3 - The nature of the recovery

Summary

There is no general agreement about when the economic recovery began in Germany. Some indices show an early upward movement in the middle of 1932, but unemployment peaked slightly later and in the early months of 1933 there was a growing fear that the optimistic signs of the previous year, like those of 1931, had been a mirage. The Institut für Konjunkturforschung compared the period with the prolonged depression of 1875–95. Only by the second quarter of 1933 did it become clear that a more general improvement was taking place. By the end of that year the index of industrial production (1928 = 100) stood at 66, seven points higher than in 1932, and unemployment fell by over two million between March 1933 and March 1934. By 1935 GNP in real terms had reached the level of 1928. The peak figure of the 1920s for industrial production was reached by 1936, that for employment by 1937. By 1938 the economy was entering a period of growth well above the level of 1913 for the first time since the end of the war. The figures were not all that remarkable by international standards. Madison has shown that almost all Germany's neighbours and major competitors had a higher growth record between 1913 and 1938 [66: 138–48]. But the recovery was remarkable given the particular circumstances of the German economy at the beginning of the 1930s.