Hjalmar Schacht has been reviled by many as the man who financed Hitler's plan for world war. In fact he was tried at Nuremberg for that very thing. But he was acquitted (by the skin of his teeth!). Here he presents his view of what he accomplished as President of the Reichsbank (at two different times) and as Minister of Finance -- and why he quit. Although autobiographies of those who knew Hitler and worked with him are generally self-serving to acquit themselves of blame, Schacht's is one of the most believable. For those of us who know nothing of the machinations of world economics, this book is a fascinating, and easy to read, presentation.

Those parts of the book that deal with Schacht himself are OK. Those parts dealing with the bigger picture are poorly written and contain errors.

Afraid to say that Weitz's book is littered with errors as regards basic facts of the Nazi era and the inter-war period in general. This won't matter to those who have a good knowledge of the times, but students fresh to the subject should beware. The heavy reliance on US news reports of the time suggests a certain thinness of research. Even so, the picture of Schacht that emerges is reasonably well-balanced and so the book is worth a try.

As a biographical note:

John Weitz the author of this book, is the same John Weitz that was a popular US clothing desinger in the second half of the 20th century. He was also an intelligence agent for the OSS, the forerunner of the CIA during and immediately after WWII. Ian Fleming mentioned Weitz as the prototype of his character, James Bond.

Weitz is also the father of Paul and Chris Weitz, the directors of "American Pie", and "About A Boy", and admirably not "American Pie II".