Conjuring Hitler

Guido Giacomo Preparata

Description

Nazism is usually depicted as the outcome of political blunders and unique economic factors: we are told that it could not be prevented, and that it will never be repeated.



In this explosive book, Guido Giacomo Preparata shows that the truth is very different: using meticulous economic analysis, he demonstrates that Hitler's extraordinary rise to power was in fact facilitated - and eventually financed - by the British and American political classes during the decade following World War I.



Through a close analysis of events in the Third Reich, Preparata unveils a startling history of Anglo-American geopolitical interests in the early twentieth century. Showing that Nazism was not regarded as an aberration: for the British and American establishment of the time, it was regarded as a convenient way of destabilising Europe and driving Germany into conflict with Stalinist Russia, thus preventing the formation of any rival continental power block. In laying bare the economic forces at play in the Third Reich, Guido Giacomo Preparata identifies the key players in the British and American establishment who aided Hitler's meteoric rise.
List of Figures

A Chronology of Germany’s Undoing, 1900-1945

Preface

1. Introductory: The Eurasian Embrace. Laying Siege to Germany with World War One, 1900-1918.

2. The Veblenian Prophecy: From the Councils to Versailles by Way of Russian Fratricide, 1919-1920.

3. The Meltdown & the Geopolitical Correctness of Mein Kampf: Between the Kapp and the Beerhall Putsch, 1920-1923

4. ‘Death on the Installment Plan’, Whereby Governor Norman Came to Pace the Damnation of Europe, 1924-1933

5. The Reich on the Marble Cliffs. Fire, Legerdemain and Mummery all the Way to Barbarossa, 1933-1941

6. Conclusions

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

• Histoire
• Modern warfare
• Military
• World War II
• History

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 mai 2005
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849642255
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Conjuring Hitler

How Britain and America Made the Third Reich

Guido Giacomo Preparata

P Pluto Press LONDON • ANN ARBOR, MI

First published 2005 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106

www.plutobooks.com

Copyright © Guido Giacomo Preparata 2005

The right of Guido Giacomo Preparata to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN ISBN

0 7453 2182 8 hardback 0 7453 2181 X paperback

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services, Fortescue, Sidmouth, EX10 9QG, England Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England Printed and bound in Canada by Transcontinental Printing

For Suzanne

Contents

List of Figures A Chronology of Germany’s Undoing, 1900–45 Preface

ix xi xiv

1.Introductory: The Eurasian Embrace. Laying Siege to Germany with World War I, 1900–18 1  The Second Reich: The Tragedy of an Imperial Upstart 1  The Heartland, the Crescent and the Nightmare of British Geopolitics 8  The Blood of the Romanovs and the Encirclement of Germany 15  The ‘Useful Idiots’ of Sarajevo 20  Besieging Germany 22  Conjuring Lenin 27  The Last Days of America: from Republic to Truculent Empire 38

2.The Veblenian Prophecy. From the Councils to Versailles by Way of Russian Fratricide, 1919–20  The Impossible Revolution  Inducting Hitler into the Mother Lodge  The Allied Betrayal of the Russian Whites  The Peace Treaty That Was Too Harsh  Dreaming of Hitler and Deciphering Versailles

3.The Meltdown and the Geopolitical Correctness of Mein KampfBetween the Kapp and the Beerhall Putsch, 1920–23  Erzberger: One Man Alone against the Inflation  Hiring TrebitschLincoln to Foil the Kapp Putsch  Rathenau, The Reluctant Victim of the RussoGerman Pact  The Hyperinflationary Purge of 1923  The Maiden Storm of the Nazi Fundamentalists

42 42 57 60 74 80

89 89 98 112 121 130

viii Conjuring Hitler

4.‘Death on the Installment Plan’, Whereby Governor Norman Came to Pace the Damnation of Europe, 1924–33 138  The Banking ‘Grid’ and the Rules of the Gold Game 138  Montagu Norman and the ‘Nationalization’ of the Bank 147  The Dawes Bailout and the Hierodule Schacht 159  I. G. Farben and Germany’s First FiveYear Plan 165  Britain’s Grand Charade to Crash the New Gold Standard 171  The Last Scheme of Kurt von Schleicher and the End of Weimar 181

5.The Reich on the Marble Cliffs. Fire, Legerdemain and Mummery all the Way to Barbarossa, 1933–41  Nazi Coup d’Etat  Money Magic, Work Creation and Foreign Aid  A British Masquerade to Entrap the Germans Anew  A Soviet Tale of Madness and Sacrifice  Fake War in the West, True Push in the East

