Arms, Autarky and Aggression

Study in German Foreign Policy, 1933-39

de William Carr

In this study of the evolution of German foreign policy from 1933 to 1939, Dr. Carr offers us a scholarly and revealing analysis of the internal conflicts provoked by Hitler's fanatical determination to enforce an unprecedented peacetime expansion of the German armed forces and to achieve the autarkic self-sufficiency of the German economy in terms of strategic war materials and food supplies. These objectives were clearly envisaged as the indispensable means to the pursuit of an inflexible and aggressive foreign policy, based on Hitler's own racialist ideologies, his long-term plans for Nazi domination of Eastern Europe and his obsessive resolve to achieve his ends at all costs.