Schacht, Hjalmar

Schacht, Hjalmar (1877–1970),apolitical financial architect of the Third Reich who served as president of the Reichsbank 1923–30 and 1933–9, plenipotentiary for war economy 1935–7, minister of economic affairs from August 1934 to November 1937, and finally minister without portfolio until January 1943. He came to oppose Hitler's policy of increased rearmament, which he considered inflationary. Initially his international reputation gave him immunity domestically but he eventually resigned his ministerial positions in 1937 after making ‘it clear to the Four-year Plan commissioner and Hitler himself that he regarded their foreign-currency, manufacturing, and financial policy “as incorrect” ’ ( W. Deist, et al., Germany and the Second World War, Vol. 1, Oxford, 1990, p. 314). Gö;ring, with whom he had frequently clashed over economic matters, took his place. He joined the resistance against Hitler and was arrested after the failure of the July 1944 bomb plot (see Schwarze Kapelle). After spending the rest of the war in concentration camps, he was acquitted at the Nuremberg trials. See also world trade and world economy.