Hitler had hijacked Germany's democracy.
He was given extraordinary powers
to temporarily suspend democratic procedures
in order to get things done.
A dictator now in charge of a mighty industrial nation,
Hitler and his team begin to lay out his plan
for Germany and the world.
♪♪
Despite this new focus on jobs and the German worker,
the Nazis had no use for labor unions.
-Well, fascism basically hates everything Communist,
or Bolshevik, as they called it,
so, they would not like trade unions.
They were not within the frame of the fascist movement.
-And so what the Nazis did, one year into their government,
they declared May Day a holiday for the first time.
The unions celebrated and, the next day,
when they were hung over, more or less,
they smashed the unions.
-They replaced the now-abolished unions
with the Nazi Party-controlled German Labor Front,
which all workers had to join.
-[Speaking German]
-Hitler spent large amounts of state money
on a comprehensive state welfare program
called the National Socialist People's Welfare.
Despite having the term "socialist" in the party name,
Hitler was a friend of industry.
He privatized many industries and the corporations
that had supported his candidacy continued to back him.
-Corporations would support the Nazi government of Germany
because it was good for their profits.
-I think, you know, bigger corporations,
the steel industry, for example, in Germany as a big one,
they were afraid of Communism, for sure,
but they also actually supported Hitler
because it was easier for them
to kind of make their business within a stable government.