Hjalmar schacht death

Primary Sources

(1) Hjalmar Schacht wrote about meeting Adolf Hitler for the first time in his autobiography Confessions of an Old Wizard (1956)

After the many rumours that we had heard about Hitler and the published criticisms we had read about him, we were pleasantly impressed. His appearance was neither pretentious nor affected.

Our talk quickly turned to political and economic problems. His skill in exposition was most striking. Everything he said he stated as incontrovertible truth; nevertheless, his ideas were not unreasonable.

(2) Hjalmar Schacht, speech in Leipzig (4th March, 1935)

My so-called foreign friends do neither me nor the situation nor themselves any good when they try to bring me into opposition to the allegedly impossible National Socialist economic theories and declare me to some extent the protector of economic reason. I can assure you that everything I say and do has the complete approval of the Fuehrer and that I would not say or do anything that does not have his approval.

(3) Hjalmar Schacht, speech in Koenigsberg (18th August, 1935)

The Jews must realize that their influence in Germany has disappeared for all time. We wish to keep our people and our culture pure and distinctive, just as the Jews have always demanded this of themselves. But the solution of these problems must be brought about under state leadership, and cannot be left to unregulated individual actions, which have a disturbing influence on the national economy, and which have therefore been repeatedly forbidden by governmental as well as Party agencies.

The economy is a very sensitive organism. Every disturbance, from whatever direction it may come, acts as sand in the machine. Since our economy is closely allied with that of foreign countries, not one of us can be indifferent to what consequences these disturbances can have at home and abroad.

(4) Hjalmar Schacht, letter to Hermann Goering (November, 1942)

The repeated announcements that the Russian resistance was definitely broken have been proved to be untrue. Allied supplies of arms to Russia, and the manpower reserves of Russia have been sufficient to bring continuous counter-attacks against our Eastern Front.

(5) Hermann Goering letter to Hjalmar Schacht (21st January, 1943)

My answer to your defeatist letter, that undermines the powers of resistance of the German people, is that I expel you herewith from the Prussian State Council.

(6) Edward Heath, The Course of My Life (1988)

I looked towards the dock. In two rows often they sat: Goring, reduced to wearing a plain, ill-fitting grey uniform - no medals now - alert and attentive, vigorously nodding his head in agreement or shaking it in denial; Hess, with his pale pinched face; von Ribbentrop, always busy writing notes; Keitel and Jodi, the soldiers, staring silently and sullenly ahead; Schacht, the businessman, whose relationship with the Nazis had been more turbulent, and who had distaste etched into his face at having to sit in public with such unpleasant people; von Papen and von Neurath, politicians both but still the diplomats, polished and immaculate. These all stood out. But how unimpressive were Seyss-Inquart, who had betrayed Austria and ruled occupied Holland; Rosenberg and Fritsche, the propagandists; and von Schirach, formerly a fanatical and dangerous young zealot, but now a visibly broken man. For a time, the whole free world had quaked before these men. Ultimately, however, they had brought not glory, but ruin and misery, to their own land and its people. We had lived in their shadow for a decade, but now history was free to deliver a final verdict upon them.

When the court adjourned for a quarter of an hour, I saw the Nazi leaders arguing heatedly among themselves about the evidence they had heard: evidence which had been gathered from every corner of Europe, from the Chancelleries and concentration camps, from the occupied countries and from Germany itself, of how the Nazis plunged the world into war, led Germany to its undoing and brought themselves, at last, into the dock in that Court House in Nuremberg.