This is a crucial point because it contradicts all subsequent portrayals of the German economy under National Socialism. 117 The German economy in 1933 was not a lifeless wreck. It was beginning what might well have become a vigorous cyclical rebound. Certainly, on 1 January 1933 the New Year editorials of the Berlin press were optimistic. Vorwaerts, the social democratic daily, welcomed the New Year with the headline: ‘Hitler’s Rise and Fall’.
