Hitler's Economic New Order
There are indications that Hitler may soon think it advisable to declare his plans for the new Europe which he aims at consolidating under the control of the Reich, but in the mean- time there are some pointers in the German Press which show something of his plans for the Continent on the economic side. Professor Karl Haushofer, for example, has written that Europe can never be economically self-supporting ; even the doubling of the agricultural output of the Balkans would not suffice ; Africa must be absorbed and non-Europeans, in- cluding Britain, excluded. We have to imagine a European con- federation in which each country would have its own currency only for internal trade, but would use a Reichsmark currency for its European trade. It would produce what Germany asked it to produce, pooling its surplus with other States, and taking out of the pool in exchange what Germany did not require for herself. In foreign trade with the outside world Germany would exercise the bargaining power of 325 million consumers. It is clear that nothing short of a complete victory yielding Africa to the Axis would enable Germany to work this far-reaching scheme of control ; and to round it off she would surely need to bring Russia also within her orbit. The bigger the scheme becomes the more it requires to be bigger still, and possibly nothing less than absolute world control would ultimately meet Hitler's case.
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