Word: funk
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Thus spoke balding, be-jowled Walther Funk, Adolf Hitler's all-powerful Minister of Economic Affairs, in a 45-minute harangue last week to U. S. foreign correspondents. His pointed primer of Germany's world economic aims put U. S. businessmen on notice-that if Germany beats England and consolidates Europe, U. S. trade with the area that has been its biggest market will thenceforth be conducted, if at all, on Nazi terms...
Almost out of marbles, Herr Dr. Funk, with a wave of his hand, whisked away the U. S. Treasury's $20,400,000,000 gold hoard-about 75% of all the world's monetary gold. If dumped on an island which then disappeared, said he, its lack would not hurt the world economy. For in the new world economy the dominant currency would be the Reichsmark, whose value, as at present, would be "assigned to it by the State." And if the U. S. wishes to adjust itself to the Nazi system, it must lower the dollar price...
This was obvious preparation for a postwar drive to get U. S. gold for Germany. If Dr. Funk could really peg all European currencies to a Reichsmark "work dollar," he could fix the value of labor in all countries that had to trade with him, would have perfected a streamlined form of international slavery. But though he has demonstrated that Nazi collectivism can wage war, he has yet to show it will work in peace. Gold, he granted, would still have a use in settling international balances. But nations use gold primarily because it is prized by individuals. Dr. Funk...
Thus did Dr. Funk poke the U. S. economy in a vulnerable spot. A creditor nation ever since World War I, the U. S. vainly hoped the Smoot-Hawley and other tariffs would keep it that way, forgetting trade is a two-way street. Cordell Hull, knowing that, has long preached reciprocal commerce. World War II put an end for the present to his small successes...
...public-utility reporter, a thin-haired A. E. F. sergeant named Sam Shelton, had long been convinced that Union Electric was buying politicians. Two years ago he got a break when Union Electric's moose-tall aristocratic president Louis H. Egan eased out a vice president named Oscar Funk. Funk, who had handled Union Electric's expense accounts, knew where more bodies were buried than a Nazi concentration-camp keeper. Shelton went after him, got his story, and scampered...