Before Goering's 4 Year Plan

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Gwynn Compton
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Before Goering's 4 Year Plan

#1

Post by Gwynn Compton » 28 Apr 2002, 14:03

Who was in charge of the economy of the Third Reich prior to Goering taking charge? I remember back at school a video mentioned one man who was aparantly quite the economic genius, however I can't remember his name or what happened to him.

Ovidius
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#2

Post by Ovidius » 28 Apr 2002, 18:19

He was Hjalmar H. G. Schacht, Präsident der Reichsbank prior to 1933, and one of the most clever economists of the 1930s. After his release following Nuremberg, he was again employed by some governments(mainly in the Middle East) as an advisor.

Schacht was the mastermind of the financial revival in Germany. Since the European banking trusts were decapitalized, and the American ones boycotted Germany(why? it can be guessed), Schacht had devised a scheme of financing of the German industry via bonds issued by state organizations..

~Ovidius


Gwynn Compton
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#3

Post by Gwynn Compton » 29 Apr 2002, 00:43

Thank you :) What happened to him between the Nazi's taking power and the end of the war?

walterkaschner
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#4

Post by walterkaschner » 30 Apr 2002, 18:51

Hjalmar H. G. Schacht was sacked as Minister of Economy in February 1938 and as President of the Reichsbank in January 1939. The "Four-Year Plan", however, was proclaimed earlier - in the Fall of 1936 - and Göring, as its head, promptly succeeded in creating a huge bureaucracy which overlapped in many respects with Schacht's responsibilities.

Schacht had an interesting background. He was born in the U.S. of German immigrant parents, and his father became a naturalized U.S. citizen. The "H. G." in his name stands for Horace Greely, a famous American newspaper editor and journalist. The family moved back to Germany when Schacht was a boy, but he kept his command of English.

He was never a passionate Nazi and his star quickly faded in the late 1930s. In 1944 he was suspected (wrongly I think) of complicity in the July 20 plot to kill Hitler and was thrown into the Dachau concentration camp, where he was rescued by the American army and then, to his great astonishment and outrage, charged with war crimes and made a defendant in the major war crimes trials at Nuremberg. He was the only defendant who conducted his defense in English. After he was acquitted at Nuremberg he was tried again in a German Court and sentenced to eight years in prison but was cleared on appeal in 1950. He died in 1970 at age 93.

Regards, Kaschner

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Matt Gibbs
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Film

#5

Post by Matt Gibbs » 01 May 2002, 23:55

Anyone seen the film about the Wannsee Conference..? Can;t remember it's title but when one of Goering's representatives introduces himself he always has to mention he is the Director, Office of the Four Year Plan until someone asks him 'Whats your Plan anyway..?'. I always found that funny, not in the least because I don;t know much about it except it seems to have been a bit of a bureaucratic nightmare.
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Gwynn Compton
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#6

Post by Gwynn Compton » 02 May 2002, 09:58

Hehe, I imagine most things in the bureaucracy of Nazi Germany were nightmarish. Especially considering the huge archives of documents which they ended up with, which many of them are apparantly people having to ask permission to do something from numerious people, who in turn have to ask for permission to give permission.

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#7

Post by Pumpkin » 02 May 2002, 13:43

Hitler himself (and Goebbels and most everyone I believe) seems to have complained about the burocracy. Hitler used to cut the red tape by appointing persons with "Sondervollmächte" to simply solve a certain task, at any cost. When the generals in the east didn't return the empty railway wagons (they were naturally only interested in GETTING supplies), all of Europe suffered a shortage of wagons, and the railways in the east were blocked by all empty wagons. Hitler appointed Erhard Milch, then inspektor of the Luftwaffe(?) to solve it ASAP, equiped with powers to give whatever order he found suitable to anyone. Very ad hoc. Kind of interesting organizational combination, the burocratic machinery, meticulously taking care of everyday business and the all-mighty führer on top of it, with unquestionable powers to override it whenever a crises emerges.

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