Descrizione

8vo, hardcover in dj, Xii, 361 Pp. HITLER'S BANKER is a full-scale biography of Hjalmar Schacht, one of history's premier financial wizards. Chief Architect of the Nazi economy, Schacht's rampant inflation financed the creation of the most powerful war machine in Europe out of the rubble of a devastated Weimar Republic. Weitz chronicles Schacht's early life and his meteoric success in the international banking world, deftly juxtaposing the twentieth-century history of Germany itself. HITLER'S BANKER is the riveting life story of a man imprisoned by Hitler because of his anti-Nazi sentiments and charged as a war criminal by the Allies. Exonerated of all charges at Nuremberg, Schacht lived to become a successful author and economic adviser to foreign nations, and a wealthy private banker. From the Publisher: Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht was a genius, an eccentric, and an enigma. Singleñhandedly halting Germanyís runaway inflation and freeing the country from the crippling reparation debts imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, he gained worldwide fame as the economic guru of Nazi Germany. Yet while he financed Hitlerís military regime, he held most Nazis in contempt and frequently clashed with its hierarchy ó and Hitler himself ó over antiñJewish laws and war spending. Before the war was over, Schacht had been imprisoned in Dachau; later, he was one of only three defendants to be acquitted at the Nuremberg trials. John Weitzís riveting biography illuminates this complex figure ó a skilled manipulator of money, men and governments ó and the chilling, brutal, and grimly fascinating history of 20thñcentury Germany.