ABSTRACT
The genesis of the Plan has to be understood against the background of Germany's economic relationship with the wider world economy since the slump and the impact that the early stages of remilitarisation had on that relationship. The decree announcing the formation of the Four-Year Plan organisation published on 18 October 1936 made evident Hitler's intention to create a single source of authority able to deliver the strategy outlined in the August memorandum. The macro-economic strategy did not emerge in the form of a single predictive plan along Soviet lines, though there was central planning of the production, import and distribution of materials, which had an impact throughout the economy. The Four-Year Plan symbolised the transition in Germany from a conservative strategy for economic revival regulated by 'bourgeois experts' to a massively militarised and regulated economy closely linked to Party circles and animated increasingly by a more radical ideological agenda.
