32. IMG, xxxvi.365ff., Doc.EC-369. See Mason, Nazism, 108, for inflationary pressures building up by 1939. It would be important not to exaggerate their actual seriousness by that date. Even so, though stringent controls and repression had held inflation in check until then, the dangers in an increase in Reichsbank notes in circulation from 3.6 billion Reich Marks in 1933 to 5.4 in 1937, rising sharply to 8.2 billion in 1938 and 10.9 billion in 1939 were obvious. (Willi A. Boelcke, Die Kosten von Hitlers Krieg, Paderborn etc., 1985, 32. See also Dietrich Eichholtz, Geschichte der deutschen Kriegswirtschaft 1939–1945, Bd.I, 1939–1941, East Berlin, 1984, 30.)
33. Hjalmar Schacht, My First Seventy-Six Years, London, 1955, 392–4 (quotation, 392).
34. Mason, Nazism, 106–7.
35. See BA, R43II/194, 213b, for numerous complaints of Darré.
36. Mason, Nazism, 111; Timothy W. Mason, Sozialpolitik im Dritten Reich. Arbeiterklasse und Volksgemeinschaft, Opladen, 1977, 226ff.; J. E. Farquharson, The Plough and the Swastika. The NSDAP and Agriculture in Germany, 1928–45, London/Beverly Hills, 1976, 196ff.; Gustavo Corni, Hitler and the Peasants, Agrarian Policy of the Third Reich, 1930–1939, New York/Oxford/Munich, 1990, ch. 10; Gustavo Corni and Horst Giest, Brot-Butter-Kanonen. Die Ernährungswirtschaft in Deutschland unter der Diktatur Hitlers, Berlin, 1997, 280–97; Kershaw, Popular Opinion, 55–61.
37. Mason, Nazism, 111. The investment in new farm machinery had indeed risen by 25.8 per cent during the first six years of Nazi rule, with a high point in 1938. But mechanization was progressing slowly in international comparison. Whereas there was a tractor for every 325 hectares of arable in Germany, the ratio was 1:95 in Great Britain and 1:85 in the USA and Canada. Two-thirds of German farmers still sowed their fields by hand; many used oxen and horses for ploughing. (Corni and Giest, 308.)
38. Corni and Giest, 286–7, 294; Corni, 227–9; Farquharson, 199–200.
39. See Kershaw, Popular Opinion, 286. Some 300,000 Polish prisoners-of-war were put to work on the land in Germany by the end of 1939, together with around 40,000 civilian workers (Ulrich Herbert, Fremdarbeiter. Politik und Praxis des ‘Ausländer-Einsatzes’ in der Kriegswirtschaft des Dritten Reiches, Berlin/Bonn, 1985, 68).
40. Mason, Sozialpolitik, 215–26; reports of the Reichstreuhänder der Arbeit for the last quarter of 1938 and first quarter of 1939, emphasizing the difficulties, are printed in Mason, Arbeiterklasse, 847–55, Dok.147, 942–59, Dok.156. Numerous reports from the Defence Districts, pointing out the problems in armaments manufacture, can be seen in BA/MA, RW 19/40, 54, 56.
41. See the analyses by Mason, Sozialpolitik, 241, 245, 295, 313ff. Tim Mason, ‘The Workers’ Opposition in Nazi Germany’, History Workshop Journal, 11 (1981), 120–37; Timothy W. Mason, ‘Die Bändigung der Arbeiterklasse im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland. Eine Einleitung’, in Carola Sachse et al., Angst, Belohnung, Zucht und Ordnung. Herrschaftsmechanismen im Nationalsozialismus, Opladen, 1982, 11—53; and also Michael Voges, ‘Klassenkampf in der “Betriebsgemeinschaft”. Die “Deutschland-Berichte” der Sopade (1934–40) als Quelle zum Widerstand der Industrie-Arbeiter im Dritten Reich’, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, 21 (1981), 329—84; and also Kershaw, Popular Opinion, 98–110. Even given the usual paranoia, Gestapo reports did not give the regime’s leaders the impression that the widespread discontent among industrial workers was being translated into any serious political threat from the Communist or Socialist underground resistance. See examples of reports in Mason, Arbeiterklasse, 856–7, Dok.148, 960–61, Dok.157; in BA, R58/446, 582, 584, 719; and in IML/ZPA, St3/64, St3/184, PSt3/153.
42. Mason, Nazism, 113.
