To ensure that it was the Reich not the private sector that secured the lion’s share of German private saving, the Reichsbank exerted systematic pressure on savings banks and insurance offices to invest their funds in government bonds and short-term paper.51 Most dramatically, the Reich made a determined effort to curb private construction, the most important form of private investment. As of the autumn of 1938 the Reichsbank banned all new mortgage borrowing.52 Given the importance of both public and private construction contracts to tens of thousands of small businesses across the country
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