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Hitler's Banker: Hjalmar
Horace Greeley Schacht
by John Weitz
Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht
was a genius--but like his name,
eccentric and highly enigmatic. Now,
in the first-ever full-scale biography
to appear in English, historian John
Weitz brings this brilliant Nazi-era
financier to life. Born to an
impoverished family of the German
upper middle class, Schacht gained
worldwide fame as Germany's
commissioner of currency and
president of the Reichsbank in the
1920s. Single-handedly, he halted
Germany's runaway inflation and, as
a tough negotiator, freed Germany
from the crippling reparation debts
imposed by the Versailles Treaty.
Later, under the Nazis, he built the
economic and financial juggernaut
that underwrote Hitler's military
machine.
Yet before the war was over, Hitler
had imprisoned him in Dachau;
afterward, he was one of only three
defendants at the Nuremberg trials to
be acquitted.
Arrogant, witty, caustic, and urbane,
Schacht disdained economists and
mathematicians; his true strengths lay
in public relations, journalism, and
psychology. As one of the dominant
financial figures in the world, he
understood that money has no
intrinsic worth; its value was what he
could make the public--and the
world--believe it to be.
While he had financed the Nazis, he
held most of them in contempt and
protected a number of Jewish
financiers. He frequently clashed
with the Nazi hierarchy--and with
Hitler himself--over anti-Jewish laws
and war spending. In addition, he
remained in close touch with, and
was probably involved with, the
high-ranking conspirators who
attempted to assassinate Hitler.
Although all the officers in the plot
were executed, Schacht was only
imprisoned, and lived to ninety-three.
A brilliant manipulator of money,
men, and governments, Schacht was
a banking giant of the twentieth
century as well as a complex and
compelling figure in his own right,
whom William Shirer once called
"the most brilliant of all the Nazis,
and, next to Hitler, the most
interesting."
• Order Information
Biography
Non-Fiction
ISBN: 0316929166
Hardcover
$27.95/U.S.
$37.95/Canada
352 pages
6 x 9
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Paul Henry Rosenberg wrote:
> Alex wrote:
>
> > I just saw a special on the History Channel (hey, I was *really* bored)
> > about a plot by business leaders to use a charismatic veteran to lead a
> > fascist coup against FDR. Pretty harrowing stuff.
>
> That would be Smedley Butler.
>
> Interesting that they'd have that on the Histor Channel. Something to
> look forward to when I get cable, beyond the Sci-Fi channel & "Law &
> Order" reruns.
>
> > I was wondering if anyone could provide me with some solid, in-depth
> > books on big business support for fascism and Nazism, besides Guerin's
> > Fascism and Big Business (which isn't very good at all) or Higam's
> > Trading With The Enemy. I don't know how many times I've heard cretinous
> > history teachers say "Remember, Hitler was a member of the National
> > *Socialist* party..." I'm looking for something to refute the lazy,
> > facile claim that Hitler was a socialist, once and for all.
>
> *Who Financed Hitler: The Secret Funding of Hitler's Rise to Power,
> 1919-1933*, by James E. Pool
>
> --
> Paul Rosenberg
> Reason and Democracy
> rad at gte.net
>
> "Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"