Rearmament
Military buildup was, from 1933, the founding stone of Hitler’s project, around which other topics would be organized and aims could be achieved. Domestically, it was a popular initiative and the spine of economic recovery. Internationally, at the cost of losing America’s implicit security guarantee provided by the Atlanticist strategy Germany could return to great power status, revise its borders, solve the problem of land hunger, acquire means of sustenance (which would go a long way to save the balance of payments) and settle debt and other questions.

In 1932 the German aircraft industry was tiny, with 3,200 employees and a yearly production of less than a hundred planes. Under the regime’s initiative an entire productive complex was essentially built from scratch. Industrialists were reluctant to invest as they’d have to rely on an unpredictable flow of government orders and the sector became overcrowded; Vestag even refused to buy Junkers. Thus the Reich was the ultimate source of funding and guaranteed a lion’s share of raw material inputs and foreign exchange. Aeronautics companies catered entirely to its needs, unlike ship-, gun- and tank-makers who had some civilian production. The Reich, too, directed the whole process.
But despite this dependence and command of the state entrepreneurial initiative and competition were fierce and harnessed to achieve technological advancement. This allowed the Reich to struggle, not with absolute success, against the huge challenges of aeronautics in the 30s and 40s: technological leaps from biplanes to jet fighters and the uncertainty about how the war in the air would be fought.

A Ministry of Aviation (RLM) was created and served as an intermediary between businessmen in the autarchic sector and political decision-makers. It mediated funding through the Aerobank. A large, specialized new workforce was trained.
Giants of aviation arose, of which the crown jewel, Junkers, was already among the largest pre-1933 producers. Its head, Hugo Junkers, is claimed to have been a socialist and a pacifist but Tooze states he was a nationalist in favor of rearmament. In any case, Goering and Milch were determined to take over. He was detained on charges of treason and promptly signed away his firm. Such direct coercion, however, was not the norm in the regime’s relationship with industry. The companies specialized by aircraft type: Junkers, Dornier and Heinkel on bombers and Messerschmitt on fighters. Others like Arado provided parts.
As a result, by the turn of the decade this industry employed at least a quarter of a million people and was capable of turning out every year more than 10,000 of the most sophisticated combat aircraft in the world. (p.125)