GERMANY: Power of Jews, of Press

• Share

What did Herr Adolf Hitler's Fascist flash-in-the-pan (TIME, Aug. 25, et seq.) cost Germany? This question Teuton economists answered last week with a tentative, staggering figure: 1,600,000,000 marks ($380,800,000).

They estimated that the "Fascist scare" drove this sum out of Germany, and that it has not returned. Short-term foreign credits have been withdrawn. Germans themselves have sent their capital abroad.

Part of the Hitler fireworks was a gesture of menace at the jews. Instantly this remarkable people took steps. Dine with a leading German-Jewish banker today and you will note that: i) His plate is no longer gold or silver but china; 2) His women are either out of Germany altogether or if present are not wearing their jewels, which are probably in Paris, London or Amsterdam vaults. The banker has been getting his money out too. Silently the Jews have taken their precautions, taken upon Germany a terrible vengeance for the wild words of "Handsome Adolf."

To halt the flight of capital the German Reichsbank has had to put its discount rate up. This move has been successful. The flight has ceased. But with the rate 2% in Manhattan, 3% in London and 2% in Paris it was 5% last week in Berlin.

Up spoke Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, famed "Iron Man," still by common consent a spokesman for German finance, although resigned as Governor of the Reichsbank.

"No God will help us," said the Iron Man, "unless we help ourselves." He added that the German press could help by soft-pedaling, and he pleaded for this help and more:

"Germany's credit is damaged if one cables to the world that the so-called Hitler elections threatened Germany with civil war; if representatives of municipalities continue to talk about the prolongation of city loans; if one knows the finances of one's own country so little that even Ministers are forced to change their statements every few weeks; if one does not put an end to the socialistic policy of waste which has been lasting for seven years."