English Translation

51 - 3 - approximately 99 billion marks. Treasury bills were given by the Reich at the end of 1918 in the amount of 55 billion marks, compared with O.3 billion before the beginning of the war, the banknotes circulation of the Reichsbank reached at the late 1918 over 22 billion marks against not yet 3 billion in July 1914. We have not yet understood how to shut down purchasing power or use it for the Reich. Thus, we have only been able to cover 6% of the war expenditure by taxes, while England, at that time, raised a much higher proportion of its war costs by taxes. We have learned from these things. As sources of goods procurement, the increased production performance of economic life, the restriction of private consumption in favour of military needs, the renunciation of investments outside the war industries, the dismantling of previously created stocks and equipment are available. and the use of foreign capital, the coverage of needs from these sources partly affects the national wealth and partly the current production, the national income. As a source of war financing, the use for us and for the other warring powers remains crucially important. Here the German situation according to the structure of our economy is much more favourable in relation to the enemy states. We are a highly industrialized country. Our production goods industry is of course highly developed, it is the main source of our great national income. The people's income, which is available to us, has increased over the last eight years from 46 to about 100 billion RM. Four things are now to be denied from the national income, the financing of war, the other public needs, the investment needs of the economy and the consumption requirements of the population, the last three the civil sector. It must be restricted in favour of the needs of the Reichsdefense. Accordingly, in Germany, the production of consumer goods has been converted according to schedule to production of manufactured goods, we have thereby achieved an extremely high economic potential, the conversion of the civilian sector has fallen all the easier for us than raw material allocation and labour use were state-controlled even before the war. Above all, the monetary side of the war financing has been carefully considered, first of all a remark on the classic question: tax or bond? According to the attitude that took theory and practice on the question, in the world war the bond in Germany has been preferred as a means of preserving the substance to the owner. Today we are on the point that the war must at any rate be borne by the present day, and the goods devoted to the conduct of war are being used up and the substance must only be worked out again in the years of peace. We recognize this actual reality through appropriate taxation, and we are proud that, in contrast to the world war, Déutschland is this time the country with the largest share of the tax policy coverage of the cost of war. It does not seem that England will succeed in achieving a much higher rate than the rate of world war. In Germany, on the other hand, with a tax revenue of more than 27 billion RM in the 1940 accounting year, we can have a ratio of about half to six.