END Of' GERMAN CAPJTALISM
205
setting: at the annual Party Congress in Nuremburg. In his speech
of Septemb'er 9, 1936 Hitler outlined the objectives of the Plan: to
organize the nation at once on a war footing, to produce arms in
huge quantities, above all, to make Germany independent of the
world market for foodstuffs and industrial raw materials.
The magnitude of the last task-making Germany self-suf–
ficient in raw materials-may be indicated by the fact that, in
1936, Germany produced no rubber, nickel or sulphur; practically
no oil or tin; and much less iron ore, copper, lead and timber than
she needed. The only important industrial raw materials she pro–
duced in sufficient quantities for her
peacetime
needs were coal,
zinc, manganese and potash. The Four Year Planners proposed
that, instead of continuing to depend on the world market for these
materials, ersatz materials be synthetically produced to replace
them. This has meant fantastic expense-buna rubber costs four
to six times what the natural product cost on the world market–
but this expense was more than outweighed, in totalitarian eco–
nomics, by the political advantages. So in the last four years Ger–
many has developed quantity production of oil by hydrogenation
from coal, of 'cell' wool from wood, of buna rubber from coal and
limestone, and of
1:1
hundred lesser synthetic products, not to men–
tion the exploitation by the State-owned Hermann Goering Iron
Works of large deposits of low-grade iron ore (which private busi–
ness had refused to work on grounds of unprofitability). These
technological miracles have been achieved in expensive plants for
which the State has forced private business to put up most of the
capital.
The Four Year Plan Authority became the supreme dictator
of German economy. Its six major branches were concerned with
(1) increasing the production of raw materials; (2). distributing
all raw materials on the basis of military utility; (3) distributing
the nation's labor power in the same way; (4) increasing agricul–
tural production; (5) keeping prices and wages stable; (6) con–
trolling foreign exchange and foreign trade. The only comparable
system, in scope and in completeness of control, was the Five Year
Plan inaugurated in Russia in 1929. No capitalist 'war economy'
-not even Britain's today after eighteen months of war-is of
the same order.
The business community protested violently against the Sec-
