How the Nazis Kept the Germans Loyal

Money talks. And, a bankrupt Germany looked for any and all reasons to get out from under the severe penalties that the Treaty of Versailles imposed on it.

It was the early financing by German industrialists, most of whom were not merely angry at the terms of the 1919 Versailles Treaty, but saw their nation sink into severe Depression and high inflation, who backed Hitler from the very outset. Some of the 'influential industrial magnates' were...Emil Kirdorf, the union-hating coal baron who presided over Treasury'....Fritz Thyssen, the head of the steel trust...Joining Thyssen was Albert Voegler, also a power in the United Steel Works Many other industrialists and their firms, plus the major banks, were financing the Nazi party. In short, the firms who financed Hitler from the outset also were part of the Holocaust. "It was not until the end of 1942 that...Zyklon B, a prussic acid derivative made by I.G. Farben began to be used (in the camps) instead of diesel fumes....After the war officials of I.G. Farben protested that they were never informed about the use to which the little dark blue pellets` were put." (Payne 1973 468)

There were international corporations throughout the world who saw Hitler as a savior of an economic Germany, and they tended to look the other way when it came to his anti-Semitic and other hatreds. He was, in the eyes of many, the only possible savior of a bankrupt Germany. And that would mean doing business with a revitalized Germany once Hitler became Chancellor. It was their money that turned things around.