END OF GERMAN CAPITALISM
complete reorganization of the Ministry of Economics into the
executive organ of Field Marshal Goering's Four Year Plan
was announced today. Nothing
is
left of the old departments
of the Ministry....'' (2)
Foreign Policy:
Purge in the
Foreign office. The Nazi extremist, Von Ribbentrop, becomes
Foreign Minister, replacing the ultra-conservative Von Neu–
rath, the last of the old pre-1933 cabinet ministers to go.
(3)
The Army:
The long struggle between the Nazis and the
traditional Army generals ends in victory for the former. 15
generals retire, 22 get new commands. The two leading per;
sonalities in the Army, the pro-Nazi War Minister Von Blom–
berg and the openly anti-Nazi Commander in Chief Von
Fritsch, both retire. The Army high command goes to two
obscure, colorless and nonpolitical generals, Keitel and
Brauchitsch. Goering is made Field Marshal, ranking him
above all other generals. Von Blomberg has no successor as
War Minister; Hitler assumes "personal and direct command
over all the armed forces."
March
ll,
1938: Hitler occupies Austria. (It is now clear that
the Feb. 4 purge was in preparation for this move, which was
widely opposed in Army and big business circles.)
Jan. 20, 1939: Schacht is suddenly removed by Hitler from
the presidency of the Reichsbank, shortly after 'appeasement'
visit by Montagu Norman, of the Bank of England, to Schacht
in Berlin. Funk becomes new Reichsbank head.
Sept. 5, 1939: Goering appoints Nazi leaders as regional 'Reich
Defense Commissars' in war economy.
Dec. 28, 1939: Four Year Plan Authority is superseded by the
'Economic General Staff' as supreme director of Reich econ–
omy. This Staff made up entirely of Nazi bureaucrats and
State officials, no businessmen.
207
The orthodox Marxist view of the relationship between big
business and the State is well formulated in Hilferding's
Das
Fin(IJ1,zkapital:
"Economic power is also political power.... The
rule over the economy means control over the means of power of
the State.... Finance capital in its perfection is the highest stage
of economic and political power in the hands of a capitalist
oligarchy. It completes the dictatorship of the capitalist mag–
nates."* As things have actually worked out in Germany, this for–
mulation needs to be stood on its head: political power is also
economic power; control over the State means rule over the econ-
•This quotation, from the 1920 edition {p. 510), is taken from a forthcoming book
by
Guenter Reimann, "The Myth of the Total State," the manuscript of which the
author very kindly allowed me to read.
