Chapter 40 Britain's "Hitler Plan"

The instability of the international monetary order since the Versailles Peace Conference, which was imposed on the defeated countries of central Europe by London and New York bankers, came to an abrupt halt in 1929.Montague Norman, then governor of the Bank of England, the most influential central bank in the world, contributed to the Wall Street stock market crash in October 1929.Norman asked George Harrison, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, to raise interest rates in the United States.Harrison complied, and within months the most dramatic financial and economic collapse in American history ensued.

By early 1931, Montague Norman and a small group on the British side were plotting to change the political state of Central Europe in unexpected ways.At that time, the largest banking institution in Austria was the Credit Bank Vienna.During the 1920s, Königsbank worked closely with the Austrian branch of the Rothschild family, growing by acquiring troubled smaller banks. In October 1929, at a time when the stock market was plummeting, the authorities asked the Wien Credit Bank to take over the Vienna Real Estate Trust Bank, and one of the largest mergers and acquisitions was forced on the Vienna Credit Bank.In previous years, Vienna Realty Bank has also swallowed several troubled banks.

At the beginning of 1931, in people's minds, the Vienna Credit Bank was one of the most powerful banks in the world.In fact, it is terminally ill.The harsh conditions imposed by Britain, France, and the United States through the Treaty of Versailles dismembered the Austro-Hungarian Empire, cutting off the Austrian economy from valuable economic ties and supplies of raw materials to Eastern European countries such as Hungary.Austria's industrial economy never recovered from the devastation of World War I.The entire Austrian industry is in dire straits, full of abandoned factories, obsolete equipment, and huge war loans that have not been paid off.The political environment in Austria in the 1920s handed over much of collapsing Austrian industry to the expanding credit banks.

Thus, before the beginning of 1931, Austria in general, and the Credit Bank of Vienna in particular, were a weak link in the chain of international funds and credit on the unhealthy foundation laid by the Morgan Bank in New York in association with the Bank of England and other banks in London. built on.Credit Bank Vienna could not obtain enough capital from the stagnant Austrian economy to support its operations and had to rely increasingly on short-term loans from London and New York.The Bank of England was an important lender to the Vienna Credit Bank. In March 1931, the French government and French Foreign Minister Brand announced their firm opposition to the announced negotiations between Berlin and Vienna for the conclusion of an Austro-German trade and customs union, but this attempt to suppress the The efforts of the spreading depression were too late.

France reportedly ordered its banks to cut short-term loans to the Vienna Credit Bank in a bid to put pressure on the Austrian government.The following May, a credit crisis that shook Europe erupted as rumors of a run on the Vienna Credit Bank emerged in the Vienna press.The Austrian National Bank, and ultimately Austria as a whole, was forced to do everything possible to solve the crisis of the Vienna Credit Bank, which led to the largest bank failure in history.Later analysis showed that, in fact, the crisis had never reached such a serious degree.The intention of certain powerful financiers in London and New York was to prepare for a major change in European geopolitics.By the 1920s, a small group of elites in Britain and the United States had decided to support Germany in its radical path.

Morgan's bankers had already demonstrated that top-down political solutions to securing bank loan repayments worked, when they lent foreign credit to the fascist regime led by Italian political strongman Benito Mussolini. example. In November 1925, Italian Finance Minister Misrata announced that the Mussolini government had reached an agreement on repaying the Versailles war reparations due to Italy to Britain and the United States. , announced a crucial $100 million loan to Italy to stabilize the Italian lira. In fact, Morgan had decided to contribute to the consolidation of Mussolini's fascist regime.At the urging of Morgan & Co. and Bank of England governor Montagu Norman, Misrata established the Italian central bank, the Bank of Italy, in 1926 to control the country's monetary policy and further ensure repayment of foreign debts .Mussolini showed the world that he was a strong man in tuning Italian unions, lowering wages and enforcing effective austerity to guarantee foreign bank loans, or so the Morgans of New York thought.

The man who controlled U.S. monetary policy at the time was Benjamin Strong, a former JP Morgan banker who was also a close friend and collaborator of Bank of England governor Montagu Norman.Strong met with Misuneta and Bank of Italy Governor Bernardo Schenhe to work out the final details of Italy's "stabilization" plan. In the 1920s, this same group of powerful men, including Morgan & Co., Montagu Norman and the New York Federal Reserve, organized very effectively to exercise economic control over much of the continent from Poland to Romania. Banks, their pretext is to establish "credible" national policy, which is the early prototype of the International Monetary Fund in the 1980s.New York banks acted as a huge source of short-term funding for borrowing, and the Bank of England, along with the British Foreign Office, provided political experience for policy implementation.

