at precisely the same moment Germany teetered on the brink of economic disaster. Between March and September 1934 the Nazi regime suffered the closest thing to a comprehensive socio-economic crisis in its entire twelve-year history.6 From the beginning of 1934 the Reichsbank’s reserves of foreign currency dwindled alarmingly. So desperate was the situation that Germans travelling abroad were restricted to a foreign exchange ration of no more than 50 Reichsmarks per month.
