The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1945-11-23
News ~
BEHIND,
THENE||||N|{lSii||gE1
Do Dam MATvON
LEADING GERMAN TELLS
OF NAZI QUALIFICATIONS
By PAUL MALLON

sue Tile ItlduilOuSG VI Tic NdZi StdtS
has been obtained by our intelligence
people from captured leaders.
This clears much Of the foolish
ness glibly aired by Hitler officers in
their interviews with news reporters
-or, at all accounting, the state
ment of one DR.. Schacht does.
Schacht was the only high
German who had an intelligent
mind. II was he who c0ntrived
the clever financial and econom-
ic subterfugeS by which Hitler
built a bankrupt state into q
world threat in few years. He
Is DR.. Hjalmer Horace Greeley
(imagine that old American
journalistic middle name)
Schacht. He quit Berlin when
the arms expenditures started
going mad at Hitler's direction,
and was found informed by our
invading armies.
His opinion of top Nazis:
Hitler: 81 would not believe Hit
Ter dead if he told me so himself"
Herman Goering, the fat right
hand man of Hitler: "a fool, cow
ard, and always liar. He was in
all things ignorant, and charla-
TAM"
Goebbels, the propaganda: "a
terrible liar but the best brain in the
government, as well as most cou-
rageous man."
Himmler, who handled the disci-
pline through secret police, purges
and terror: "a dreadful, horrible
man"
HITLER'S FAILING MIND
Thyssen, who financed Hitler into
power and then broke with him
when the pogrom started: ga weak
ling Of inherited wealth." (Thyssen
incidentally was captured by Hitler
in the occupation Of Paris in 1910
and was kept in concentration
camp, where our people found him
very old and frail man.)
Schacht, I think, gives the goods
on the Nazi leaders more honestly
and accurately than any other one.
OF the limitations of Hitler's mind,
he says Der Fuehrer never realized
the war was lost, although the 9TH
ers realized it year or more be-
fore the end.
Hitler never dared hold cab
met meeting after 1888 because
those with intelligence I'm his
own group constantly opposed
his wild planning. General Udet,
for one instance, dared express
opposition merely to the GOer-
ing shOrtsighted air policy, and
after correctly predicting Goer-
ing would lose German air SUI
periOrity by 1914, shot himself.
They were all very ordinary men,
less than average in acufnen and
warped bitterly and realistically.
The only way they could keep them
selves in power to work their mad
destiny was by crushing all common
sense and sitting any voice of rea-
son. Not one, in character, foresight
or any genuine virtue, could COM
pare with the great men of history.
From Schacht also comes the first
clear picture of secret German f.
nance, the bookkeeping magic by
which the Nazis defied arithmetic
for a time. He says Hitler started
really arming for the war first in
1887 and 1888 when his budgets con-
tanned three billion marks (both
years. for ornaments. This was
at the time when Mr.. Roosevelt was
submitting amiable plans for world
peace and thinking the removal Of
trade barriers would do it.
The Swiss quotation on the mark
then was around three cents, which
would mean the annual arms budget
was around 0,000, 900 in our cur
rency-two-fifths of which went for
the air force then, as thereafter, un-
til the end of the war. The money
was raised by bond issues bearing
3h per cent interest and the banks
were required to take them.
Schacht protested to Hitler in 1888
that the system he had set up to
beat bankruptcy could not stand
such expenditures, and after a cou-
| pie of scenes with Hitler, he quit.
The amount of currency outstanding
then was only billion marks, but
thereafter Hitler inflated it 10 times,
to 80 billion marks.
The debt when Schacht left was
around 80 billion marks and Hitler
ran it up to 450 billion at the wars
end, quintupling. it. This would seem
to make the Nazi war cost around 430
billion marks, of which about 70 bill
lion was raised by imitation, and 800
billion by Selling the savings and
working money of citizens through
bond issues imposed on the banks.
At a three-cent mark, the cost
could be computed roughly at some
where around $4,000, 000. 900.
| Americas war effort has increased
the debt from about $3.50, 000, 000, 900,
without considering tax receipts
which reached $45, 900, 000, 900 last
year. OF course Hitler was not re-
quired to finance the world, and
gave little aid even to his ally, Italy.
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