Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

332 DER FUEHRERlic was the broadening and strengthening of the system of socialinsurances; every wage-earner was automatically insured against illness,accidents, to some extent even against the dangers of old age. The mostimportant of these public insurances was that against unemploymentwhich in normal times actually Would have given the working man awonderful feeling of security. But somebody had to pay for thisprogress. The cost of social insurance embittered the employers evenmore than the question of wages. Between them and the trade unions ahostility grew up after 1926 that hardly had existed before 1924; theylaunched the slogan that the 'state socialism' of the Weimar Republicmust be broken. But an even heavier burden was heaped on theshoulders of German economy when the state, which after thestabilization had dismissed a great number of civil servants, nowreversed its policy and raised salaries considerably (1927).Hjalmar Schacht, president of the Reichsbank, traveled through thecountry, making speeches full of threats: the Germans were not savingenough; it was intolerable that German women should have a new hatevery year. The athletic fields, swimming pools, parks, public buildings,being built in the German cities were also intolerable. Parker Gilbert —agent for reparations payments, the 'American slaveholder, thetaskmaster of Wall Street,' as Hitler called him — made the samecomplaint. 'What if new foreign loans should cease to come in, withwhich to pay the greater part of our foreign indebtedness as we havedone up to now?' Schacht warned in 1927. 'Our products would have tobe sold abroad at dumping prices, workers and employers would have tomake the greatest sacrifices. ... I do not see the future calmly.' Hitlerread this and prophesied triumphandy: If ever Parker Gilbert's employersin Wall Street should withdraw their money from Germany, thewhole fine edifice of German economy would explode. How, exactly,would this come about? Hitler could imagine but one thing: there wouldbe a new inflation; no, it was already at hand; he thought he saw a'creeping inflation' — a grave error in detail, but not an unsoundjudgment on the whole.The influence of America on European development is one of themany features of the general complex that transformed all pros-