Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

334 DER FUEHRERproduction, based on high wages, against the cheap, foreign goods; theHawley-Smoot Tariff Act, signed in June, 1930, by President Hoover,was even more drastic; some duties were increased by fifty to onehundred per cent, creating semi-panic in the world market; withineighteen months twenty-five countries responded with sharp countermeasures.This was the outcome of the age of national liberty and unlimitedsovereignty; the universal right of self-determination had led to asenseless piling-up of forces and material. Everybody a producer,nobody a buyer — this ideal goal was not completely reached, but allthe same, the international exchange of goods and services between1928 and 1935 lost half of its volume and almost two thirds of its value,due to the inevitable decline in prices on a crowded world market (from67 to 26 billion dollars).Because everybody tried to produce everything, there seemed to beoverproduction. The world was becoming glutted with capital andconsumers' goods — in so far as one may speak of glut in a world whichobjectively is always suffering from shortage. Raw-material pricescrashed, and everywhere in the world it became difficult for farmers tocover theirWhen the dream of gold began to burst, the farmers all over the worldwere the first to feel it. The agrarian crisis in most countries hit a classwhich during and after the war had been on top of the economicsituation, dealing, as it did, with the most coveted goods. But probablyin no country had this class profited from the situation as in Germany.In the frightful time of vanishing fortunes (1923) they had been the mostcontented class, for the inflation had wiped out their debts withouthurting their estates. Now the only class which had not suffered frominflation was the first to suffer from stabilization. After 1924, Germanlandowners, grown overconfident, began to assume new debts on theirproperty. These became more and more oppressive as it becameapparent that their products could often not compete with the worldmarket in quality, and never, despite high tariffs, in price. Misery beganto spread among the farmers; many went bankrupt and were driven fromtheir estates. They answered with open rebellion; refused to pay interestand taxes; gathered into armed bands and threw bombs