatorship? I think it’s the frog in the heating pan thing. Trump is getting away with things on a daily basis that he shouldn’t be. But he’s the president so how can you stop him? By the time he’s gone too far it will be too late. And honestly it would take an armed revolt to get him out. That’s a move no one wants to take. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitler-did-life-get-any-better-for-the-so-called-right-kind-of-germans/1014238.md?page=2)