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RSS Feed General News22. 06. 12. - 17:00
Novotny qualifies Nazi austerity warning
European Central Bank Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny has qualified statements he earlier made that suggested austerity measures currently being adopted were similar to those that led to the rise of the Nazis.
Speaking after the comments went all round the world and in particular were widely quoted in Germany he said that he objected to being portrayed as opposing Germany’s push for austerity.
Nowotny, who is also governor of Austria’s central bank, had told an academic conference in Vienna that a "single-minded" focus on austerity in Germany in the 1930s had helped bring the Nazis to power.
He said: "In countries like Germany, like Austria, due to I would say misleading theories, a single-minded concentration on austerity policy led to mass unemployment, a breakdown of democratic systems and in the end to the catastrophe of Nazism."
He also said it had been on the mind of "every central banker" when the financial crisis started that the mistakes of the 1930s had to be avoided.
Germany’s most-read daily newspaper Bild yesterday reported Nowotny as having said that the strict austerity programs in Europe’s periphery, being pushed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, are a mistake. Bild headlined its story saying Nowotny had "shocked" with his Nazi comparison.
But in the wake of the article statement from Novotny was issued by the central bank in which it said he "hasn’t linked the current fiscal policies in Europe with the economic policy after 1929."
The statement added: "The governor especially objects to being put in contradiction to the position of the Federal Republic of Germany and German Chancellor Angela Merkel."
The Nazi Party doubled its vote in the 1932 election after two years of austerity policies under Chancellor Heinrich Bruening. Bruening had raised taxes, cut welfare benefits and encouraged wage cuts, largely bypassing the parliament with the help of presidential decrees, to increase exports and help Germany meet reparation payments to the victors of World War I.
Vienna Times
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policy qualifies minded Nazi Germany European policies austerity Bild Chancellor Central Austria bank Angela governor Nowotny Merkel Bruening single Novotny
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