Was Hitler beneficial for his own people?

Question

Christian Germans to be specific. Wasn't he beneficil for his own people? Didn't he brainwash them by giving them food and employment?

Answer 1

He left them in a pile of rubble, the economy obliterated, the country's infrastrure in ruins and it's people (Christian Germans and all) were reduced to eating horse meat..... so the answer is no, Hitler was not beneficial to his people.

Answer 2

He certainly did some good for his country. Part of the reason Hitler was popular enough to pull off the evil he did was because he was good at taking care of the little things that make people trust the government. (Just like everyone loved Mussolini--"he made the trains run on time.") I think the shame he brought on his people outweighed the good he did, but you can't deny his positive accomplishments. If he hadn't pulled them off, he would not have been able to implement the holocaust.

Hitler is an interesting study for many reasons--but don't become a fan--toward the end his erratic and pig-headed orders sped up the fall of the third reich. The very things that brought him to power were also what tore him down.

Answer 3

No. The Nazi economic pre-war growth was actually the result of massive spending of Joseph Stalin on his new utopian society, Germany was the chief benerficiary of this as they had the things the Russians needed to buy.

The material wealth of the German people collapsed by the time of the start of WW2 in September 1939, the command economy was full of corrupt profiteers that had bled the government dry, and the non market economy was inefficient.

As the end of the war came, Hitler attempted to destroy Germany, because failure meant that this was what the German people deserved, in his view.

6 million Germans died, and their country was split and occupied by the Soviet Union for fifty years. As state aetheists the Soviets brutally suppressed christianity.

You could easily argue that no-one has wrought such death and destruction on the Germans as Hitler and his cronies.

Answer 4

Pretty much, yeah. Germany was reeling after getting screwed over at Versailles in the aftermath of WWI, and Hitler gave the people a scapegoat to blame their problems on, and in creating his war machine gave millions of "good" Germans jobs, something that was almost too much to dream for, given the Great Depression streaking across the world at the time. Not all Germans agreed with Hitler's segregation and occupation of the Jews, and most Germans really had no idea of the horrors of the Holocaust as it was going on. However, they were working and had hope for a great Germany again, so many things were overlooked in order to keep the good fortune.

Answer 5

It depends on what your needs are. If all you need in life is food and a job, then sure, he helped revive the German economy.

But, most people's idea of a good life doesn't include being forced to vote for a political party at risk of being beaten or arrested. Or having to worry that the neighbor will tattle about them to the authorities. And many people aren't happy when atrocities are committed against their countrymen. Even though plenty of Germans were anti-Semites, not all were, and many were very much against what happened to Jews, Gypsies, and the like.

Answer 6

Hitler brought the German people out of a depression, albeit by unscrupulous means. He provided them with a (false) scapegoat for their woes. For several years, Germany was prosperous. However, in the long run, he has proven to be the proverbial bad shepherd, leading the flock to infamy. Photos of Berlin at the end of the war show ultimately what he did to benefit his own people, not to mention the destruction of German Jews and German citizens who were against his "government".

Answer 7

I'm with Skooz. Hitler did some short-term things that helped "Aryan" Germans recover from the world-wide economic depression of the 1930's, but it came at the cost of their utter annihilation at the end of WW II, so in the long run, he was his people's own worst enemy!

Answer 8

Hitler had many great ideas and was not a stupid man by any means, he just added hate to those ideas and thats when it started to consume him.so in many ways he was a benefit too the German people , there were plenty of jobs and food for his country men.

Answer 9

From a RACIST German Christian perspective, his attempt to eliminate the Jews would have been good: less competition!

Jeez, that's awful. But I DID say from a racist perspective...

The only other "positive" things Hitler accomplished for Germany were the autobahns and the Volkswagen automobile, the postwar resurrection of which significantly assisted the German economy in re-birthing itself.

Answer 10

It is currently against German law to display a swastika, or any other Nazi symbol. I don't get the impression that the majority of German people found Hitler or Nazism very helpful.