In the 1920s, Germany was the country that troubled the Anglo-Saxons (British Americans) the most. In 1923, after they successfully pushed Halma Schacht to the position of President of the Reichsbank, Schacht immediately stepped up the implementation of the Dawes repayment plan drafted by Morgan. Rely on London and New York banks and their partners in Paris.For these banks, these short-term loans to Germany were the most profitable business in the entire world financial market at that time.For many German banks, including the fourth-largest bank, the National Bank of Darmstadt (Darnat Bank), there has been a substantial reliance on short-term capital borrowing in New York and London, albeit with high and punitive interest rates . In the early 1920s, the hyperinflation of the Weimar period had decimated the capital and reserves of several of Germany's major banks. The lending expansion of German banks in the late 1920s was based on an unstable small capital base, mainly to avoid defaults and other crises.When the New York stock market crashed in 1929-1930, Germany was unique among the major European industrial countries.The total amount of borrowing it owes foreign banks in these short-term debts is estimated at 16 billion Reichsmarks.

It's an unhealthy banking structure that needs the slightest sign of trouble to completely collapse.It was the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Bank of England that caused the turmoil. In 1929, they took a series of actions to raise interest rates after two years of low interest rates, fueling unprecedented stock market speculation.In anticipation of a crash in New York and London, U.S. and U.K. banks began withdrawing funds en masse from Germany and Austria. On May 13, 1931, the bomb fuze was ignited. On that day, the Vienna Credit Bank collapsed.The French decided to impose a monetary penalty on Austria for negotiating a customs union with Germany.Crédit Vienna is a Rothschild bank with strong ties to the French banking industry.When French funds were withdrawn from Austria, the fragile Credit Bank of Vienna, Austria's largest bank with a large interest in about 70% of Austria's industry, collapsed.In order to prevent a run on the Vienna Credit Bank, the Austrian banks withdrew all funds deposited in German banks.Credit Bank became the weakest link in triggering the domino collapse of the entire Central European Bank.

In Austria and Germany, the ensuing banking crisis, depression, and related series of tragic developments were led by Bank of England Governor Montague Norman, New York Fed President George Harrison, and It was carefully planned and directed by the Morgan family and their Wall Street friends.They made a decision to cut all lending to Germany, and even a nominal rollover at an early stage might have prevented the crisis from spiraling out of control. Instead, capital began to flow out of Germany in large numbers.At the behest of Montagu Norman and George Harrison, the new Reichsbank president, Hans Luther, was compliant and did nothing to prevent the collapse of the great German bank.The Danat Bank in Germany failed as a direct consequence of the collapse of the Credit Bank Vienna.For Danat Bank, which relied heavily on foreign loans, it lost almost 100 million marks in deposits in May of that year.The following month, Danat Bank lost another 848 million marks, or 40 percent of its total deposits.Meanwhile, Dresdner Bank lost 10% of its deposits, and even Deutsche Bank lost 8%.By late June, Bankers Trust, a Morgan family bank, had cut its lending to Deutsche Bank.

