English Translation

166 2.3.4.6 Absolute submission of the country's economy to the needs of total war (1943-45) Following the announcement of the so-called total war (Totalkrieg) by the head of Nazi propaganda J. Goebbels in his speech in Berlin's Sports Palace on 18 February 1943 Hitler issued at the beginning of September 1943 a return on concentration in the war economy (449). In order to ensure a strict concentration and uniform deployment of all economic forces for war arms production, he has transferred the current competence of the Reich Minister of Economy in the field of raw materials and manufacturing in industry and crafts at the Reim Minister of Armament and ammunition of Albert Speer, now designated as the Imperial Minister of arms and war production. Speer received the right to give orders of an economic nature to all autonomous authorities and official posts as well as to the entire Protectorate industry and craft (except for the production of consumer goods).(450) On July 25, 1944 Hitler issued a decree on total deployment (451) at the same time appointed J.Goebbels an Imperial Envoy for Total deployment. The war was to be subordinate not only to the economic sphere but to all public life. The measures of total war could not also affect the protectorate, which until then worked as a virtually closed economic enclave under the exclusive rule of the Reich Protector and the SS. However, the demanding tasks that faced the economic sphere of the period of total war forced the unified management of economic processes on an all-Russian scale. K.H.Frank, as a state minister, was then the decisive role in achieving the goals of the total war effort in the Protectorate. This was also adapted to the organisational structure of the Ministry, as an institution unitedly guided by the leadership, which included practically all the considerations of the incoming sectors and social spheres, concerning the immediate or remote economic life of the country. (452).