In 1935 Germany had already re-established its pre-crisis economic
potential. This was achieved to a large extent due to the active militarisation
effort which made Germany one of the first Western countries to emerge
from the crisis. To do this, Adolf Hitler and his government considerably
increased the regulatory role of the state and launched a nationwide construction
of high-speed motor roads which created millions of new jobs. Much attention
was later given to speeding up military production which the government
achieved by exercising direct control over the economy and bringing private
companies under cartel umbrellas which answered directly to the Imperial
Economics Ministry.
Life in Nazi Germany sharply differed from the idyllic postcard
images painted by the Propaganda Ministry. Violence was fast becoming a
daily routine with more than 4,000 dissidents killed and over half a million
more arrested by January 1, 1935. A series of laws were enacted in the
same year depriving Jews of their German citizenship and debarring them
from taking state jobs. Many talented people started leaving the country,
among them the leading nuclear scientist Edward Teller who eventually helped
the Americans build their atom and hydrogen bombs.
In the United States, President Franklin Roosevelt was pushing
ahead with a package of major social reforms. On August 14 he signed the
Social Security Act setting up a system of Federal and State unemployment
compensation as well as a Federal program of senior citizen and survivors'
benefits. The Works Progress Administration provided federal jobs for workers,
artists, writers, musicians and actors and sealed their right to form trade
unions and to organize strikes. Also in 1935, the Congress passed a neutrality
bill mandating the President to ban military exports to belligerents without
distinguishing between the aggressors and their victims.
In the Soviet Union, the government abolished food rationing
which gave additional strength to Joseph Stalin's authoritarian rule. Work
began to draft a new Constitution which was immediately hailed as the "Constitution
of Triumphant Socialism". In Moscow they launched the first metro
line. The government introduced the highest military rank of Marshal of
the Soviet Union. The hugely popular football club Spartak Moscow also
traces its origin to the year 1935.
1935 was the last in the life of the great self-taught Russian
scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky who died in the old Russian town of Kaluga
on September 19th, 1935. A pioneer in rocket and space science development,
he did extensive research in aeronautics and astronautics. Especially interested
in dirigibles and planes, he made many models including versions with adjustable
metallic envelopes. Many of his ideas, dismissed during his lifetime as
utopia, were later implemented making Tsiolkovsky's name appreciated throughout
the world. As a small boy handicapped by deafness resulting from scarlet
fever, Konstanting Tsiolkovsky was a kind and modest man who spent all
his life teaching and writing articles on manned space flights.
The great Soviet weightlifter and many times world champion Yuri
Vlasov was born in that same year of 1935. Performing in the heavyweight
category, he established 28 world records. Quitting big sports, Yuri Vlasov
took to writing and entered politics in the late-1980s on the strength
of Milkhail Gorbachev's reforms.
The outstanding Japanese writer Kenzaburo Oye was also born in
1935. His books are all about his country's disillusioned post-war generation
and some of his books also dwell on the tragedy of Hiroshima.
Also born in 1935 was the great operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti.
In the same year the great American composer George Gershwin wrote his
Porgy and Bess opera. Critics described it as a motley assemblage of jazz
and popular tunes presented in an opera format .
THE 20th CENTURY:YEAR AFTER YEAR series
of historical programs is prepared by Vladimir Zhamkin.
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