Harrison asked Reichsbank President Hans Luther to implement a tough credit crunch, tightening Germany's capital markets, saying that was the only way to stem the outflow of foreign capital.What followed was the total collapse of the German banking system and German industry plunged into the worst depression imaginable. Montague Norman supported Harrison in blaming Germany for the crisis, and was later joined by the governor of the Bank of France.Despite a last-ditch effort by Germany's Bruning government to persuade Luther to seek emergency stabilization credit from other central banks to contain the nationwide banking crisis, Luther refused.When Luther finally had to back down and ask Montague Norman for help, he was turned away.As a result, Germany could not find a lending bank, and it was at the end of its rope. By July 1931, about two months after the collapse of the Vienna Credit Bank, the floodgates of capital outflows from Germany had opened, and the Basel newspaper Nation reported that the Danat Bank was in "distress" and that at this critical juncture , the report was enough to spark a full-blown run on the bank.Danat Bank chairman Goldschmidt later denounced Reichsbank's discriminatory allocation of credit ratios as a targeted failure of his bank. The ensuing banking crisis and industrial collapse from the winter of 1931 to 1932 resulted in what became widely known in Germany as "the coldest winter in a century".This provides a breeding ground for radical political options. In March 1930, months before Anglo-American bankers forcibly cut off credit to Germany, Schacht, president of the Reichsbank, surprised the German government by submitting his resignation.The real reason for his resignation was that the Swedish industrialist and financier Ivar Krüger (the famous Swedish "Match King") proposed to the German government a loan of 500 million Reichsmarks as an emergency stabilization credit.After the London and New York banks canceled their loans to Germany and some other countries, Krüger and his American partner, Lee Higginson Bank, became the main lenders to these countries.But Krüger's loan proposal in early 1930 had explosive and unacceptable political implications for the long-term strategy of Montague Norman's friends.German Finance Minister Rudolf Hilferding urged Schacht to accept Krüger's loan, under the conditions set by the Dawes reparation plan that all foreign loans must be approved by Schacht.But Schacht refused, and on March 6 he handed in his resignation to Reich President von Hindenburg.Schacht had other plans at the time. Some months later, Krüger was found dead in a Paris hotel.The official autopsy registered the cause of death as suicide.But decades later, Swiss researchers concluded after a detailed investigation that Krüger died of murder.While the actual details will forever be buried with Krüger's death, it was still certain people in London and New York who benefited most from Krüger's death.Krüger's death also ended Germany's hopes of saving itself.Germany's access to international loans was completely blocked. Since resigning from Reichsbank, Schachter has been far from idle.All his energies were devoted to raising funds for a man whom he and his friend Norman, the governor of the Bank of England, were optimistic about, a man who would bring Germany into crisis again. From 1926, Schacht became a secret supporter of the National Socialist Workers' Party (NSDAP, Adolf Hitler's Nazi party).After resigning from the Reichsbank, Schacht was torn between powerful but suspicious German industrial leaders (mainly the "industrial magnates" of the Ruhr area) and foreign financial leaders (notably Lord Norman in England) Served as the main liaison. At this juncture, Britain's policy is to formulate the "Hitler Plan", and everyone has a tacit understanding of the geopolitical and military goals of this plan.Half a century later, in a related private discussion, Air Force Colonel David Stirling, founder of Britain's elite Special Air Force, said, "The biggest mistake we made in Britain was that we thought we could provoke The German Empire turned against the Russian Empire, pitted them against each other, and lost both." British support for Hitler's plans culminated, including with Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, notorious for the 1938 Munich appeasement agreement that led to Hitler's troops marching into the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia.Philip Kerr (later Lord Lothian) (member of the Cecil Rhodes Round Table we mentioned earlier) was a close adviser to Prime Minister Chamberlain.Lord Lothian, like Lord Beaverbrook, the most influential figure in the British press at the time who controlled circulation Huge Daily Express and Evening Standard.But perhaps the most influential supporter of Hitler in Britain at the time was the Prince of Wales, who became Edward VIII at the beginning of 1936 and abdicated at the end of the same year, and has remained relentlessly supportive of Hitler. Certain heavyweights in the establishment were well aware of Hitler's plans.In the early stages of the Nazi movement, Wall Street and State Department insiders got a lot of intelligence.Even before the ill-fated Munich "beer hall putsch" of 1923, Robert Murphy, a U.S. State Department official in Munich who occupied Germany as part of the Treaty of Versailles, had personally met the young Hitler through General Erich Ludendorff.Murphy would go on to become a central figure in the postwar Bilderberg Club.Murphy worked for Allen Dulles in Bern during World War I, collecting intelligence on Germany.Murphy was in Munich with another influential U.S. government official, Truman Smith, who was tasked with gathering intelligence for U.S. forces occupying Germany. Smith later recalled in his memoirs his arrival in Munich in the second half of 1922: On the issue of National Socialism (Nazi), I met Mr. Robert Murphy, the