A mountain tea party in Bavaria

Nazi Germany’s march towards autarky and the abandonment of any semblance of market economy became plain to the world as the rift between Hjalmar Schacht, former central banker now Minister of Economics, and a regime uninterested in conservative economic management leaked into public consciousness. The trigger for the dispute were the synthetic oil and fabrics production programmes driven on by Herman Goering as Commissioner of the Four Year Plan. These were not paying propositions but designed to replace imports that would be prevented in wartime. The rumours of Schacht’s resignation were only a couple of weeks premature. The visit to Germany by the Duke and Duchess of Windsor culminated in tea with the Führer himself at Berchtesgaden. Hitler was favourably impressed with the Duchess and rather thought she would have made a good Queen unlike almost the entire British establishment. Predictably enough this meeting unleashed extensive criticism which was still well under wa