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

OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY 667balance; borrowed imports had ceased to exist, and every pound ofimported goods was honestly covered by exports. There is a smallsource of error in these figures; up to June, 1932, they included the socalled'payments in kind' with which Germany defrayed a part of herreparations; but the figures nevertheless reflect the general picture withfair accuracy. In 1933, the year of recovery, German exports continuedfalling to 4,800,000,000 marks; imports sank to 4,200,000,000.Germany's exports and imports had fallen off by almost two thirds;the patient seemed to be scarcely breathing. And yet the figures aremisleading; for the seemingly fatal blood-letting conceals a remarkablegain which became evident only beginning in 1932; a gain which wasmost helpful to National Socialist trade and decisively influenced theeconomic structure of the Third Reich. The diminishing trade figures ofGermany and the other European countries did in one way present anexaggerated picture. For while the bulk of goods exchanged on theworld market was dwindling, prices crashed at an even faster rate;consequently, if in one year exports were valued at 12,000,000,000marks and in a later year only at 4,000,000,000, this does not mean thatthe bulk of goods had fallen to one third. Possibly it had not even beenhalved; the greater part of the decline in value must be ascribed to thefall in prices. In 1927, German imports had a value of 1430,000,000marks and a weight of 82,200,000 tons; when in 1933 their value fell to4,200,000,000 marks, or considerably less than one third, their weightwas still 45,800,000 tons, or more than half.This discrepancy between value and weight gives only the roughestoudine of the process. Using a subtler and more accurate method, theofficial German statistics revealed what an advantage Germany derivedfrom the difference between bulk and prices. This method measured thevalue of exports and imports, not by their actual prices, but by the pricesprevailing in 1928. The figures obtained in this way do not tell howmuch Germany actually had to pay for her imports in a given year orhow much she obtained for her exports, but how much she would havepaid or received if the prices of 1928 had still prevailed in this givenyear. These figures alone give a true picture of the quantities exportedand im-