The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

Germany’s oil and synthetic-rubber production effort, no small
responsibility for a country so short of oil itself. The following year, in
October 1936, he was given the post of Special Commissioner of the Four-
Year Plan, over and above the Economic Minister, Hjalmar Schacht. His
task was to completely reorganize the German economy: to continue
rearmament and get ready for war, to build up resources, particularly of
fuel, rubber and metal, to reduce unemployment, improve agricultural
production, develop public works (including the building of autobahns), and
stimulate coal and other industrial production.
By surrounding himself with top-level German industrialists and
bankers and by using his considerable powers of charm and diplomacy, he
concluded numerous bilateral deals in Yugoslavia, Romania, Spain, Turkey
and Finland, enabling Germany to stockpile the kind of minerals – such as
tungsten, oil, nickel and iron ore – that would enable the country to
continue growing militarily. The Four-Year Plan revolutionized Germany’s
economy, run by Göring through his private cabinet of economic advisers
and specialists brought into his Prussian Ministry.
Through bribes, favours and secret deals, he also created a vast
industrial empire. Recognizing that iron ore and steel production was underperforming
within Germany, he also set up his own iron and steel works,
absorbing many of the independent iron works in the Ruhr Valley and in
Austria – it was one of the reasons he was so in favour of the Anschluss –
and so monopolizing the iron and steel industry in the expanding Reich
until he had become one of the biggest industrialists in Europe, if not the
world. His Hermann Göring Works, or HGW, became all-powerful.
Furthermore, rather than ever becoming state-owned, HGW remained his
own private concern. It was no wonder he could lavish such vast sums on
Carinhall. Moreover, as the economic master of the Reich, he controlled
Germany’s entire foreign exchange reserves, while no corporation could
purchase any imports without his say-so. Incredibly, he also established his
own private intelligence service, the Forschungsamt, which similarly – and
with Hitler’s knowledge – remained in his own private control. Göring
might have been willing to hand over the SS and SD to Himmler, but not
the Forschungsamt, a listening service that bugged and tapped not only
foreign leaders and businessmen but also almost every single leading Nazi.
Thus in the political power struggles that were such a feature of the Nazi