Schacht in der Karikatur

n/a. Schacht in der Karikatur. Berlin: Reichsbank, 1937. First edition. Quarto. 105 plates. Original salmon wraps with blue lettering on cover and spine. Frontispiece drawing. Published on behalf of the board of the Reichsbank, edited by the economics and statistics departments of the Reichsbank, January 22, 1937.

Hjalmar Schacht, the German economist, banker, center-right politician, and cofounder of the German Democratic Party in 1918, was one of the most caricatured German personalities in public life. Despite the endless taunting of Schacht in the German and foreign press, the caricatures are a mirror image of the times and Schacht’s involvement in the economic comeback of Germany after W.W.I., and therefore, however inadvertently, pay tribute to one of the important personalities of that time. Illustrated with 100 acrid b/w, some color and two-color caricatures reproduced lithographically.

Schacht also served as the President of Germany’s National Bank and Minister of Economics in the Hitler government but differences with Hitler and particularly Göring led to his dismissal. After the assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944 he was arrested due to his closeness to some of the assassins and detained. He was freed by the Allies on April 30, 1945, tried in the Nuremberg Trials but fully acquitted.

Text in German, English, French, Swedish, Dutch. Wraps with some wear along edges, some rubbing and light water staining. Wraps attached but loosened from spine, starting at plate 91. Light age toning of block. Wraps in overall good-, interior in good+ condition. g- to g+. Softcover. (43821) $65