Timothy W. Ryback

From almost the moment Adolf Hitler took office as chancellor of Germany, tariffs were at the top of his government’s economic agenda. The agricultural sector’s demands for higher tariffs “must be met,” Hitler’s economic minister, Alfred Hugenberg, declared on Wednesday, February 1, 1933, just over 48 hours into Hitler’s chancellorship, “while at the same time preventing harm to industry.

Anyone with an interest in the history of political vengeance should pay a visit to the rare-book room at the Library of Congress and request the bound volume with the call number DD244.R6.