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Sisyphus Press -- P.O. Box 10495 State College, Pa. 16805-0495 Who Financed Hitler by James & Suzanne Pool For Orders in U.S. only) $14.99 plus $15.99 for S&H. AIR MAIL: For Canadian + International Orders (U.S. checks, money orders, or currency only - no Canadian checks, money orders, or currency) |
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Adolf Hitler did not come to power easily. He began his political career in 1919 and did not become Chancellor until fourteen years later in 1933. During this time it took a tremendous sum of money to support the Nazi Party. Where it came from, who provided, and why, are the topics of this book. There have been many books written on the Nazi period, but this most important aspect of Hitler's activity - one of the very keys to his success - has never been dealt with. One reason is that much of the information about financial contributions has only recently come to light, but the primary reason is an understandable reluctance to acknowledge the ease with which money can subvert the democratic process. History is replete with unsavory tales of political financing, and there is a serious question whether democratic principles can ever ultimately be upheld in an atmosphere of unsupervised and unpublicized political fund raising. Perhaps the newly created German democracy was more vulnerable than most free societies, yet the story of how Hitler found the necessary money to undermine the Weimar Republic has universal impl9ications. In Germany from 1919 to 1933, political parties were little more than tools for powerful interest groups. Hitler was quick to recognize this and turn his formidable and nefarious talents to the talk of fund raising. His methods were unscrupulous. At first he courted the powerful; then as his party grew in size and strength, he was perfectly willing to use blackmail and bribery to gain his ends. But it must be admitted that he knew the value of money: that it could purchase almost all the necessary resources of politics, such as propaganda campaigns, newspaper coverage, full-time staff, etc. In short, Hitler knew that money meant power. It is even partly true that Hitler was able to sell an evil idea like anti-Semitism simply because he had the support of wealthy contributors. By continuous propaganda even the greatest untruth will be believed by some people. There were many anti-Semites in Germany long before Hitler, but they belong3ed to small splinter parties that were ineffective because of their endless squabbling. Large donations provided Hitler with the needed tools to organize these fringe elements and turn them into a major political force. Discovering the exact sums of contributions and the identity of these contributors is not an easy task. Money moves silently as well as easily. Cash leaves no tracks. Checks can be laundered - passed through intermediaries and false corporations - to obscure the original source of funds. But, despite the difficulties, the search is worthwhile. Money is the tracer element in the study of political power. Light thrown upon transactions involving financing illuminates the flow of both influence and power. Hitler was launched on his political career by a wealthy and powerful secret society, none of whose members were big businessmen. Other funds came from the most unexpected sources. Germany's most important Jewish industrialist even gave to the Nazis - to make them dependent on his money in hopes of eventually disrupting them. Hitler got some of his biggest "contributions" by first discovering the corrupt dealings between certain big industrialists and prominent liberal politicians, and then blackmailing the industrialists with threats of exposure. Hitler's fund raising gave birth to many of the techniques of covert funding and dirty tricks that later became the stock in trade of most major governments. The double subsidiary corporations through which Captain Ernst Rohm channeled army funds to Hitler were so secret in their operations that, even after the government became aware of the missing money, the corporations were able to continue functioning undetected for about a year. One of the most important and unexpected discoveries of this study is the importance of foreign financing in bringing Hitler to power. Hitler received money from Austria, Britain, Czechoslovakia, Finland, France, Italy, Holland, Hungary, Switzerland, Sweden, and the United States. It is true that some money came from Germans living in these countries, but most of it came from prominent foreign citizens. Their motives varied: Henry Ford wanted to spread his anti-Semitic philosophy, Mussolini hoped to encourage German fascism, Grand Duchess Victoria of Russia wanted to support anti-Communism, Sir Henri Deterding aimed to get back his oil interests confiscated by the Communists, etc. Thos who financed Hitler, both Germans and the foreigners, are just as responsible for his coming to power as the active Nazis who spread anti-Semitic propaganda or fought in the streets. Yet, because of their influence and the power of money, few of them were prosecuted at Nuremberg. Many are now exposed here for the first time. Reviews "One of the most illuminating studies of Nazism, this book explains how, in a decade, the Nazi Party developed from a meager collection of poor crackpots into a national organization...The most famous foreign contributors were the American Henry Ford, the Italian Benito Mussolini, and the Anglo-Dutch oil magnate Henri Deterding....The party's remorseless techniques for extracting every pfennig from its desperate followers suggest that Nazism of that period should be classified as a cult or sect, not as a party." - The New Yorker "Revealing, well documented." - San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle "It touches on a universal problem: the ease with which money can subvert the democratic process.... Well written and copiously documented." - Newsday |
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