The Economic Policies of Hitler "By the mid thirties there was also in existence an advanced demonstration of the Keynesian system. This was the economic policy of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. It involved large-scale borrowing for public expenditures, and at first this was principally for civilian works - railroads, canals and the Autobahnen. The result was a far more effective attack on unemployment than in any other industrial city. By 1935, German unemployment was minimal. 'Hitler had already found how to cure unemployment before Keynes was finished explaining why it occurred.'(17) In 1936, as prices and wages came under upward pressure, Hitler took the further step of combining an expansive employment policy with comprehensive price controls. "The Nazi economic policy, it should be noted, was an ad hoc response to what seemed over-riding circumstance. The unemployment position was desperate. So money was borrowed and people put to work. When rising wages and prices threatened stability, a price ceiling was imposed. Although there had been much discussion of such policy in pre-Hitler Germany, it seems doubtful if it was highly influential. Hitler and his cohorts were not a bookish log. Nevertheless the elimination of unemployment in Germany during the Great Depression without inflation - and with initial reliance on essentially civilian activities - was a signal accomplishment. It has rarely been praised and not much remarked. The notion that Hitler could do no good extends to his economics as it does, more plausibly, to all else." "Money: Whence it came, where it went" by John Kenneth Galbraith (First Published 1975), Page 237