consul in Munich (later to become a very distinguished American ambassador), Erich General Ludendorff, Crown Prince Rupert of Bavaria and Alfred Rosenberg (later political philosopher of the Nazi party) talked for a long time.During this visit, I also often saw Ernst Hanforstengel, nicknamed "Pucci", from a famous Munich art family. "Pucci" graduated from Harvard University and later became Hitler's foreign affairs press director... My meeting with Hitler lasted several hours.The diaries I kept in Munich show that I was deeply moved by Hitler's personality and thought he might play an important role in German political life. In a report to his superiors in Washington in November 1922, Smith made the following recommendations regarding the evaluation of Hitler's clique.Referring to Hitler, Smith argues: His fundamental aim was to overthrow Marxism...to win labor support for nationalist ideals of state and property...The conflict of party interests had shown that it was no longer possible to bring Germany out of its current predicament through democracy. possible. His goal was to establish a national dictatorship through non-parliamentary means.Once the goal was achieved, he demanded that war reparations be reduced to a reasonable amount. If an agreement is reached on a reasonable amount, it must be paid exactly. This is a matter of national honor.To achieve this goal, dictators must introduce universal reparations services and use the power of the state to enforce them.While in effect, his powers cannot be obstructed by any legislature or parliament.  … To make sure his colleagues in Washington's Military Intelligence got the point, Smith added his own personal assessment of Hitler: "In private conversations he displayed a persuasive and logical oratorical charisma, with occasional fanatical enthusiasm, even if Even a neutral listener will be very impressed." In the late autumn of 1931, a man from Germany came to the subway station in Liverpool Street, London.His name was Alfred Rosenberg Rosenberg met Geoffrey Dawson, editor-in-chief of The Times of London.In the months that followed, The Times produced invaluable positive international publicity for Hitler and his movement.But the most important event during Rosenberg's first trip to England in 1931 was a meeting with Bank of England Governor Montague Norman, then the most influential figure in international finance.According to his most trusted private secretary, Norman hated the French, Catholics and Jews the most.Norman and Rosenberg found that they talked very well.The intermediary who introduced Rosenberg to Norman was Schachter.From their first meeting in 1924, Schacht and Norman's friendship lasted until Norman's death in 1945. Rosenberg wrapped up his momentous trip to London after meeting with a leader of Schroeder Bank in London.Schroeder Bank London was a branch of Schroeder Bank New York and a private bank in Cologne, Baron von Schroeder's Steinbank.The head of Schroeder Bank of London that Rosenberg met was named Tiax, who was also a director of the Bank of England and a close friend of Montagu Norman. After 1931, when Schacht and Baron von Schröder approached leaders of German industry and finance seeking support for the National Socialist Workers Party, the first of these nervous and skeptical German industrialists proposed The question was: "What does the international financial community, and Montague Norman in particular, think of the future of the German government under Hitler?" Would Norman be willing to extend financial credit to Germany if Hitler came to power?The reality was that at the critical moment in the 1930 general election, Hitler's National Socialist Volunteer Party had just over 6 million votes, and the international support of Montague Norman, Tiax and friends in London was decisive role. On January 4, 1932, at the Cologne estate of Baron von Schroeder, Adolf Hitler, von Papen and the Cologne banker von Schroeder conspired to provide financial support for Hitler's National Socialist Workers Party, Until Hitler came to power as planned.At that time, the German National Socialist Workers Party was already heavily in debt and unable to repay it.Hitler and von Papen also met on January 4, 1933 at von Schroeder's Cologne estate, where they finalized a plan to overthrow the weak Sneicher government and create a right-wing coalition government. On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler became Reich Chancellor. In May 1933, Alfred Rosenberg, a central figure in Hitler's new government, visited London for the last time.He came straight to the country estate of Sir Henry Deterding, head of Royal Dutch Shell and arguably the most influential man in the world, in Buckhurst Park near Ascot Racecourse. merchant.According to the British press, the two had a lively and important conversation.Rosenberg first met Deterding during a visit to London in 1931.Royal Dutch Shell has very close ties to and supports the NSDAP.Although the details are kept secret, the British press reports of the day say with certainty that Deterding provided Hitler with huge financial support in the early critical period. During the critical period of 1931, Norman and the Bank of England steadfastly refused to lend Germany even a penny, thus causing a financial and unemployment crisis, making a man with extremist ideas like Hitler, in the eyes of the German leadership. is also acceptable. In the first half of 1933, Hitler had just consolidated power, and it was this same Montagu Norman who was eager to jump in and provide Hitler's government with a crucial Bank of England loan. In May 1934, Norman made a special visit to Berlin to make further secret arrangements for the new government's financial stability.In return, Hitler arranged for Schacht, a good friend of Norman's, to become Minister of Economy and concurrently President of the Reichsbank.Until 1939, Schacht held the post of Reichsbank president.