Adolf Hitler Quotes
We were not foolish enough to try to make a currency [backed by] gold of which we had none, but for every mark that was issued we required the equivalent of a mark's worth of work done or goods produced ... we laugh at the time our national financiers held the view that the value of a currency is regulated by the gold and securities lying in the vaults of a state bank.
Hitler, Adolf. Speech at the Rheinmetall-Borsig Works. 10 Dec. 1940, Berlin.
What Franklin Delano Roosevelt began, President Nixon would in 1971 complete by removing America from the gold standard entirely and ending fixed rates of exchange. There have been those in government who did not understand the modern economics of money and who believed that currency had to have a fixed rate of exchange for gold or silver otherwise it was worthless. Roosevelt had to deal with them as did Nixon later. Even into the 21st century when it had been amply demonstrated that the best currency in the world was the United States dollar precisely because it was backed up by the full faith and credit of the United States Government, there were those who complain that United States money is not sound currency and argue for the return of the gold standard.
There were more silver mines than gold and the owners and others who wanted to increase the money supply had advocated using silver as well as gold to back the money supply. As silver was more plentiful, financiers felt that the American money had been diluted and other its value went down. Cleveland proposed that the legislation allowing so much silver be repealed. It was. Note the appeal to international opinion. At the time the United States was not one of the world’s superpowers and what the English and French thought about our money was extremely important and likely to persuade voters. A century later, American public opinion was not as influenced by that of other nations.
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming Chancellor in 1933 and then assuming the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934. During his dictatorship from 1933 to 1945, he initiated World War II in Europe by invading Poland on 1 September 1939. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the Holocaust, the genocide of about 6 million Jews and millions of other victims.
