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epublican parliament of the Reich. He had to spend money andborrow what he spent. And he had to pretend that all this was quitenew and novel.He spent vast sums on all sorts of things. He outdistanced hisneighbors in looking after the submerged tenth. He launched projectsto create work. He spent money on projects to increase thebirth rate, improve health and reduce crime, on schools, roads, railways,playgrounds, house-building projects, home repairs, farm subsidies,and even on his widely publicized scheme to enable Germansto enjoy at low rates excursions of all sorts. Then after 1935 helaunched his grandiose schemes of militarism with the restoration ofconscription and a great program of armament building. Some of themoney was raised, of course, by heavy taxation. But most of it wasobtained by the use of government credit. All this meant unbalancedbudgets, just as in Italy and in America. It is very difficult to getreliable budget figures, particularly after 1936. The budget for 1936was computed by a German economist for a writer in Harper's 4 andthis estimate shows 9 billion collected in taxes of which 2½ billionwere delivered to the states, leaving 6 ½ billion to spend. The governmentspent 12 billion, thus having a deficit for the year of 5½billion.I have not been able to find any satisfactory figure of the nationaldebt in this period. Gustav Stolper says the best figure he can arriveat is that the debt rose from 11,700,000,000 marks in 1933 to40,000,000,000 or more in 1938. But a special dispatch to the NewYork Times from Berlin dated November 6, 19 36—two years earlier—puts the public debt at something more than 50 or j j billion marks.A dispatch to the New York Herald Tribune, September 1, 1941,fixes the debt as of September 1, 1939, at 107,000,000,000 marks.The data are unsatisfactory and, in each case, probably underestimatethe truth. Since the war the debt has risen to 203,000,000,000marks, according to a report from Berne based on computations ofthe Reich Ministry of Finance (New York Times, February 23,i943)•These vast sums were borrowed from the people to as great anextent as propaganda appeals and compulsion could induce them to'"Germany's Hidden Crisis," by Willson Woodside, Harper's Magazine, February 1937.134