Seeing the Reich to Come. Under cover as a Reuters correspondent samt om Hitler och Brüning
A professor of philosophy—and occasional spy for Britain—sent back early warnings from his time in Germany after World War I.
After emerging from four years of largely genteel captivity in Germany, the young scholar was recruited in London by Britain’s nascent Secret Intelligence Service, or SIS (the department later known as MI6). As his biographer puts it: “In 1918, no Briton knew more about Germany than Bell.”
SIS quickly dispatched Winthrop, under cover as a Reuters correspondent, back to Germany, which was attempting to reinvent itself as a liberal democracy.
Most of “Cracking the Nazi Code” focuses on the immediate aftermath of World War I, when Winthrop lobbied for the Allies to ease up on their rush to punish Germany.
He did so openly as a journalist filing impassioned stories about the threat of mass starvation and covertly in his SIS role.
Mr. Bell credits his subject with playing a major role in persuading the Allies to lift their food blockade of Germany in March 1919.
Winthrop was hardly the only observer who pointed out the disastrous economic conditions that were fueling massive unrest in Germany. (John Maynard Keynes, for one, blasted the harsh terms imposed by the Treaty of Versailles in his 1919 book, “The Economic Consequences of the Peace.”)
He argued that if Germany could achieve economic stability, with strong support from its former enemies, the domestic extremists would be contained. During the mid-1920s, such an outcome looked quite plausible.
It would take the global fallout from the 1929 stock-market crash to turbo-charge Hitler’s movement.
Andrew Nagorski Wall Street Journal 30 April 2024
Cracking the Nazi Code: The Untold Story of Agent A12 and the Solving of the Holocaust Code by Jason Bell
"The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919)"
https://www.internetional.se/monekeynes.html#ecpkeynes
The Germans should remember that Brüning was the finance minister who tried fiscal tightening in the 30s and paved the way for Hitler.
He helped President Paul von Hindenburg win reelection in the spring of 1932, but on May 30 of that year Brüning resigned, a victim of intrigues by General Kurt von Schleicher and others around Hindenburg.
The immediate cause of his dismissal was his project to partition several bankrupt East Elbian estates.
Hindenburg, himself an eastern landowner, considered this plan Bolshevism, and his withdrawal of confidence left Brüning with no choice but to resign.
https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2015/03/euron-ar-ett-fullskaleexperiment-for.html
Den tyska hyperinflationen. Den uppmärksamme läsaren noterar hoppet på nio år från 1924 till 1933.
Vad hände då?
The Nazis only won 32 Reichstag seats in the election of May 1924, and just 12 in 1928.
The Economist
Samt Hur det kom sig att England övergav guldmyntfoten 1931
https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2023/04/what-germans-think-they-know-about.html
Winthrop Bell: a Canadian spy who predicted Nazi horrors
History Extra podcast
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