(a) Branches of the Armed Forces, in Issuing orders to firms through
their ordnance offices as purchasing agents, were handicapped by budget
means and their incorporation in the budget year.
Consequence: Subsidizing of firms for lack of long term orders and
through the impossibility of calculation.
(b) War Economy Office in the OKW as the central organizer and
representative of the producer firms through War Economy (later
Armament) Inspectorates as intermediary offices in the military area, to
serve the branches of the Armed Forces as executive. Duties of the
organization, which was run by a military staff:
(1) To gain information about and recommend firms to the military
branches.
(2) To adjust the orders of the military branches to the capacity.
(3) To provide for the allotment of raw materials, machinery, and
manpower.
(4) To further the extension and capacity of industrial plants.
(5) To protect the plants from bad investments, air raids, espionage, et
cetera.
(c) The Plenipotentiary for Economy, GBW, as from the autumn of 1935 was
the declared organizer of the entire German economy for its mobilization
in case of war and its prospective leader during a war.
His duties in peacetime were preparatory only:
1. Statistical co-ordination of the individual industrial and economic
branches, including the armament authorities connected with the OKW, and
the War Economy office under Thomas.
2. Provision and storing of raw materials obtainable by importation
only.