Chugalug wrote
<<Those wily Swiss bankers were not impressed by the creative accountancy of the Reich Bank, that had bankrolled the Wehrmacht and the Autobahns, and demanded Gold on the Nail in exchange for the Foreign Exchange that was needed to balance the books.>>
While most of the developed world was suffering in the Great Depression Germany had made herself into a prosperous country by 1937 (separately from rearmament) by generating its own method of banking that did not involve borrowing currency from overseas at compound interest - this allowed the payment of workers/industries in the internal economy, the means of exchange of goods and services that sovereign nations need - they could have reminded the world how to control their own money supply and break the economic stranglehold on nations that exists today. Of course they needed gold for international business as the powers that be didn't like their money. The Germans taking control of their own economy in 1933 was the real trigger for WW2 - had they been allowed to continue prospering UK, USA, etc may have followed suit. We should today look at independent national economies again to get ourselves out of the mess we are in.