Reich Office for Economic Development

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The Reich Office for Economic Development (RWA) was an authority subordinate to the Reich Ministry of Economics during the Nazi era. Its forerunner, the Reich Office for Economic Development, was created in 1938 and served to organize the planning, construction and production of the German raw materials industry for the purpose of war preparation.

prehistory

In order to enforce the National Socialist armament, the representative for the four-year plan , Hermann Göring , founded the Office for German Raw Materials in the autumn of 1936 . According to Dietmar Petzina, the raw materials office headed by Colonel Fritz Löb formed the "heart of the entire four-year plan organization". The task of this central four-year plan authority was to rapidly implement massive increases in production in the armaments and basic materials industries and to generate the construction of new production facilities for metals, chemical products and mineral oils. With the establishment of the raw materials office ruled by the NSDAP , the Reich Ministry of Economics (RWM) headed by Hjalmar Schacht lost its previous monopoly of power to implement political goals in the economy. After the ongoing conflicts of competence with Hermann Göring and his four-year plan authority that this triggered, Reich Economics Minister Hjalmar Schacht resigned at the end of 1937. Schacht's interim successor as Reich Economics Minister Göring dissolved the Raw Materials Office in February 1938 and merged its competencies with the RWM. In essence, this was a takeover of the RWM by the party.

RWA competencies

The RWM did not receive all the competencies of the former raw materials office. Responsibility for "research and development" as well as for "planning and implementation" was given to the "Reichsstelle für Wirtschaftsausbau" (RWA), which was founded in 1938 and is formally subordinate to the RWM. Ing. Albrecht Czimatis (1897–1984) received. In December 1939 the Reich Office for Economic Development experienced a strong increase in power, "which resulted from the fact that the influential chemist Dr. Carl Krauch , a 'key figure in the interweaving of the Nazi state and IG colors ', gave the colorless Albrecht Czimatis as head of the RWA. At the same time, the previous Reichsstelle had been transformed into a Reichsamt für Wirtschaftsausbau (Reich Office for Economic Development), which was formally still subordinate to the RWM, but whose top felt as 'imperial direct' and accordingly acted with a sense of power. "

The Reich Office for Economic Development and the Reich Office for Economic Development built, among other things, the plants for the production of synthetic gasoline and synthetic rubber . Separate institutes have been set up to promote scientific and technical research. In 1938 around 150 professors worked for the office. On August 5, 1938, the Reich Office for Economic Development called for “mastery of the Romanian oil fields and thus of the entire Danube region” to ensure German mobilization needs. On August 13, 1938, the Reichsstelle für Wirtschaftsausbau (Reich Office for Economic Development) issued the express plan that determined Germany's readiness for war economy in autumn 1939.

In 1938 the notorious poison gas memoirs were also created in the RWA , with the urgent recommendation to use poison gas in the coming war on a large scale.

literature

  • Dietmar Petzina : Autarky Policy in the Third Reich. The National Socialist four-year plan . German publishing house, 1968.
  • Dietrich Eichholtz : History of the German war economy . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin (East) 1969.
  • Matthias Riedel: Iron and coal for the Third Reich. Paul Pleiger's position in the Nazi economy . Musterschmidt Göttingen, 1973, ISBN 978-3-7881-1672-9 .
  • Gerhard Mollin: Mining corporations and 'Third Reich . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988, ISBN 3-525-35740-0 .
  • Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Making iron for the fighting army! - The Doggererz AG - a contribution of the Otto Wolff Group and the Saarland steel industry to the National Socialist autarky and armaments policy on the Baar in Baden. UVK Verlag Konstanz and Munich, 2016, ISBN 978-3-86764-653-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dietmar Petzina: Autarky Policy in the Third Reich. The National Socialist four-year plan . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1968, p. 61 .
  2. ↑ to: Gerhard Mollin: Montankonzerne and 'Third Reich . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988, ISBN 3-525-35740-0 , pp. 44-46 u. 59 .
  3. ↑ Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Making iron for the fighting army! - The Doggererz AG - a contribution of the Otto Wolff Group and the Saarland steel industry to the National Socialist autarky and armaments policy on the Baar in Baden. UVK Verlag Konstanz and Munich, 2016, ISBN 978-3-86764-653-6 , p. 87-95 .
  4. ↑ Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Making iron for the fighting army! S. 279-280 .
  5. ↑ Dietrich Eichholtz : German politics and Romanian oil, a study on petroleum imperialism . Leipzig 2005, p. 11.