“That was…
an incredible plan.”
Back in the Ministry of Economics, Schacht and Todt found themselves sitting across from each other in Schacht’s office.
“It certainly was,” Schacht replied.
“But what surprised me most was something else.”
He leaned back in his chair.
“I had no idea the Fuhrer thought so highly of us.”
The contents of the Second Four-Year Plan had been astonishing enough.
What had truly caught both men off guard, however, was the authority the Fuhrer intended to place in their hands.
Neither of them had ever believed they enjoyed that level of trust.
If anything, Schacht and Todt had always assumed the Fuhrer regarded them as difficult men—too logical, too willing to challenge his ideas with facts and theory.
Apparently…
They had been mistaken.
Though I’d still like to see how he plans to convince Goring.
“But do you think the Fuhrer still intends to go to war in the near future?” Todt asked.
“Synthetic fuel plants are enormously expensive.
From an economic standpoint, they’re nothing but a burden.”
“I imagine he does,” Schacht answered.
“Taken as a whole, the plan is clearly preparing Germany for war.”
Even so…
Many of his ideas are remarkably forward-thinking.
Several proposals within the Fuhrer’s outline for the Second Four-Year Plan had stood out immediately.
“And yet,” Schacht continued, “many of the ideas he presented are genuinely revolutionary.”
He smiled faintly.
“In fact, they’re only possible because the Reich possesses the level of centralized authority it does.”
Todt nodded and opened the notebook he’d filled with frantic notes during the meeting.
“‘Mandatory national industrial standards’…
and a ‘container transport system.'”
He shook his head.
“Neither could ever be implemented without overwhelming political authority.”
He was absolutely right.
Standardizing industrial specifications sounded simple enough.
In reality, industry would resist it fiercely.
Any company whose designs became the national standard would celebrate.
Those whose products were rejected would face enormous costs.
At best, they’d have to overhaul their manufacturing methods.
At worst, they’d be forced to replace entire production lines.
The investment required would be staggering.
Which explains why he mentioned Jewish financial institutions…
“But the Fuhrer has already promised us the authority we’ll need,” Schacht replied.
“He also said he was willing to tolerate delays in weapons production while factories reorganize and replace equipment.”
Todt gave a weary laugh.
“With that much support…
failure almost stops being an excuse.”
“Exactly.”
Schacht nodded.
“We’ve lost the right to say it can’t be done.”
“As for synthetic fuel…”
“We’ll simply have to make it work.”
Todt glanced back at his notes.
“But the container system still worries me.”
“It will require enormous numbers of steel containers, along with cranes to handle them.”
“Does the Reich even possess enough steel?”
Schacht smiled.
“I suppose that’s where our abilities will be tested.”
The container system the Fuhrer had described was nothing short of revolutionary.
As Germany’s economic recovery accelerated, the nation’s railways had begun showing signs of reaching their limits.
The proposal attacked the problem at its source.
The greatest bottleneck in freight transportation wasn’t moving goods.
It was loading and unloading them.
Cargo had to be unloaded from trains by hand.
Then loaded manually onto horse carts or trucks.
And unloaded by hand once again at its destination.
The process consumed an astonishing amount of labor and time.
The Fuhrer’s proposal replaced that chaos with just four standardized container sizes:
Twelve meters.
Six meters.
Three meters.
And one and a half meters.
Instead of moving individual cargo, workers would move entire containers using machinery.
Of course, containers of that size couldn’t simply be carried by hand.
Horse carts couldn’t transport them either.
In fact, anything larger than the smallest one-and-a-half-meter container couldn’t even be hauled by existing trucks.
The entire supporting infrastructure would have to be created from scratch.
Crane trucks.
Purpose-built lorries.
Specialized railway wagons designed for container transport.
It was an immense undertaking.
If successful, however, Germany’s logistics network would become the most efficient in the world.
Perhaps even the model the rest of the world would eventually adopt.
But…
Did it truly need to begin immediately?
The Fuhrer had insisted that, under the Second Four-Year Plan, the major rail terminals and the sidings serving the principal armaments factories had to be equipped for container handling.
He wanted container transport operational by 1941.
At present, Germany’s railways were certainly under strain.
Freight volumes continued to rise while parts of the network were aging.
Yet there was no urgent need for such a dramatic expansion of transport capacity.
The Fuhrer had even ordered that military spending be reduced if necessary to make the project possible.
That alone felt astonishing.
The Fuhrer I thought I knew would always choose one additional tank over ten new freight wagons.
What kind of plans require that much logistical capacity…?
Todt sighed.
“So…
Autobahn construction is being suspended as well.”
The disappointment in his voice was unmistakable.
Schacht couldn’t help chuckling.
“Oh, come now, Todt.”
“If he’d ordered us to finish the Autobahn on schedule and accomplish all of this, both we and the Reich would collapse from exhaustion.”
Todt laughed.
“When you put it that way…”
And so we threw ourselves into the task of making the Second Four-Year Plan a reality.
It would still be several years before I realized…
That my uneasy intuition on that day had been exactly right.