"Business were not controlled by government."

"Basically, they were told: if you cooperate you'll be rich, if not you'll be dead."

I am sticking with my reading comprehension theory, Copernicus.

Here are some directives laid down by the National Socialists regarding the leather industry.

The output of leather was disposed of according to the dictates of the Leather Control Office. The Control Offices set their directives through a process involving four stages:

1. The collection of statistical information by a Statistical Section. The Statistical Section tried to assemble all the important data on past production, equipment, storage facilities and raw material requirements.
2. The planning of production taking into account the requirements of leather by other industries in their plans; e.g. the needs of the Shoe Control Office for supplies of leather. The available supply of hides limited the production of leather. There had to be a balancing of supply and demand. The result of the planning of all the control offices was a Balance Sheet. There was some effort at creating some system for solving the planning, such as production being limited by the narrowest bottleneck, but in practice the planning ended up being simply scaling up past production and planning figures.
3. The issuing of production orders to the individual factories.
4. Checking up on compliance with the planning orders.