Nazi German economic policy flew in the face of the liberal principles held by the City. Under the direction of Hjalmar Schacht at the Reichsbank the Germans introduced a complex system of controls over imports and the use of foreign exchange. Trade policy was founded more and more on barter agreements with neighbouring countries which provided food and raw materials in exchange for manufactured goods, any difference in value being made up in non-convertible marks usable only in Germany. This made possible a cheap money policy and conservation of the hard currency without which neither the recovery programme nor the increasingly obvious rearmament could have been financed.

Scott Newton, “the Economic Background to Appeasement” (Lobster 20, Nov 1990)