Hitler’s Banker: Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schaht

Weitz has written half a dozen successful books, most recently Hitler's Diplomat (1992), a popular biography of Joachim von Ribbentrop. Weitz's family had to flee the Nazis in 1938, and Weitz seems fascinated by the much-asked question of why "ordinary" people cooperated or collaborated with the Nazis. He pursues that issue again with this biography. Schacht was appointed president of the Reichsbank in 1923 and is acknowledged as one of the two most responsible for bringing Germany's hyperinflation under control. He resigned in a dispute over the plan for German reparations that had been crafted at the Hague in 1930. Hitler reappointed Schacht president of the Reichsbank in 1933 and also made him his minister of economics. Schacht is credited with again turning around the German economy, this time relying on armaments buildup. When he realized Hitler planned on using his new weapons to carry out a policy of aggression, Schacht protested, was arrested, and put into a concentration camp until 1944. Until now no popularly accessible material had been written about him. [David Rouse]