The following passages were written in 1956 by British Major General J.F.C. Fuller, a renowned military writer and developer of the modern armored combat arms, in his book “A Military History of the Western World.” They relate to the political and economic forces of the German Third Reich and are so clearly expressed and so important that they are being presented here for our readers.

            “Hitler held that, as long as the international monetary system was based on gold, a nation which cornered gold could impose its will on those who lacked it. This could be done by drying up their sources of exchange, and thereby compelling them to accept loans on interest in order to distribute their wealth – their production. He said: ‘The community of the nation does not live by the fictitious value of money, but by real production which in its turn gives value to money. This production is the real cover of the currency, and not a bank or a safe full of gold.” He decided: (1) To refuse foreign interest-bearing loans, and base German currency on production instead of on gold. (2) To obtain imports by direct exchange of goods – barter- and subsidize exports when necessary. (3) To put a stop to what was called ‘freedom of the exchanges’ – that is, license to gamble in currencies and shift private fortunes from one country to another according to the political situation. And (4) to create money when men and material were available for work instead of running into debt by borrowing it.

            “Because the life of international finance depended upon the issue of interest-bearing loans to nations in economic distress, Hitler’s economics spelt its ruination. If he were allowed to succeed, other nations would certainly follow his example, and should a time come when all non-gold-holding governments exchanged goods for goods, not only would borrowing cease and gold lose its power, but the money-lenders would have to close shop.

            “This financial pistol was pointed more particularly at the United States, because they held the bulk of the world’s supply of gold, and because their mass-production system necessitated the export of about 10 percent of their products in order to avoid unemployment. Further, because of the brutalities meted out to German Jews by Hitler understandably had antagonized American Jewish financiers, six months after Hitler became Chancellor, Samuel Untermeyer, a wealthy New York attorney, threw down the challenge. He proclaimed a ‘holy war’ against National Socialism and called for an economic boycott of German goods, shipping and services.”[1]

            Additional background on these attitudes can be found in the reports of Polish Ambassador to Washington, Count Jerzy Potokci that can be found in the TBR News  Archives.

            Fuller states further:

            “…in 1936, Winston Churchill is reported to have said to General Robert E. Wood of America: “Germany is getting too strong and we must smash her.’…

            “Mr. Bernard Baruch told General George C. Marshall (U.S. Army Chief of Staff. Ed) that ‘We are going to lick that fellow Hitler. He isn’t going to get away with it.’ With what? Presumably his barter system, for in September, 1939, Baruch released a report of an interview he had with the President in which he said: ‘If we keep our prices down, there is no reason why we shouldn’t get the customers from the belligerent nations that they have had to drop because of the war. In that event, Germany’s barter system will be destroyed.’”

            Warfare, as Clausewitz has said, is merely political and economic policies carried to the battlefield. The First World War had its roots in German/British trade rivalry as did the Russo-Japanese War of 1904, the Second World War in the Pacific and the numerous savage Central and South American revolts and civil wars which were encouraged and promoted by the CIA in direct assistance to American business interests in those areas.

            The terrible bloodlettings in Vietnam had far more to do with the U.S. support of French economic interests in that country and huge natural resources available in and under that country than any psychobabble by Henry Kissinger types about domino theories

            America’s pious support of the Albanians of Kosovo against the Serbs was not due to this nation’s fierce determination to proclaim their brand of liberty throughout the world and unto all the inhabitants thereof but more simply to the huge nickel mines in Kosovo and the deep and abiding interest influential American corporate interests had in obtaining the unfettered use of them.

            The Cold War was not conducted over conflicting ideologies but over trade and world markets and the ongoing savage squabblings between the United States and various Arab nations result from the possession by these states of most of the world’s oil and industrial America’s lack of it.

            Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin’s desire to force an independent Ukraine back into Russian clutches has nothing to do with brotherly love but everything to do with the incredible richness of Ukrainian soil