On Hitler's Economics: Hitler Repeatedly Showed Himself Incapable of Accepting Even the Simplest Fact of Economics, the Scarcity of Goods

With Hitler, it is misleading to speak of economic thought in the usual sense. Although his acquisition of dictatorial authority over one of the most advanced industrial nations of the world eventually forced him to grapple with concrete economic problems for more than a decade, often with remarkable success, he never attained even a basic grasp of the formal discipline of economics. From the testimony of those who served him, as well as from his own writings and recorded utterances, it is obvious that he knew virtually nothing about micro-economics and had no more grasp of macro-economics than could be gained by reading newspapers. Once in power he repeatedly showed himself incapable of accepting even the simplest fact of economics, the scarcity of goods.

--Henry Ashby Turner Jr., German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 71.