From Hitler’s Germany to Keynes, from Turkey to Russia: the diplomacy of money

When things get complicated I happen to rummage in the past to find shreds that help reflect on current events. Sometimes they are mines. This is the case of the 30s, on which in 2019 Feltrinelli published a book that continues to be quoted by Pope Francis. The similarities stuck with him. It’s called Syndrome 1933. 1933 is the year Hitler became chancellor. He was talking about how you can destroy a democracy by getting elected democratically. Weimar Germany was the most advanced democracy in Europe, it had the most beautiful constitution in the world for those times. Hitler, unlike fascism in Italy, had not come to power with a coup d’état but thanks to a solid, albeit minority, electoral affirmation of his party. And, above all thanks to the political stupidity of his opponents, who all together had an electoral majority even higher than the one that brought the National Socialists to government, but continued to bicker among themselves while the house was on fire. The law on full powers and the sudden merger, on the death of President von Hindenburg, of chancellorship and presidency of the Republic in the same person, Hitler, did the rest.