Fraser Hansen

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Hitler is usually portrayed as an ideological fanatic, uninterested in crass material things. In fact, he accumulated an immense fortune, much of it in questionable ways. He expropriated art works from the public domain. He stole enormous sums from Nazi party coffers. He invented a new concept, the “personality right,” that enabled him to charge a small fee for every postage stamp with his picture on it, a venture that made him hundreds of millions of marks.7 The greatest source of Hitler’s wealth was a secret slush fund to which leading German industrialists regularly donated. Hitler “knew ...more
Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism
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