6. Conclusion

Notes Select Bibliography Index

202 203 211 228 244 254

263

269 295 305

List of Figures

1. Eurasia and the FaultLine 2. White Nests in the Russian Civil War 3. The London/New York Tandem Discount Policy, 1919–32 4. SterlingDollar Exchange, 1919–33 5. The Cycle of Work Creation 6. The Masquerade of His Majesty’s Stewards and Diplomats 7. Alliances and Threats on the Eve of the Czechoslovak Crisis, 1938

ix

11 67 155 156 219 230

240

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank first of all my institution, the University of Washington, Tacoma for the unwavering support it afforded me in conducting research on this theme and developing it in the course of a fiveyear long series of lectures. In particular my thanks go to Director and Professor Bill Richardson, Professor Anthony D’Costa and Professor Michael Allen. I am also greatly indebted to Professor Zarembka for the warm endorsement of my project, and to Roger van Zwanenberg at Pluto Press for taking his chances with me, shaping the script, and purging many a noxious metaphor. No less vital have been the help and protection of a thick cohort of guardian angels led by: Dr. Faride Motamedi and Professor John Elliott, who shielded me always and Professor Monika Sudjian, who openedDeutschtumto me, and shared the anguish of the exile. Family and friends in Italy, France and Tacoma are in my thoughts – a special salute goes to my companion Andrea.

x

A Chronology of Germany’s Undoing, 1900–45

1900The construction of the German Imperial fleet proceeds apace. 1904Strategic allegiance between Britain and France. 1907Triple Entente of Britain, France and Russia, designed to encircle Germany. 1914Outbreak of World War I. 1916Russian attempts at a separate peace with Germany. December: murder of Rasputin. 1917March: deposition of the Czar. April: the US joins the war. October: Bolshevik takeover. 1918March: peace between the Reich and the Bolsheviks. November: capitulation of the Reich. 1919January–May: civil tumult in Germany; beginnings of the Weimar Republic. June: ratification of the Versailles Treaty. September: Hitler becomes a politician. 1920Allied sabotage of the Russian counterrevolutionaries.  March: Kapp putsch. September: Veblen casts his prophecy. 1921August: assassination of Erzberger. 1922April: RussoGerman pact. June: assassination of Rathenau. 1923Inflationary debacle in Germany. January: French invasion of the Ruhr. November: the Hitlerites’ Beerhall putsch. 1924April–September: Announcement and implementation of the Dawes bailout. December: Hitler is amnestied. 1925April: Britain goes back to gold. 1927July: central bankers’ conference at Long Island. 1928May: the Nazis gather 2.6 percent of the vote in the national elections. 1929September: London precipitates the crash in New York. Extinction of the steady financial transfer from America to Germany.

xi

xii Conjuring Hitler

1930

1931 1932

1933

1934

1935 1936 1937

1938 1939

1940

September: soaring unemployment; Nazi breakthrough at the elections: 18.7 percent. March: aborted project for an AustroGerman Union. May: Collapse of the Creditanstalt in Austria. July: German banking crisis. July–September: Britain wrecks the Gold Standard. October: Hitler encounters Hindenburg. May: Baronial Cabinet of Papen. June: End of Reparations. July: the Nazis garner 37.3 percent of the ballot. November: the Nazis lose 2 million votes; Hindenburg refuses to make Hitler chancellor. December: Schleicher becomes Chancellor; unemployment in Germany at 40 percent. January: meeting at Schröder’son the 4th; Hitler sworn in on the 30th. February: Reichstag fire. March–August: Nazi consolidation of power; promotion of work creation under Schacht. June: Röhm purge. July: AngloGerman financial agreement. August: Hitler is acclaimed Reichsführer; rearmament is launched in earnest; heavy AngloAmerican investment in Germany. June: AngloGerman Naval Pact. Peak of British appeasement. March: Militarization of the Rhineland. September: Lloyd George visits Hitler. December: the ‘proNazi’ King Edward VIII abdicates. October: the Windsors tour Germany. November: Lord Halifax flies to Germany to give Hitler the green light. Culmination of Nazi boom: erasure of unemployment. March: annexation of Austria. September: emasculation of Czechoslovakia at Munich. March: Nazi seizure of Czechoslovakia; official split of the British establishment in dealing with Germany; British unilateral guarantee to Poland. August: RussoGerman pact for the partition of Poland. September: the ‘phoney war’ begins. April–June: Nazi offensive in the West and capitulation of France.

1941 1943 1944 1945

Chronology xiii

July: secret talks with Windsor in Spain. August–September: failed aerial campaign versus Britain. December: Preparation completed in Germany for the invasion of Russia (Barbarossa). March–May: German success in the Mediterranean basin. May: Hess vanishes. June: the Nazis invade the USSR. January: German surrender in Stalingrad. May: the Axis capitulates in North Africa. July: the Allies land in Sicily. June: Allied debarkation in Normandy (DDay). March: the Americans cross the Rhine. May: Germany is finished.