SELF-SUFFICIENCY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 19 December 1936, Page 9

SELF-SUFFICIENCY

GERMANY’S FOUR YEAR PLAN

GENERAL REARMAMENT PROCESS PART IN WARTIME (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright)

(Received 19th December, 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, 18th December.

“The Times” Berlin correspondent says that Germany’s four-year selfsufficiency plan was worked out years ago by the leading military authorities as part of the general • process of rearmament. There are indeed signs in Germany that attention is now turning to the preparation of the whole of the population, - especially women, for the part they may be called on to fill in wartime so that trained soldiers and experts may be released immediately for service at the front.

General Goering, Dr. Schacht, Herr Ribbentrop and others have consistently represented the German four year plan as something Germany has not wanted but has had forced on her by events, notably by being kept without colonies, but the accumulation of evidence points to the other conclusion. This is now strikingly confirmed by an article in the “Deutsche Bergwerke Zeitung,” the organ of the Ruhr heavy industry, by General Thomas, General Staff Officer in charge of the “Wehr Writschaft” or “War Economy” staff at the War Ministry. General Thomas describes the system as the inevitable result of the lessons of the last war, which, he says, proved that economic efficiency was just as important as military ' efficiency.