New German materials at 'Schaffendes Volk', Düsseldorf 1937

In an exhibition hall visitors stand before a map of Germany modelled in white fibre under the words Das weiße Gold, and a woman in a hat turns to look into the camera. A machine of polished rollers draws a sheet of glass beside a poster for Sicherheits-Glas; crowds pass a stand of the Deutsche Kap-Asbestwerke and a glass-fibre spinning mill, a showcase advertising fabrics of glass wool; behind glass, a spinning frame turns its rows of bobbins while a woman in a white coat tends it.

The Reich Exhibition in Düsseldorf showed off the home-made substitutes of the Four-Year Plan, which Hermann Göring had taken charge of in October 1936: staple fibre for cotton and wool, glass fibre, new plastics. Every kilogram made at home saved foreign currency for rearmament.