One effort, following conventional notions of progress, rationalization and “productivism”, was an investment into workforce qualification and human capital at the same time as industries, driven by the same ideas, were also heavily investing in modernization. Apprenticeships and on-the-job training were lavishly subsidized and youths encouraged to acquire skills. This paid off well: the number of male school leavers joining the workforce as unqualified labourers dropped from 200,000 in 1934 to 30,000 in 1939. Though blue-collar workers didn’t rise to the middle class, they took on more complex tasks and a “deproletarianization” took place. This achievement outlasted the war and benefitted West Germany.
Measures were taken in the field of labour relations, which I’ve spoken of before, and the DAF had its programs, but the book doesn’t go into detail on those.
And the state sought to make some consumer goods more accessible. As industries hadn’t yet embraced Fordist economies of scale the Reich’s willpower would push for their implementation and cement the production of “Volksprodukte” at a low cost. Most Volksprodukte failed because raw materials were too expensive and German industry wasn’t advanced enough to provide them at a price compatible with the population’s low purchasing power. Examples are given in three fields: radios, housing and cars.

Radios were expensive and had limited penetration. At the Propaganda Ministry’s initiative and the cooperation of a cartel of manufacturers, new models were produced with cheaper receivers, techniques of mass production and part-payment deals, the Volksempfaenger (VE) 301 of 1933 and the Deutscher Kleinempfaenger (DKE) of 1939. Prices, previously over 100 Reichsmarks, shrank to 76 in 1933, 59 in 1937 and 35 in 1939. Half of households had a radio in 1938 as opposed to a quarter in 1933. Though internal and international inequalities remained the VE 301 and DKE were very successful. They were, however, inferior in quality to American models of the same price.
Weimar public construction projects were not resurrected, but private housing was subsidized. A settlement programme built homesteads in the hinterland, but they were of little effect due to the buildings’ poor quality. The Volksprodukte approach was taken in 1935 by the Labour Ministry in the form of Volkswohnungen, small working class apartments with central heating, proper bathrooms and hot running water. They were to be made accessible through economies of scale and government subsidy. However, only 5% of building components could be mass produced and apartments of the required size and infrastructure were still expensive to build. Production was far below targets and rents were much higher than what lower class families were willing to pay. Later in 1938, new mortgage borrowing was banned as part of budgetary efforts to keep bank credit with the state, intensifying the housing problem.