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This information is to accompany Unit Two of the Curriculum Guide.
Student Information Sheet: Persecution of German Jews in Germany .
Upon coming to power in 1933, the regime of Adolf Hitler instituted numerous and severe measures against Germany's Jewish population.
- By the end of 1934, Jewish doctors, lawyers, professors, civil servants, and musicians had been fired and/or denied the right to practise their professions.
- In 1935, the Nuremburg laws defined anyone having one or more Jewish grandparents as being a Jew and denied these people all the rights of citizenship.
- By 1938, 25 percent of the Jewish population had fled Germany, sacrificing all their property to do so.
- A young Jewish boy assassinated a German diplomat in Paris and this was used as an excuse to increase the violence against Jews.
- It became more and more difficult for Jews to leave Germany.
- There was very little protest from the non-Jewish German population about the Nazi policies against the Jews.
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This information is to accompany Unit Two of the Curriculum Guide.
Student Information Sheet: The Scandinavian Response to the Depression: The Social Democrats
In the Scandinavian nations, a tradition of extensive government participation in the national economy predated the Great Depression.
- An comprehensive medical care program was introduced by the government of Sweden in 1900.
- The Scandinavian nations were among the first nations to extend the franchise to women.
In response to the Depression, the Social Democrats did not introduce austerity programs but actually incurred large-scale national deficits in order to finance public work projects and stimulate the economy.
Social legislation introduced during the Depression included old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, subsidized housing and maternity allowances.
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This information is to accompany Unit Two of the Curriculum Guide.
Student Information Sheet: The United States and the Depression: Roosevelt and the New Deal
The crash of the New York Stock Exchange in 1929 was considered the event which precipitated the world-wide Depression.
- The consequences of the stock market crash weren't limited to the U.S. They were felt around the world.
- The economies of the world were all interconnected through large loans between nations and through the expansion of trade that occurred after the First World War.
The Depression became the dominant issue in the 1932 U.S. Presidential election.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt won that election.
- Roosevelt believed that the capitalist system could only be saved by reforming it.
- Traditionally governments had responded to difficult economic times with policies that featured budget and spending reductions.
- Roosevelt felt that a new strategy was necessary.
John Maynard Keyes, a British economist, advocated a counter-cyclical economic strategy in which governments would save during economic good times so that spending could be increased during bad economic times.
- Government spending would then stimulate the economy by maintaining employment and allowing citizens to retain their purchasing power to buy products.
Although he rejected socialism, Roosevelt adopted elements of Keyes's theory.
- He instituted many programs which involved significant participation by the federal government in the economic life of the nation.
A series of large-scale public projects was initiated. Indeed, the extent of government intervention was significant.
- By 1938, twenty percent of the entire nation's labour force were employed on publically-funded projects such as the Tennessee Valley Authority.
The Roosevelt Administration also introduced a number of social reforms, in its "New Deal" program, in an attempt to mitigate the hardships of the Depression.
- In 1935, old-age pensions and unemployment benefits were introduced.
- The National Labour Relations Act proclaimed the right of workers to bargain collectively.
- The banking system was reorganized and the federal government insured bank deposits up to five thousand dollars.
The innovative programs of Roosevelt's New Deal did not seriously reduce unemployment. In 1938, the unemployment rate actually increased.
- However, his programs did reduce the negative impact of the Depression somewhat.
Roosevelt's reforms of the capitalist system had an ideological impact.
- His reforms reduced the appeal of more radical solutions to deal with the Depression.
- Neither the extreme right or left, in the United States, were able to attract significant support as they had in many European nations.