The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy

by Adam Tooze

On quotas, however, Bruening dug in his heels. His government was lavish in its support for agriculture in every other respect, but on quotas there could be no compromise.107 On this point both Papen and Schleicher followed Bruening’s lead. Papen though he approved quotas in principle, did so only within the limits ‘permissible according to current trade treaties’ and when Papen fell, there was no decisive action by Schleicher.108 This, however, drove the farm lobby into outright opposition to the Republic. 109 In early 1933 key leaders of the agrarian lobby intervened decisively with President Paul von Hindenburg, himself the owner of a large estate, to push him towards accepting a coalition between Hugenberg’s DNVP and Hitler’s Nazi party. Like the advocates of debt default and rearmament, what the agrarians wanted was a government that would pursue their conception of Germany’s national interest unilaterally, forcing Germany’s neighbours and trading partners to accept its terms.