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PARTISAN REVIEW
ond Four Year Plan because it clearly meant (1) greatly increased
State control of business; (2) enormous 'unproductive' and 'uneco·
nomic' expenses for an even bigger bureaucracy and for the crea–
tion of whole new
ersaJz
industries; (3) cutting off Germany once
for all from the world market and international capitalism, reject·
ing all compromise and preparing for war. Their protest, however,
could take no very formidable shape: they had their chance to
solve Germany's problems their way, under Schacht, and had
failed. A new power, largely of their creation, had now arisen and
was soon to demonstrate the economic superiority of its non-capi·
talist methods.
Neither Schacht nor the business community he represented
was consulted in the matter of creating the new Plan. Schacht's
program-"economy in government, retardation of the Four Year
Plan, and concentration on export trade"-speedily became only a
memory as the Nazis drove ahead on the road of autarchy and
rearmament.
There is no space to detail the history of the next four years.
The main trend may be suggested:
October 19, 1936: Hitler appoints Goering chief of the Four
Year Plan and supreme economic dictator of the Reich.
November 26, 1936: The Nazi bureaucrat, Josef Wagner, newly
appointed Price Commissar under the Plan, issues general
price-freezing decree. Henceforth all price increases are for–
bidden, except on special authorization from his office.
December 1, 1936: Goering decrees the death penalty for all
Germans who evade the restrictions on taking money or prop–
erty out of the country.
February 13, 1937: The Reichsbank, hitherto the quasi-inde–
pendent fortress of German finance-capital, is 'coordinated'–
"placed under Chancellor Hitler's direct authority as an organ
of the German Government."
November 26, 1937: Schacht resigns as Minister of Economics,
is replaced by Funk, 'Goering's man.' TheN.
Y. Times
com–
ments on "this final step in a long drawn-out careful program
whereby Schacht has been let out of active direction of the
Reich's economic affairs. The problem from the first has been
how Dr. Schacht could be removed from authority, and control
could
be
centralized in General Goering's hands, without too
great a shock to the home and foreign business communities."
February 4, 1938: The Nazis execute a 'bloodless purge' of the
conservative opposition in all spheres. (1)
Economic:
"The
