The Myth of Hitler as Monetary Reformer
(Left: The Emperor has
no mustache……)
The widespread
notion that Hitler created debt-free credit is erroneous.
The German taxpayer
continued to pay interest on the substantial
national debt and commercial banking largely financed the war at interest.
“Schacht’s policies did absolutely nothing to limit massive war
profiteering by the financial and industrial classes that brought
Hitler to power.”
By Anthony Migchels
Despite his pledges,
Hitler did not implement any serious monetary reform after he came to
power. He did make finance completely subservient to the State and,
more specifically, rearmament. But he did not nationalize any banks. The Reichsbank was already nationalized by the Weimar Republic.
He did not end interest payments to ‘the issuing houses’, who
must have made a fortune throughout the war. He did nothing
to decouple the Stock Exchange from the economy.
Hjalmar Schacht became
Reichsbank President in August 1934. Schacht’s policies allowed
full control of the economy to maximize production for war. But it did absolutely nothing to limit massive war
profiteering by the financial and industrial classes that brought
Hitler to power. Hitler used the monetary system that he inherited
from the Weimar Republic. The Reichsmark, like any other banking
unit, was lent into circulation.
WHO WAS HJALMAR SCHACT?
Schacht was born in 1877, the son of an aristocratic family. He joined Dresdner Bank in 1903
and by 1905 was meeting people like JP Morgan and Theodore
Roosevelt. He studied Hebrew to advance his career. In 1908 he joined
Freemasonry. He oversaw the financing of Belgian/German trade during
WW1 and used his former employer Dresdner Bank for this. This blatant
conflict of interest led to his dismissal, but he was taken back by Dresdner Bank after
this.
In 1923 he joined the
Reichsbank and played a key role in ending the hyperinflation of the
day. A little later he was made President of the Reichsbank and
remained in this post until 1930. Since at least 1923 he actively
resisted the war reparations that were destroying the German economy
and called for resurrection of German power. In 1926 he became
involved with the NSDAP and supported their rise to power, although
he never became a member.
He oversaw the formation
of I.G. Farben in the twenties.
Schacht was a member of
the Keppler Circle, a small group of businessmen that were at the
heart of the Nazi movement and which financed Hitler’s rise to
power. Wall Street was very influential in this group and contrary to
what many Hitler apologists claim, played a heavy role both in
financing him and in war profiteering.
Shortly after Hitler came
to power, he was reinstated as President of the Reichsbank and
basically gained full control over the economy. This lasted until he
was fired in 1939, when the German economy was overheating and
Schacht wanted to limit spending on rearmament and was accused of
‘mutiny’ by Hitler.
MEFO
Schacht created a special
purpose vehicle (SPV, a dummy corporation) called MEtallurgische
FOrschungsgesellschaft (MEFO), which was used to accept bills of
exchange drawn by German weapons manufacturers and received by all
German banks for possible re-discounting by the Reichsbank. The bills
were guaranteed by the Reich for five years and were thus
(indirectly) convertible to Reichsmark.
While they solved the
depression and allowed for the Nazi war machine, they also created
fairly serious inflationary pressures. And while this kind of
construct may sound ‘innovative’ to the uninitiated, they would
have been a no brainer for an experienced banker like Schacht. As
said, they were based on certificates (called Oeffa) that the Weimar
Republic was already circulating and national treasuries had been
circulating their own certificates routinely, when pressing political
issues forced them to increase their financial clout. The US Treasury
had its Treasury notes before the Civil War. The UK printed ‘Bradbury
Pounds’ (debt free notes) to finance WW1. The Canadian Treasury
printed its own debt free money as of 1935 and during the twenties
and thirties advanced monetary reform programs were widely discussed
throughout the West.
CONCLUSION
There was no usury-free
economy. The common man or small business actually would have next to
no access to credit at all. Even manufacturers were forced to become
self financing, so the State could monopolize borrowing on the
capital markets. The stock market boomed like never before.
Instead, all policies were
directed at securing sufficient funds for rearmament, not at
minimizing financial exploitation by the parasitical class that
Hitler so vehemently attacked with his rhetoric. Finance was a matter
of volume, not cost.
Schacht’s MEFO bills
have been wrongly jumped upon to claim Hitler was an anti banker man,
while Schacht himself has the typical bio of a high level Money Power
operative. He was a life long friend of BoE chief Montague Norman and
was acquitted at Neurenberg, where the Soviets wanted a conviction
while the British made sure he was released.
The myth of Nazi
anti-Usury activism is damaging, not only because of its mythological
character, but because it allows the Money Power to defame anti-Usury
activism through ‘guilt by association’. In fact, many Austrians
and Mainstreamers, call usury-free monetary reform programs
‘fascist’. Fascism itself is being rehabilitated because of its
supposed stance against finance capitalism. But as we have learned
from Bolton’s ‘The Banking Swindle’, the twenties and thirties
saw many monetary reform programs throughout the West, far from all
associated with fascism. After the war they were relegated to a
memory hole because of this false association with fascism.
War profiteering by the
industrial and financial class was in no way restricted. As a result,
they profited immensely from the war. This was indeed the main reason
for them to enable Hitler’s rise to power and their loyal support
of his policies during the rearmament and the war. Even today, the
main culprits like the Thyssen family, Krupp and the Goebbels
step-children owning BMW are among the richest people in Germany. The
same banks that financed the Reich’s war are now among the biggest
in the world.
(with special thanks to
Niels Verduijn and Ad Broere)
Sources:
Hitler and the Banksters,
by Ingrid Rimland
Nazi War Financing and
Banking, by Otto Nathan
Jewish Virtual Library on
Schacht
Wall Street and the Rise
of Hitler, by Antony Sutton
Related:
Lincoln was indeed a
Money Power Agent
Book review: The Banking
Swindle
Postscript:
Anthony,
As I prepare your article I am troubled by this statement from Rakovsky in the Red Symphony
Unfortunately for the bankers, Hitler also proved intractable. He started to print his own money!
“He took over for himself the privilege of manufacturing money and not only physical moneys, but also financial ones; he took over the untouched machinery of falsification and put it to work for the benefit of the state… Are you capable of imagining what would have come …if it had infected a number of other states and brought about the creation of a period of autarchy [absolute rule, replacing that of the bankers]. If you can, then imagine its counterrevolutionary functions…” (263) http://www.henrymakow.com/000275.html
Anthony replies:
“Yes, very much on my mind too. What does my article mean for Rashkovsky’s credibility? I actually wanted to put this in the article, but chose not to.
But as you can see, my article is based on pretty much undisputed sources. I also think that the fact that the banks and industrialists that operated in the Reich are still pretty much in control of present day Germany is pretty self-explanatory.
There is a clear strand of neo-nazism in the Alternative Media that is based on the idea of Hitler being against the banks. Where does this come from? Just apologists that want to believe in him? Or is there something more nefarious happening? As we know neo-nazism is heavily infiltrated.
The fact that the Reichsmark remained after Hitler took over is very telling. As is his non-nationalization of banking. In fact: many commentators have wondered why Hitler did not nationalize the banks and indeed industry too, if he was such a ‘socialist’.
The article is very provocative and goes straight against what is considered common knowledge in the Alternative Media.
Ultimately I don’t know either. I’m reporting on the facts as I see them, I think, at the very least, it’s useful to have a good debate on this. It is this that in the end will be crucial to the evaluation of Hitler.”
Source: http://henrymakow.com/2013/09/The-Myth-of-Hitler-as-Monetary-Reformer .html
