GERMANY’S FOUR-YEAR PLAN

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 313, 19 December 1936, Page 5

GERMANY’S FOUR-YEAR PLAN

POPULATION BEING PREPARED FOR WAR. RELEASING SOLDIERS AND EXPERTS FOR ACTIVE.' SERVICE. / ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY JUST AS IMPORTANT AS MILITARY EFFICIENCY (Press Association—Copyright.) Received 1 p.m. LONDON, December 18. The Berlin correspondent of The Times says that Germany’s Four-year Self-sufficiency Plan was worked out years ago by her 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 and experts may be released immediately for service at the Front. General Goering, Herr Schacht, Herr von Ribbentrop, and others have consistently - represented the Geramn Four-year Plan as something Germany has no! wanted but has had forced on her by events, notably by being kept without colonies. The accumulation of evidence, however, points to the other conclusion. This is now strikingly confirmed by an article in “Deutsche Bergwerke Zeitung,” organ of the Ruhr heevy industry, by General Thomas, General Staff Officer in charge of Wehrwritschaft, 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 is just as im portant as military efficiency.