It's decades since I read him, but per William Shirer, by 1939 the Third Reich was facing looming bankruptcy (by turning a firehose of cash on its problems—crea

It's decades since I read him, but per William Shirer, by 1939 the Third Reich was facing looming bankruptcy (by turning a firehose of cash on its problems—creating make-work jobs, running a massive rearmamanent program, building up huge armed forces, and bread and circuses). Indeed from one perspective the post-1938 expansion of Hitler's reich was driven by the urgent need to steal money and resources from the neighbours to stave off a total economic collapse. Like turning to bank robbery to pay off the maxed-out credit cards. (Which works for a short while, right up until you hit a bank with a SWAT team waiting for you.)