ABSTRACT
A major source of Hitler's growing popularity, aside from his assertion of German interests against the Allies, was the improvement of the German economy. The Nazis benefited to some extent from cyclical trends in the world economy that once again reopened export markets for German goods. The Great Depression bottomed out in 1932, and a gradual recovery was already under way at the time that Hitler became chancellor. But the Nazis also introduced deficit-spending earlier and on a larger scale than other European countries. 1 They reaped the credit for the decline in unemployment from a high of over 6 million in 1932 to a little over 1.5 million by 1935. From 1936 on, accelerated rearmament helped to create virtually full employment and led to a labor shortage in heavy industry by 1939.
