Hjalmar Schacht

Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht (German: [ˈjalmaʁ ˈʃaxt]; 22 January 1877 – 3 June 1970) 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 Versailles and (in his view) disrupted the German economy. His views in this regard led Schacht to clash with Hitler and Hermann Göring. He resigned as President of the Reichsbank in January 1939. He remained as a minister without portfolio and received the same salary until he left the government in January 1943.

In 1944, Schacht was arrested by the Gestapo following the assassination attempt on Hitler on 20 July 1944 because he allegedly had contact with the assassins. Subsequently, he was interned in the Ravensbrück, Flossenbürg, and Dachau concentration camps. In the final days of the war, he was one of the 139 special and clan prisoners who were transported by the SS from Dachau to South Tyrol. This location is within the area named by Himmler the "Alpine Fortress", and it is speculated that the purpose of the prisoner transport was the intent of holding hostages. They were freed in Niederdorf, South Tyrol on 30 April 1945.

Schacht was tried at Nuremberg, but was acquitted despite Soviet objections. Later, a German denazification tribunal sentenced him to eight years of hard labour, which was also overturned on appeal.