Until Mid-1937 Nazi Economics Was—to a Large Extent— Schachtian Economics; Informal Empire Was Sacrificed on the Altar of Lebensraum

Until mid-1937 Nazi economics was—to a large extent— Schachtian economics. Even afterward most of Schacht’s key policy patterns and economic structures endured. Yet the “Party thugs” he so derided outmaneuvered the banker in Berlin power circles. Intervention in Spain may have been Schachtian in design, but it came to be run by Schacht’s nemesis, Hermann Göring. For his part Hitler moved toward transformative economic choices that sent Germany closer to world war. These choices are detailed in Chapter 6. Schacht’s departure from the higher echelons of Nazi decision making was part of a key transformation in the regime, one that sacrifi ced the possibility of informal empire, an idea inspired by the tradition of Weltpolitik, on the altar of Lebensraum.

--Pierpaolo Barbieri, introduction to Hitler's Shadow Empire: Nazi Economics and the Spanish Civil War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), 12.