The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy

by Adam Tooze

The Reich authorities, however, were desperate to avoid the scarcity of imported raw materials spilling over into general inflation. So, Gauleiter Wagner, who had responsibility for price control in the Four Year Plan, issued a blanket ban on 26 November 1936 prohibiting any price increases.89 Formalizing a development begun in the early 1930s, this effectively eliminated the market mechanism as a means of regulating scarcity in the German economy. The logical next step, as had already been acknowledged by the RNS in agriculture at least a year earlier, was the introduction of rationing, managing scarcity by bureaucratic allocation rather than the market process. Rationing of nonferrous metals was adopted in January 1937; steel rationing was imposed as of 23 February 1937.90 To clear the backlog with the rolling mills, all outstanding steel orders that could not be met by the end of April 1937 were cancelled. From the end of February, new orders for steel could only be placed on the basis of steel entitlements issued according to national priority as defined by the Reich Ministry for Economic Affairs.