What happened when Hitler attacked Germany's leader of central banking?
- sciart0
- Jul 27
- 1 min read
Excerpt (from first link above: history's possible relevance to today): "On Hitler’s first full day in office, rumors circulated that he wanted Luther gone. Alfred Kliefoth, the chargé d’affaires at the United States embassy in Berlin, dispatched a memorandum to the State Department: “I have been informed, in confidence, by Dr. Ritter, the Chief Economist in the Foreign Office, that the new Government intends to exert pressure on Dr. Luther to resign.” The Social Democratic daily, Vorwärts, declared in a banner headline that the Hitler government was "demanding Luther's head."
Hitler’s rumored plans to oust the Reichsbank chief came amid a massive purge of the Weimar Republic’s civil service. Senior officials who had served for decades were fired. Hitler assigned his chief lieutenant, Hermann Göring, to clean house in Prussia, the largest of Germany’s 17 federated states. When Göring entered the Prussian government offices in central Berlin, he told Rudolf Diels, the head of the Prussian political police, “I want nothing to do with the scoundrels sitting here in this building.”
When Diels tried to defend one senior colleague, Göring responded by firing the colleague on the spot."