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Harvard. Schumpeter opines on Germany’s future under Hitler, 1933

 

If memory serves me correctly, Larry Summers once commented on a paper by Bob Hall to the effect that the biggest home-run hitters also strike out the most (or did Hall say that about Summers? … whatever). In any event Joseph Schumpeter certainly went down swinging as a political pundit before setting sail to Europe in 1933 with Frank Taussig and his daughter.

 

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SAYS NAZI GERMANY TO “SETTLE DOWN”
Prof Schumpeter, Harvard, Sails With Prof Taussig

Germany, under Hitler, “looks much worse than she actually is; in a few months the Nazi Government will settle down to a more rational, conservative routine—and then Germany will become a power not only to respect but also, possibly, to fear,” asserted Prof Joseph A. Schumpeter, economics professor at Harvard and Minister of Finance in Austria in 1919, last night before he sailed for two months in Europe.
Boarding the Cunarder Scythia, in company with his superior in the Harvard economics department, Prof Frank W. Taussig, Dr Schumpeter declared that Hitler can conduct the Government on a sounder financial basis than would be possible under a parliamentary setup.
The two professors will spend the Summer visiting scholars and universities on the Continent. Prof Taussig is accompanied by his daughter, Dr Helen B. Taussig.

Source: The Boston Globe, May 27, 1933, p. 13.

Image Source: Harvard University Archives, from Schumpeter’s 1932 German passport.