In the spring of 1933, the German economist Wilhelm Röpke found two SS agents at his door. He later recalled that these particular members of Adolf Hitler’s paramilitary elite were men “of thorough ‘bruiser’ type.” An outspoken classical liberal, Röpke had been declared an “enemy of the people” and dismissed from his teaching post at Marburg University for giving anti-Nazi speeches. Other professors, similarly dismissed as part of the Nazis’ program to dominate the universities with antiliberal ideology, had promised to switch sides or keep quiet in order to get their old jobs back. Röpke had refused. Hitler’s government had now turned to overt intimidation. When the SS agents explained to Röpke that he should be on the Nazis’ side, he rebuked them with “scorn and indignation.” As soon as they departed, he realized that he needed to leave the country immediately.

THE NAZIS COME TO POWER

Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party, had assumed the German chancellorship in January 1933. Hitler initially headed a coalition government, but soon consolidated power in his own hands. A biographer reports that Hitler was “wholly ignorant” of economics. Hitler’s choice of economic policies appears to have been guided by no principle other than to enhance his government’s power. The same can be said of the Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini.