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 policy statement on 2 Februar 1933.
From April / May 1936 Goering bureaucratized the four-year plan as a Supreme Reich
Authority. 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 the
Prussian Ministry of State, and presented them as Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan in
October 1936 to the public.
Hitlers demand, Give me four years! founded in April 1937 the second four-year plan, which
was extended for another four years in 1940. Such was the Four-Year Plan in World War II is
of great economic and political importance. The plans drawn up by the authority were
reflected 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
The aim was to focus on the economy accelerated armor and self-sufficiency, as Germany with
its 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. Logically
were 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 4
Before September 1936. He discussed the plans with the words: It goes from the basic idea of
that dealing with Russia is inevitable. He closed the cabinet meeting with the note:
The methods were characterized by resource allocation, investments and steering of labor
input. Among other things, the objective was to achieve the self-sufficiency of the German
economy with the help of unprofitable production of synthetic raw materials (synthetic
gasoline, Buna, explosives and fertilizers).
In the framework of the Four Year Plan, the Nazi government set up including the Empire
Hermann Gring, who served the mining and smelting of iron ore poor. As the person
responsible Goering was used. The four-year plan was not very effectively organized.
Nevertheless, it was a considerable increase in economic performance can be achieved. What
would have been possible with better organization, was from 1942, when s despite war
conditions, the production within a year was more than doubled under the direction of Albert
Speer.
On 17 December 1936 gave Goering a speech before about 100 industrialists in the Prussian
House 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 Palace
the 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 a
temporary solution (The final solution is an extension of the living space and the commodity-
based nutrition and our people.). Accordingly, the plan initially Fritz Todt and after his death
in 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 further
increased. 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 as
Minister of Economics.

Literature

Wolfgang Michalka (ed.): German History 1933-1945. Documents for internal and foreign
policy (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 of
Quarterly 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 foreign
policy. 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 31
December 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 Spanish
Civil 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 Schweitzer: 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 contrast
to others Michalka Hitlers memorandum 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)