Monday, September 24, 2012

Mises Meets Rockefeller's Van Sickle; They Talk Hitler


In March 1933, Rockefeller's Van Sickle met Mises in Paris and they spoke of the effect of Hitler's accession to power on the development of economics in Germany and Austria: "[Mises] was inclined to take a very pessimistic view, and in his opinion we had probably seen the end, for at least a generation of any intelligent economic research in the German-speaking countries. He felt that the National Socialists would attempt to develop their own economic theories based on false premises with disastrous results for Germany and the almost complete suspension of the development of economic science." Mises also forecast Jewish professors having to leave Germany and the use of income tax laws to seize Jewish property in both countries. There were already cases in Austria, he said, where the entire personal capital had been confiscated through bloated tax claims.

--Robert Leonard. From Austroliberalism to Anschluss: Oskar Morgenstern and the Viennese Economists in the 1930's

(Via Mises Institute)

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