PRESS RELEASE
German Paper Echoes LaRouche PAC Videos Warning on Hyperinflation and Fascism
March 5, 2008 (EIRNS)—The Wiesbadener Kurier on March 4, ran a full-page "theme of the day": "Inflation—The Ghost Is Felt" ("Inflation, das gefühlte Gespenst") after the new inflation figures were announced last weekend by the German Federal Statistical Office for February. While the triple curve economic modelling concept of Lyndon LaRouche is missing, the coverage nevertheless gives an idea of the explosiveness, also in historical terms, of this current blow-out of the financial system. Readers of the Kurier (and probably other German papers), will feel reminded of the LaRouche Political Action Committee's four-minute video clip on Weimar hyperinflation (which is also available now in German on the website of the German Solidarity Civil Rights Movement); and the excellent 80-minute piece by the LaRouche PAC.
The most notable features of this page are one big picture of Albrecht Dürer's "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" with the above headline, saying that the "realized inflation is 8.8%" (they use the other, very old German word for inflation, "Teuerung"). In the picture they put the various percentage points of inflation on the different horsemen. And below: "Galloping inflation. The depreciation of money very often cannot be proven by consumers, but it is, similar to the horsemen of the apocalypse, which are shown here, a messenger of doom." [Helga Zepp-Larouche's article "Resistance Mounts Against the EU's Lisbon Treaty" includes a picture of the article's opening page.]
A smaller article underneath with the headline "The dark decade" goes through the inflation of the 1920s, which destroyed the middle class, the German Reich, the Weimar Republic, paving the way for the Nazis to grab power. This article points out to its readers, that at the highest point of hyperinflation in November 1923, the value of the Reichsmark was 4.2 trillion to the dollar. It starts off with pointing to the inflationary seeds by the German government and Reichsbank to finance WWI, then goes through the conditions of the Versailles Treaty, which led to the printing of ever more money; the murder of Rathenau, the British-French occupation of the Ruhr, which destabilized the monetary system of the Weimar Republic even more. Inflation began "galloping," leading to the collapse of the economy, with details given. The political consequences were fatal, since the small and middle class became poor, feeling betrayed by the Republic. "Thus, the monetary policies of the German Reich and the Weimar Republic paved the way for the National Socialists to take power."
A few examples today: Price increases in Germany, from January 2007 only to January 2008; food price and commodity inflation have skyrocketted since then:
Lemons +50.7%
Cauliflower +36.2%
Flour +34.0%
White cheese/Quark +44.3%
Butter +30.7%
Fresh milk +30.3%
Cut Cheese +26.2%
Light heating oil +33.5%
