So who bankrolled
Hitler’s march to power in 1930s Germany? The answer is – the filthy rich.
In the early 1930s,
the Nazis were facing financial ruin, with Goebbels saying their situation was ‘hopeless’.
Then in stepped the bosses of two leading industrial companies - arms manufacturer Krupp and I G Farben, which would
make the poison gas used in the Nazi gas chambers. They appear to have been
impressed by Hitler’s promise to get rid of trade unions and communists.
Together they
raised 3 million Deutschmarks (worth about £22 million today) for the Nazis, and by the end of 1933, Hitler was Chancellor and I G Farben alone had donated about 4.5 million DM (c
£33 million). Leading figures in both companies would be tried at Nuremburg and convicted
of using slave labour among other crimes.
Hitler was quite
keen on building up a personal fortune. As early as 1925 he used party funds to
buy himself a luxury Mercedes, with a personal chauffeur. He made a lot of
money from his book Mein Kampf, helped by Germany’s practice of giving
it to newly married couples as a wedding present, but the Fuhrer was not
enthusiastic about paying taxes, and quickly got himself declared exempt.
No comments:
Post a Comment