Schleicher’s answer was to threaten to publish a secret Reichstag report on the Osthilfe (Eastern Relief) loans—a scandal which, as everyone knew, implicated hundreds of the oldest Junker families, who had waxed fat on unredeemed government “loans,” and which indirectly involved even the President himself, since the East Prussian estate which had been presented to him had been illegally deeded to his son to escape inheritance taxes.
