Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht was a German economist, banker, politician, and co-founder of the German Democratic Party. He served as the Currency Commissioner and President of the Reichsbank during the Weimar Republic. He was a fierce critic of his country's post-World War I reparations obligations. He was also central in helping create the group of German industrialists and landowners that pushed Hindenburg to appoint the first Nazi-led government.
Schacht served in Adolf Hitler's government as President of the Central Bank (Reichsbank) 1933–1939 and as Minister of Economics (August 1934 – November 1937).
While Schacht was for a time feted for his role in the German "economic miracle", he opposed elements of Hitler's policy of German re-armament insofar as it violated the Treaty of...