Abstract
In 1932, Mises (apparently referring to himself) declared: ‘Genius does not allow itself to be hindered by any consideration for the comfort of its fellows even of those closest to it … Talent and genius are the gifts of God … why should those be penalized in whose lap Nature has not placed the great gifts of talent and genius? Distribution according to the merits of the individual would open the door wide to mere caprice and leave the individual defenceless before the oppression of the majority.’ In 1932, Hitler expressed similar sentiments in an address to the Düsseldorf Industry Club. Mises praised the Austro-German ‘Anti-Marxism’ ‘movement which ‘has been steadily gaining significance in politics and the social sciences’; Hitler and Hayek were ‘Anti-Marxist.’ Mises and Hayek supported Austro-German Anschluss—which Hitler achieved in 1938. In 1925, Mises criticised the Nazis for not defending ‘capitalism and private property.’ In 1926, Hitler—having previously embraced ABCT—declared: ‘We stand for the maintenance of private property … We should protect free enterprise as the most expedient, or rather the sole possible, economic order.’ Hitler reminded the Düsseldorf Industry Club about the incompatibility of ‘political democracy with private enterprise,’ and Hayek also reflected to James Buchanan and other disciples about the incompatibility of political democracy with private enterprise. According to Mises, ‘The programme of liberalism, therefore, if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property … All the other demands of liberalism result from this fundamental demand … The victory of Fascism in a number of countries is only an episode in the long series of struggles over the problem of property.’ The ‘Fascists’ defined and praised by Mises included ‘Ludendorff and Hitler’—who else but Hitler could Mises and Hayek have supported in the 1932 German federal elections?
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- 1.
Turner (1985, 171–172) noted that Dietrich, a proponent of ‘the big lie,’ wrote a post-war memoir in which he described the business leaders that Hitler met as displaying ‘a cool political reserve and awaited developments.’ Was Dietrich lying in 1934? Or after the war?
- 2.
Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by Leo Rosten 15 November 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).
- 3.
Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by Robert Chitester date unspecified 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).
- 4.
Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by James Buchanan 28 October 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).
- 5.
Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by Leo Rosten 15 November 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).
- 6.
- 7.
Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by Jack High date unspecified 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).
- 8.
Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by James Buchanan 28 October 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).
- 9.
- 10.
Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by Robert Bork 4 November 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).
- 11.
Tongue-in-cheek, Mises thought that they might all be employed in a night club: ‘Unfortunately, I am no good as a dancer or singer, and I don’t think I would be a good waiter. I will have to be the doorman standing in a uniform in front of the place.’
- 12.
Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by James Buchanan 28 October 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).
- 13.
- 14.
Otto von Habsburg continued: Sarkozy ‘points out that a state which subsidizes football clubs and refuses to do any economic favors to religions who want to build churches is absurd.’
- 15.
According to Mises, the committee received the cooperation of ‘Professor Richard Schüller.’ Schüller (1871–1972) was a four-decade veteran of the Austrian Foreign Ministry and father of the economist, Ilse Mintz (who had been one of Mises’ students).
- 16.
Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by Robert Bork 4 November 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).
- 17.
- 18.
Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by Robert Chitester date unspecified 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).
- 19.
Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by Robert Bork 4 November 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).
- 20.
Caldwell and Montes were citing Greg Ransom, whose Austrian apriori logic obliged him to doubt that Hayek had met Pinochet.
- 21.
The head of Berlin SA, Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorff, was the noble-born son of a landowner and (like Mises) a ‘Great’ War Lieutenant. With Job Wilhelm Georg Erdmann Erwin von Witzleben, Hermann Henning Karl Robert von Tresckow, Werner Karl von Haeften and others, von Helldorff (like ‘von’ Mises) had second thoughts and participated in Claus von Stauffenberg’s 20 July 1944 plot to kill Hitler (for which he was executed).
- 22.
Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by James Buchanan 28 October 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).
- 23.
Friedrich Hayek, interviewed by Leo Rosten 15 November 1978 (Centre for Oral History Research, University of California, Los Angeles, http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/).
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Leeson, R. (2019). What ‘Things’ Did Hitler ‘Get Done’?. In: Hayek: A Collaborative Biography. Archival Insights into the Evolution of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78069-6_11
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