DUNCAN McVee in his letter of June 12 seems to take a delight in trying, without success, to score points off Sylvia Noble and her letter detailing Hitler's 'Economic Miracle.' (Letters, June 1).

Hitler was a great deal more than a dictator whose economic thinking, according to Mr McVee, launched his party on ill-fated paths to disaster.

When the National Socialist regime assumed power in Germany in 1933, far more striking programmes were instituted, tailored to their policies and objectives.

One was the effort to make the country as self-sufficient as possible utilising its own resources.

Related to this was the determination to terminate dependence upon a world trade system calculated in the money of other countries and on their terms.

Hence the supporting idea of developing fuel for the cars, trucks and other vehicles on its roads and farms.

This was prepared from domestic raw materials, coal and agricultural surpluses or waste by-products.

Within five years, German chemists had made such advances in the drive to escape the grip of the international gasoline business that research had brought about remarkable synthetic fuels in vast quantities.

The rocketing of crude oil prices during the October, 1973, Mid-east war prompted attempts to locate the research done on these synthetic fuels in Germany a generation earlier, researchers ran into nothing but blank walls and complained of being obstructed by what they suspected were mainly oil firms.

J PILKINGTON (Mr), Elm Street, Blackburn.

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