During the 19th century, many bankers saw the growth of monopoly capitalism as a serious threat to their own economic interests. Following the 1870 unification under Bismarck, Germany experienced a rapid burst of industrialization, generating so much profit that they ceased to rely on investment banks to finance either business or government. A second way German industrialization threatened global bankers was by competing with England and other European countries for export markets. Russia also posed a significant threat, owing to claims it made on the Balkans and the Middle East (and Middle East oil), following the break-up of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire.
Thus between 1870 and 1914, the world banking oligarchy pressured western governments (by controlling their money supply and foreign exchange) to agree to a series of complicated alliances that drew all the European powers into local conflicts in regions formerly controlled by Turkey. The one that ultimately achieved the desired effect (full scale war on Germany and Austria) was a false flag incident (blamed on Serbia) involving the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne. During the same period, the world banking cabal simultaneously hatched a scheme to destabilize Russia by secretly funding the Bolsheviks and other Russian revolutionaries.
Turning a Profit from World War I
The European central banks had it all worked out beforehand how they would turn the 1914 conflict that began in Sarajevo (which they believed would only last four to six months) to their own profit. Quigley describes a secret meeting in July 1914 (war was declared August 4, 1914) in which the major European bankers agreed to allow the British Treasury to print treasury notes to pay outstanding government bank debts. However this would only be with the understanding that this "fiat" money would be redeemed with gold certificates (via increased taxation) at the war's end. They ultimately forced similar agreements on France and the US.
Financing Hitler and the Nazis
When the war ended in 1918, public debt in Western Europe and the US had increased by 1000%. The austerity measures global investment banks forced on the US, England, France and other European countries led to a massive bankruptcies and unemployment and the virtual collapse of foreign trade. Except in Germany. The global banking elite used the massive wealth generated from these debt repayments to finance rapid German re-industrialization and militarization, along with the Nazi movement created by Hitler and the increasingly powerful German corporations, such as IG Farben, Siemens (renamed Bayer), Daimler Benz, Porsche/Volksvagen and Krupp. Quigley identifies American banks and corporations who helped finance the Nazi movement, which included Kodak, Ford, Coca-Cola, DuPont, Standard Oil, IBM, Random House and Chase Bank.
The bankers justified funding Hitler and re-militarizing Germany by talking of the need to contain a growing world communist movement -- which they themselves had created.
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