What we witness to-day in German politics, as well as in German economy, is a manifestation of the Prussian spirit. It might be objected that Hitler … - Fritz Thyssen

Taken as a whole, these Nazi achievements are a farrago of economic absurdities. For seven years I had to struggle with all these ignorant and incapable men. It is a waste of time to discuss their stupid projects or refute their specious arguments. In fact, the Nazi regime has ruined German industry. All the above-mentioned experiments with artificial products will become useless as soon as international trade is restored. Then Germany will have on her hands immense plants which have swallowed billions of marks and there will be nothing to do but turn them over to the wreckers. Industries which no longer have enough money to follow technical progress and to keep their equipment up-to-date are in an unfavourable position compared with foreign competition, especially in America.

The persecution of the Jews reached its height in the autumn of 1938 and aroused universal protest. Up to 1933 I had not attached much importance to the anti-Semitic brawls of the National Socialist party. The inhabitants of the Catholic provinces of the Rhine are not anti-Semitic. There may be regions in Germany where the slow-wittedness of the population has enabled the Jews to play an exaggerated role. This has never been the case in the Rhineland. We have always considered the Jew Heinrich Heine as one of our national poets. The Nazis may destroy Heine’s statue in his native city of Düsseldorf, but they will never be able to prevent people from singing ‘Die Lorelei’ on the boats that sail down the Rhine.

The National Socialists never had a real economic plan. Some of them were entirely reactionary; some of them advocated a corporative system; others represented the viewpoint of the extreme Left. In my opinion, Hitler failed because he thought it very clever to agree with everybody’s opinion… Hitler had an unprecedented opportunity, such as no man will ever again be offered so easily, to create something entirely new. However, besides the fact that he knows absolutely nothing about matters economic, he cannot even fully understand his economic advisers. . . His constant worry has ever been to keep himself in power. . . . He believes that he alone is a great man, and all others non-entities.