The Rise of the Third Reich

When Hirschmann returned to Berlin from his visit to England, it was the spring season and the leaves were turning green. Compared with London, which was also ravaged by the Great Depression, the city's situation looked better. There were more or less customers in the shops in the market, and the restaurants and cafes were not empty. However, the smell of gunpowder in this city is greater than that in London, and there are people in military uniforms everywhere. The expansion of the German Wehrmacht seems to have eased unemployment in Germany. From January to now, more than 500,000 German youths have been drafted into the army, most of them are unemployed. This expansion of the Wehrmacht is also a means to reduce unemployment, so priority is given to recruiting the unemployed. By.

However, these people in military uniforms on the streets of Berlin were not all Wehrmacht, but many were members of the Nazi stormtroopers. They were the backbone elite selected from the Volkssturm scattered around the country based on the National Socialist Armed SS Plan reached by Hitler and Hersmann. Some of these people, together with other Wehrmacht recruits, were concentrated in Potsdam Barracks and Zosen Barracks and were trained by officers sent by the Wehrmacht. On their days off, groups of people come to visit Berlin. Spend some of your salary and bring some business to Berlin's depressed retail and restaurant industries.

Together, the 500,000 Wehrmacht recruits and 100,000 Waffen SS soldiers reduced the number of unemployed by approximately 600,000, bringing the number of unemployed people in Germany to about 2 million.

However, the military pay required for these 600,000 recruits is the first problem that the Nazi Party-Fatherland People's Party coalition government that has just come to power needs to face.

In 1930, Germany's fiscal revenue was approximately 9.6 billion marks, which was certainly much better than in history. However, because the "Keynesian Plan" brought too much debt to the German government, the German government's actual financial situation is only limitedly stronger than historically.

The "Keynesian Plan" had not completely stopped by 1930. Germany continued to pay compensation for coal, steel, aircraft, cars, machinery and other products to France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Italy - allowing the government to bear huge interest support. In order to purchase the compensation products stipulated in the Keynesian Plan, the German government issued more than 10 billion long-term bonds with a face value. Although it did not need to repay the principal by 1930, it had to pay interest every year. In 1930 alone, it paid nearly Interest on 1 billion marks.

At the same time, the size of the German army, even before rearmament, was at least twice as large as in history, and the annual military expenditure was naturally nearly 500 million marks more.

Many of Germany's secret war preparation projects are carried out in the Baltic Republic. This made the Baltic Defense Forces extremely expensive, which the Baltic Republic could not afford. Therefore, the German government has provided at least 500 million marks in aid to the Baltic Republics every year since 1925.

The "Strategic Material Reserve Plan", which was officially implemented in 1923, gradually turned into a very expensive project. Since the Soviet Union implemented its first Five-Year Plan in 1928, the scale of Soviet-German cooperation has further expanded.

The value of technology and equipment exported to the Soviet Union every year exceeds 1.5 billion marks. Due to the barter trade situation, raw materials (mainly oil, crops, wood, manganese ore, copper ore, lead and zinc) are imported from the Soviet Union to Germany. Mines, furs, etc.) are also worth more than one billion marks. Since a large number of Soviet-German cooperation project contracts were signed in 1928 (the year when the Soviet Union started its First Five-Year Plan), the settlement price of the barter between the two parties was also finalized before the Great Depression.

Therefore, the Great Depression had little impact on Soviet-German cooperation. German technology and machinery and equipment were still sold to the Soviet Union at the "high prices" before the Great Depression, and the various resources used by the Soviet Union to pay bills were also priced at the pre-Great Depression prices. In theory, neither party suffered, but the German government became the "biggest victim".

It turns out that the raw materials paid by the Soviet Union to Germany were first delivered to the Economic Promotion Corporation, and then part of it was delivered by the Economic Promotion Corporation to domestic companies in Germany according to long-term sales contracts. The remaining part, no matter how much, was paid by the German government according to the predetermined contract price. The “National Strategic Reserve” is stockpiled.

However, after the Great Depression, Germany's domestic consumption of raw materials became less and less year by year. Many companies that signed purchase contracts with the Economic Promotion Corporation were unable to execute the contracts, and a large number of breaches of contract occurred. The German government could only bite the bullet and go out and store a large amount of Soviet raw materials. For this purpose, it not only had to pay a large amount of money to the Economic Promotion Corporation, but also spent additional money to build warehouses.

In addition, the use of barter to export machinery, equipment and weapons did not only exist between the Soviet Union and Germany. There are also varying amounts of barter cooperation between Germany and Italy, Japan, Turkey, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China and Siam. A lot of "bad debts" were also generated that the government took over.

