The Swiss, Dutch, Czechs and Italians all followed the French in devaluing over the following weeks. The ensuing struggle in Berlin was recorded in the diary of Joseph Goebbels, which for 30 September has the following brief entry: ‘Schacht wanted to devalue . . .’ He was prevented only by the prompt intervention of Walther Funk, former business editor and since 1933 Secretary of State in Goebbels’s Propaganda Ministry. Hearing of Schacht’s intention, Goebbels wrote: ‘Funk went straight to Fuehrer . . . he intervened.’ Only by this timely intervention, Goebbels boasted, had Funk ‘prevent[ed] a
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