He was also central in helping create the group of German industrialists and landowners that pushed Hindenburg to appoint the first NSDAP-led government.

He served in Adolf Hitler's government as President of the Central Bank (Reichsbank) 1933–1939 and as Minister of Economics (August 1934 – November 1937).

This location is within the area named by Himmler the "Alpine Fortress", and it is speculated that the purpose of the prisoner transport was the intent of holding hostages.

In 1905, while on a business trip to the United States with board members of the Dresdner Bank, Schacht met the famous American banker J. P. Morgan, as well as U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt.

He was summarily dismissed by General von Lumm when it was discovered that he had used his previous employer, the Dresdner Bank, to channel the note remittances for nearly 500 million francs of Belgian national bonds destined to pay for the requisitions.

He helped found the left-liberal German Democratic Party (DDP), which took a leading role in the governing Weimar Coalition.

[15] In December 1929, he caused the fall of the Finance Minister Rudolf Hilferding by imposing upon the government his conditions for obtaining a loan.

[7] After modifications by Hermann Müller's government to the Young Plan during the Second Conference of The Hague (January 1930), he resigned as Reichsbank president on 7 March 1930.

Beginning in 1929 he increasingly criticized German foreign and financial policy since 1924 and demanded the restoration of Germany's former eastern territories and overseas colonies.

Close for a short time to Heinrich Brüning's government, Schacht shifted to the right by entering the Harzburg Front in October 1931.

[7] Schacht's disillusionment with the existing Weimar government did not indicate a particular shift in his overall philosophy, but rather arose primarily out of two issues: Schacht believed that if the German government was ever to commence a wholesale reindustrialization and rearmament in spite of the restrictions imposed by Germany's treaty obligations, it would have to be during a period lacking clear international consensus among the Great Powers.

[19] On 2 August 1934, when Reich and Prussian Minister of Economics Kurt Schmitt went on an extended medical leave of absence, Hitler provisionally appointed Schacht to take over the running of the ministries.

[20] Schacht supported public-works programs, most notably the construction of autobahnen (highways) to attempt to alleviate unemployment – policies which had been instituted in Germany by Kurt von Schleicher's government in late 1932, and had in turn influenced Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal in the United States.

Germany had accrued a massive foreign currency deficit during the Great Depression, which continued into the early years of Nazi rule.

Schacht negotiated several trade agreements with countries in South America and southeastern Europe, under which Germany would continue to receive raw materials, but would pay in Reichsmarks.

[22] He was appointed General Plenipotentiary for the War Economy in May 1935 by provision of the Reich Defense Law of 21 May 1935[23] and was awarded honorary membership in the NSDAP and the Golden Party Badge in January 1937.

[24] During the economic crisis of 1935–36, Schacht, together with the Price Commissioner Dr. Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, helped lead the "free-market" faction in the German government.

Schacht objected to continued high military spending, which he believed would cause inflation, thus coming into conflict with Hitler and Göring.

I hope and wish that Germany will participate in supporting the further development of China, the opening up of its sources of raw materials, the upbuilding of its industries and means of transportation.

Hitler, however, knew that Schacht's departure would raise eyebrows outside Germany, and insisted that he remain in the cabinet as minister without portfolio and as President of the Reichsbank.

[28] Following the Kristallnacht of November 1938, Schacht publicly declared his repugnance at the events, and suggested to Hitler that he should use other means if he wanted to be rid of the Jews.

[29] He put forward a plan in which Jewish property in Germany would be held in trust, and used as security for loans raised abroad, which would also be guaranteed by the German government.

Schacht, in his book The Magic of Money (1967), wrote that Montagu Norman and Lord Bearstead, a prominent Jew, had reacted favourably, but Chaim Weizmann, leading spokesman for the British Zionist Federation, opposed the plan.

In it, he assailed the government's decision to begin calling up 15-year-olds for service in the airfield defense forces, and cited this as one more item in a litany of factors that he concluded would strengthen the public's "misgivings as to how this war will actually end".

In 1950, Juan Yarur Lolas, the Bethlehem-born founder of the Banco de Crédito e Inversiones and president of the Arab colony in Santiago, Chile, tried to hire Schacht as a "financial adviser" in conjunction with the German-Chilean community.

He also gave advice on economics and finance to heads of state of developing countries, in particular the Non-Aligned countries; however, some of his suggestions were opposed, one of which was in the Philippines by the former Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas head Miguel Cuaderno, who firmly rebuffed Schacht, stating that his monetary schemes were hardly appropriate for an economy needing capital investment in basic industry and infrastructure.

Indirectly resulting from his founding of the bank, Schacht was the plaintiff in a foundational case in German law on the "general right of personality".