The above "extra" expenditures were added together and amounted to 2.5 billion marks in 1930. As a result, Germany's financial situation was not much better than in the early 1930s in history.

Now that there are suddenly 600,000 more recruits, the annual "personnel expenses" alone will cost at least 6.7 billion marks. If you take into account the huge expenses of equipping, training and rebuilding the navy and air force, the German government's finances may not be able to cope with it even if they sell everything.

Therefore, in the days after Hitler came to power, various calls for reducing expenditures, especially military expenditures, became more common in parliament and newspapers.

Bolshevik Party and Social Democratic Party - Although the Nazi Party has been in power for almost two months, it has yet to take action against these two "November Sinners". Therefore, Germany is still basically a democratic country - it is extremely active. Not only has it proposed a disarmament bill in Congress, but it has also organized several anti-fascist demonstrations. Demand the immediate resignation of Schleicher and Hersmann, the fascist leaders of the military!

However, the Nazi Party seemed to have no interest in things other than "anti-Semitism". It only went all out to fight against the Jewish financial oligarchs, forcing many German Jewish wealthy families to withdraw from the banking industry and many large German companies to transfer their shares. To capitalists with close ties to the Nazi Party.

At this time, the situation in Germany seems to be a little difficult for Hessmann, a "traveler", to understand.

As soon as he returned to his residence in the Charlottenburg district, Hermann Göring, the minister of Hitler's cabinet (actually someone who had to take charge of everything, similar to a deputy prime minister), ran over dragging his fat body and asked A bottle of Heinkel champagne was brought, and the Hersmanns were invited to have a drink with them while they talked about the "hard push" of the New Deal.

After using the "Jewish Restriction Act" to attack the influence of German Jews in the banking industry, the Nazi Party and the Fatherland People's Party began to amend the "Banking Act", stipulating that: the independence of the Reichsbank Board of Directors was abolished, and the Reichsbank President and The appointment power of board members is transferred to the head of state (that is, the president, but the nomination power belongs to the prime minister); the Reichsbank is given the power to implement open market policies; the Reichsbank can discount "job creation bills" so that the new government can provide funds for job creation funds.

This "job creation bill" was proposed by Hitler's trusted economist Fedel, also known as "Fedel currency". It is mainly used to pay for special technical engineering projects in order to create jobs through engineering construction - in fact, it is printing Using banknotes to start projects is almost the same as the most commonly used economic stimulus method in later generations.

However, it was not generally accepted in 1931, so it encountered a lot of opposition. Even Hitler's Economics Minister Dr. Schacht raised objections. He was not opposed to the "job creation bill", but was worried about the loss of the Reichsbank. After independence, the mistakes of the early 1920s of excessive issuance of banknotes were repeated.

Therefore, several opposition political parties are preparing to join forces to veto the revision of the Banking Law in Congress. The Bolsheviks also threatened to organize protests - once the Banking Law was revised, they would tell the workers the "truth" and call on them to use a general strike to oppose it.

Because the Great Inflation of the early 1920s left too deep an impression on people, the Bolshevik Party's struggle is likely to succeed. Even if the protest is suppressed, the people will still know that the government is going to start printing money again to print marks.

And once the people lose confidence in Mark again, Hitler's New Deal will likely fail!

"Lieutenant General, you know more about economics than I do. You must know that the basis of banknotes is not gold at all, but people's confidence!" Göring, who looked clumsy because of his obesity, was lobbying Hersmann in a flattering tone while drinking heavily.

"If the Bolshevik Party is allowed to tell the truth, we will be finished." He said in a serious tone, "Then the whole of Germany will be finished, because no one will believe Mark anymore... The nightmares of 1922 and 1923 will happen again. ”

The "job creation bill" carefully packaged the fact of printing marks, but the essence has not changed, it is still printing money!

But the printing of banknotes now is very different from the printing of banknotes from 1918 to 1923. Now the whole world is experiencing deflation, and Germany is no exception. Banknotes have become a "scarce resource" - to put it bluntly, the supply of products far exceeds the number of banknotes, so there is no problem in spending more Marks.

Moreover, Germany has almost got rid of the Treaty of Versailles, and the compensation of more than 4 billion pounds can be completely ignored. Britain and France have nothing to do with the current Germany. Mark's "margin" is not a negative number in theory.

But after all, Germany has a "criminal record" that sells bread for hundreds of millions, so people who hold cash in Marks feel guilty. Once information comes out that "the government is using Marks to issue banknotes indiscriminately," it is very likely to cause a big collapse.