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

Chapter XXICHANCELLOR AT LASTON NEW YEAR'S DAY, HINDENBURG RECEIVEDSchleicher and his ministers and expressed his pleasure that 'the gravesthardships are overcome and the upward path is now open to us.'The waters had stopped rising; they will fall, said the economists. Wecannot wait, answered the politician. We must consider the mood of themasses, said Schleicher: to combat their distress, 'dikes must be builtinto economic life, even if they arc not a hundred per cent in agreementwith the laws of economic reason.' He said this in a kind of 'firesidechat' over the radio on December 15, 1932. 'My heretical view is that Iam a supporter neither of capitalism nor of socialism. For me conceptslike private economy or planned economy have lost their terrors.' Heeven had no respect for the holy property of the big landowners in theEast; 'settlement of peasants,' said he, 'must proceed more rapidly thanbefore'; on about eight hundred thousand acres of land he wanted tobuild twenty-five thousand small and medium farms, and these figures'could be increased considerably.'The old 'isms' were no longer valid. Hindenburg's youthful friend,Guenther Gereke, as 'commissar for re-employment,' started a bigprogram of public works with no less than one billion marks. Stop!cried Krupp grimly, that is inflation! 'No government acting this waycould escape the moral responsibility if the present beginnings of animprovement should be destroyed by a wave of distrust.' Industryfinally forced Schleicher to abandon his program