Günter Reimann: State

“The larger the big corporations grow and the closer they become connected with the State bureaucracy, the fewer changes there are for the rise of new competitors.”

Günter Reimann

Source: The Vampire Economy: Doing Business Under Fascism, 2014, p.187

Change

“Fritz Nonnenbruch, the financial editor of the Voelkischer Beobachter, states: ‘There exists no law which binds the State. The state can do what it regards as necessary, because it has the authority…. The next stage of National-Socialist economic policy consists of replacing capitalist laws by policy.”

Günter Reimann

Source: The Vampire Economy: Doing Business Under Fascism, 2014, p. 13 (Fritz Nonnenbruch, Die Dynamische Wirtschaft (Munich, Centralverlag der N.S.D.A.P., 1936), pp. 114-119

Law

“The existence of a state within the State—the Party and the bureaucracy—is a phenomenon of the post-War world.”

Günter Reimann

Source: The Vampire Economy: Doing Business Under Fascism, 2014, p. 18

War , World

“You cannot imagine how taxation has increased. Yet everyone is afraid to complain about it. The new State loans are nothing but confiscation of private property, because no one believes that the Government will ever make repayment, not even pay interest after the first few years.”

Günter Reimann

Source: The Vampire Economy: Doing Business Under Fascism, 2014, p. 7 (letter from a German businessman)

Imagination

“While State representatives are busily engaged in investigating and interfering, our agents and salesmen are handicapped, because they never know whether or not a sale at a higher price will mean denunciation as a ‘profiteer’ or ‘saboteur’ followed by a prison sentence.”

Günter Reimann

Source: The Vampire Economy: Doing Business Under Fascism, 2014, p. 7 (letter from a German businessman)

“The totalitarian State does not tolerate any ‘second government,’ any challenge to the power of the all-wise dictator. [As the Nazi party has stated] ‘Within the constitution of the Third Reich any position independent of the will of the Fuehrer no longer exists. The principle of separation of power is a thing of the past. Only the Party has a privileged position.”

Günter Reimann

Source: The Vampire Economy: Doing Business Under Fascism, 2014, p. 13 (Zeitschrift der Akademie fuer Deutches Recht, July 1, 1938, p. 513)

Past

“Japanese exporters are organized in export cartels by the State. The State restricts competition among exporters and importers. The same thing is done in Germany and Italy. Moreover, it is not only in totalitarian States that payments for imported goods have become dependent on governmental decisions.”

Günter Reimann

Source: The Vampire Economy: Doing Business Under Fascism, 2014, p. 216

Decision , Dependency

“You have no idea how far state control goes and how much power the Nazi representatives have over our work... In this respect they certainly differ from the former Social-Democratic officials. These Nazi radicals think of nothing except ‘distributing the wealth.’ Some businessmen have even started studying Marxist theories, so that they will have a better understanding of the present economic system.”

Günter Reimann

Source: The Vampire Economy: Doing Business Under Fascism, 2014, p. 6 (letter from a German businessman)

Idea , Understanding , Thinking , Study

“Whereas in democratic countries the businessman may use his money to influence legislation and public opinion and thus operated as a source of power and corruption, in fascist countries he can exist only as the subject upon whom State power operates. The corruption in fascist arises inevitably from the reversal of the role of the capitalist and the State as wielders of economic power.”

Günter Reimann

Source: The Vampire Economy: Doing Business Under Fascism, 2014, p. 24

Money , Country

“Of all businessmen the small shopkeeper is the one most under control and most at the mercy of the Party. The Party man, whose good will he must have, does not live in faraway Berlin; he lives right next door or just around the corner. This local Hitler gets a report every day on what is discussed in Heer Schultz’s bakery and Herr Schmidt’s butcher shop. He would regard these man as ‘enemies of the State’ if they complained too much. That would mean, at the very least, the cutting of their quota or scarce and hence highly desirable goods, and it might mean the loss of their business license.”

Günter Reimann

Source: The Vampire Economy: Doing Business Under Fascism, 2014, p. 31

Business , Loss

“[F]ascism is a new brand of feudalism in which the private capitalist has become merely a tool of the State—where absolute power has entirely taken the place of money power.”

Günter Reimann

Source: The Vampire Economy: Doing Business Under Fascism, 2014, p. 28

Money