Schacht, however, held firm, refusing to make any concession to London. He could not afford to allow Britain to unpick the complex structure of bilateral agreements he had established since 1934, of which the Anglo-German Payments Agreement was the cornerstone. And he also knew that he could count on influential friends on the British side. As the British embassy in Berlin opined, a collapse in the Anglo-German Payments Agreement would have ‘shake[n] confidence on both sides and also weaken[ed] Schacht’s position’. Following Goering’s appointment, Schacht was now seen as a vital moderating
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