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URL: http://www.desertwar.net/four-year-plan.html , 10/06/2014.

Four-Year Plan: Brief Description

During the period of National Socialism, the term four-year plan initially called an early

statement Adolf Hitlers government, then an authority under Hermann Goering.

Origin

Three days after his appointment as Reich Chancellor Hitler declared on 2 February 1933:Within four years unemployment must be eliminated! It was subsequently on 24 March

1933 the Act to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich as so-called Enabling Act enacted.The term Four Year Plan referred to Hitlers poli cy statement on 2 Februar 1933.

From April / May 1936 Goering bureaucratized the four-year plan as a Supreme ReichAuthority. Their purpose was to create self-sufficiency and ability of the German war economy.The plan was announced in the Nazi Party in September 1936. Goering led the authority of thePrussian Ministry of State, and presented them as Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan inOctober 1936 to the public.

Hitlers demand, Give me four years! founded in April 1937 the second four -year plan, whichwas extended f or another four years in 1940. Such was the Four -Year Plan in World War II isof great economic and political importance. The plans drawn up by the authority werereflected among other things in the Green Folder for Operation Barbarossa.

The plan

Average gold and foreign exchange holdings in Germany in million RM

1928 2405.4

1929 2,506.3

1930 2806.0

1931 1,914.4

1932 974.6

1933 529.7

1934 164.7

1935 91.0

1936 75.0

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The aim was to focus on the economy accelerated armor and self-sufficiency, as Germany withits dependence on raw materials from abroad otherwise could not go to war.

The second four-year plan was ordered by a secret memorandum written in August 1936,Adolf Hitlers. This was initiated by the finding that a war with the Soviet Union was inevitable.

The memorandum was based on materials that had worked the IG Farben concern. Logicallywere then in the newly created Four-Year Plan mainly representatives of IG Farben employed.

The central demands of Hitler in his memorandum to the Four Year Plan were:

1.The German army had to be operational in four years.

2.The German economy must be ready for war in four years.

Why and what army and the economy in 1940 should be mainly operational and ready for war,Hitler had discussed before its final conclusion in the memorandum as follows:

Hermann Goering, the steward of IG Farben was the memorandum at a cabinet meeting on 4Before September 1936. He discussed the plans with the words: It goes from the basic idea ofthat dealing with Russia is ine vitable. He closed the cabinet meeting with the note:

The methods were characterized by resource allocation, investments and steering of laborinput. Among other things, the objective was to achieve the self-sufficiency of the Germaneconomy with the help of unprofitable production of synthetic raw materials (syntheticgasoline, Buna, explosives and fertilizers).

In the framework of the Four Year Plan, the Nazi government set up including the EmpireHermann Gring, who served the mining and smelting of iron ore poor. As the personresponsible Goering was used. The four-year plan was not very effectively organized.Nevertheless, it was a considerable increase in economic performance can be achieved. Whatwould have been possible with better organization, was from 1942, when s despite warconditions, the production within a year was more than doubled under the direction of AlbertSpeer.

On 17 December 1936 gave Goering a speech before about 100 industrialists in the PrussianHouse on the implementation of the Four Year Plan, in this speech he said:

Compared with the public Goering announced on 28 October 1936 at the Berlin Sports Palacethe four-year plan as a plan for food security of the people.

According to this memorandum of Hitlers Four Year Plan was to be considered only as atemporary solution (The final solution is an extension of the living space and the commodity -based nutrition and our pe ople.). Accordingly, the plan initially Fritz Todt and after his deathin February 1942, Speer was completely converted to the total war economy from 1941.

Goering was of the Four Year Plan, which his power in Nazi German empire even furtherincreased. The plan replaced the Hjalmar Schachts New Plan. The appointment of Goering the

power of Hjalmar Schacht was circumcised, which was soon forced to resign from his post asMinister of Economics.

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Literature

Wolfgang Michalka (ed.): German History 1933 -1945. Documents for internal and foreignpolicy (Fischer = 50234 The period of National Socialism). Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-596-50234-9

Dietmar Petzina: self -sufficiency policy in the Third Reich.The Nazi Four Year Plan (= series ofQuarterly Journal of Contemporary History. Vol 16). German publishing house, Stuttgart 1968(Also: Mannheim Business School, Diss, 1965: The Nazi Four Year Plan of 1936)

Wolfgang Schieder: Spanish Civil War and four -year plan.On the structure of Nazi foreignpolicy. In: Ulrich Engelhardt, Volker Sellin, Horst Stuke (ed.): Social Movement and Political

Constitution.Contributions to the history of the modern world. Festschrift for Werner Conze 31December 1975 (= industrial world. Special issue). Ernst Klett, Stuttgart 1976, ISBN 3-12-901850-6, pp. 832- 856.to: Hans -Henning Abendroth: The German intervention in the SpanishCivil War.A contribution to the discussion. Quarterly Journal of Contemporary History, Vol 30,Issue 1, 1982, pp. 117-129, online (PDF, 7.51 MB)

Arthur Sc hweitzer: The original four-year plan. Yearbooks of Economics and Statistics, Vol 168(1956), p. 348-396

William loyalty: Documentation:. Hitlers memorandum on the Four -Year Plan 1936/4 year

Revisionist History, Vol 3, Issue 2, 1955, pp. 184-210, online (PDF, 5 MB) (contains, in contrastto others Michalka Hitlers m emorandum in full in full text)

Anton Zischka: Science breaks monopolies. Goldmann, including Leipzig 1936 (numerous,

even in foreign languages, spending; Nazi propaganda pamphlet for the Four Year Plan)