HITLER'S BANKER is a full-scale biography of Hjalmar Schacht, one of history's premier financial wizards. Chief Architect of the Nazi economy, Schacht's rampant inflation financed the creation of the most powerful war machine in Europe out of the rubble of a devastated Weimar Republic. Weitz chronicles Schacht's early life and his meteoric success in the international banking world, deftly juxtaposing the twentieth-century history of Germany itself. HITLER'S BANKER is the riveting life story of a man imprisoned by Hitler because of his anti-Nazi sentiments and charged as a war criminal by the Allies. Exonerated of all charges at Nuremberg, Schacht lived to become a successful author and economic adviser to foreign nations, and a wealthy private banker.
The book you are about to read is one of the most extraordinary historical documents of the 20th century. Where did Hitler get the funds and the backing to achieve power in 1933 Germany? Did these funds come only from prominent German bankers and industrialists or did funds also come from American bankers and industrialists? American bankers supplied Adolf Hitler with millions of dollars to help build up his Nazi party. Warburg was a joint owner of the New York bank, Kuhn Loeb & Cie; he describes three conversations he held with Hitler at the request of American financiers. This book was originally publisher in Holland in 1933, shortly before Warburg's death
Pitting fascists and communists in a showdown for supremacy, the Spanish Civil War has long been seen as a grim dress rehearsal for World War II. Francisco Franco’s Nationalists prevailed with German and Italian military assistance—a clear instance, it seemed, of like-minded regimes joining forces in the fight against global Bolshevism. In Hitler’s Shadow Empire Pierpaolo Barbieri revises this standard account of Axis intervention in the Spanish Civil War, arguing that economic ambitions—not ideology—drove Hitler’s Iberian intervention. The Nazis hoped to establish an economic empire in Europe, and in Spain they tested the tactics intended for future subject territories. “The Spanish Civil War is among the 20th-century military conflicts about which the most continues to be published...Hitler’s Shadow Empire is one of few recent studies offering fresh information, specifically describing German trade in the Franco-controlled zone. While it is typically assumed that Nazi Germany, like Stalinist Russia, became involved in the Spanish Civil War for ideological reasons, Pierpaolo Barbieri, an economic analyst, shows that the motives of the two main powers were quite different. —Stephen Schwartz, Weekly Standard
Award-winning journalist Isabel Vincent unravels the labyrinthine story behind the headlines by taking us through the life of survivor Renée Appel, who found refuge in Canada. With her, we come to understand what it means to wait for justice: how, on the eve of war, desperate men and women entrusted their life savings to Swiss banks; how Nazis laundered gold looted from Jewish families; how the demands of international business, Swiss bank secrecy, and greed kept the truth hidden for over half a century and still prevent restitution from being made. Hitler's Silent Partners is a rigorous and often heartbreaking look at statistics seldom given a human face.
Hitler's Secret Bankers was the first book to disclose the extensive collaboration among Swiss banks, the Swiss government, and the Third Reich before and during World War II. Switzerland, supposedly neutral in the war, seemed a safe haven to desperate Jews who entrusted their wealth to its banks, believing that even if they died their families would inherit it. For more than fifty years, this money has provided free working capital for the banks. In addition to the dispute over dormant accounts, Swiss banks provided the Nazi war machine with foreign currency, which paid for vital war materiel such as chrome and aluminum.
In this powerful expose about Hitler's secret funding, James Pool tells the full story of the financial calculation, exploitation, and greed at the core of the Third Reich--including startling revelations about those who provided Hitler with money and the moral support he needed. The current furor over Nazi money held in Swiss banks makes this book extremely timely. photos. Print reviews.
Erik Larson, New York Times bestselling author of Devil in the White City, delivers a remarkable story set during Hitler’s rise to power. The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Nazi Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another, including with the suprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance—and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler’s true character and ruthless ambition. Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the period, and with unforgettable portraits of the bizarre Göring and the expectedly charming--yet wholly sinister--Goebbels, In the Garden of Beasts lends a stunning, eyewitness perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity. The result is a dazzling, addictively readable work that speaks volumes about why the world did not recognize the grave threat posed by Hitler until Berlin, and Europe, were awash in blood and terror.
The sensational story of a cache of masterpieces not seen since they vanished during the Nazi terror—a bizarre tale of a father and aged son, of secret deals, treachery and the search for truth.
‘The contribution made by American capitalism to German war preparations can only be described as phenomenal. It was certainly crucial to German military capabilities... Not only was an influential sector of American business aware of the nature of Naziism, but for its own purposes aided Naziism wherever possible (and profitable) - with full knowledge that the probable outcome would be war involving Europe and the United States.’ Penetrating a cloak of falsehood, deception and duplicity, Professor Antony C. Sutton reveals one of the most remarkable but unreported facts of the Second World War: that key Wall Street banks and American businesses supported Hitler’s rise to power by financing and trading with Nazi Germany. Carefully tracing this closely guarded secret through original documents and eyewitness accounts, Sutton comes to the unsavoury conclusion that the catastrophic Second World War was extremely profitable for a select group of financial insiders. He presents a thoroughly documented account of the role played by J.P. Morgan, T.W. Lamont, the Rockefeller interests, General Electric Company, Standard Oil, National City Bank, Chase and Manhattan banks, Kuhn, Loeb and Company, General Motors, the Ford Motor Company, and scores of others in helping to prepare the bloodiest, most destructive war in history. This classic study, first published in 1976 - the third volume of a trilogy - is reproduced here in its original form. (The other volumes in the series study the 1917 Lenin-Trotsky Revolution in Russia and the 1933 election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States.)
