Hjalmar Schact was a German banker and fiscal expert who rescued Germany from runaway inflation in the 1920s and later served as the minister of economic for Adolph Hitler's Nazi government. During the 1930s he helped the government rearm its military force but later fell out of favor. Though charged with war crimes by the International Military Tribunal after World War II, he was one of only three defendants to be acquitted of the charges.

Schact was born on January 22, 1877 in Tinglev, Germany. He was educated in Hamburg and several universities in Germany and Paris. In 1908 he entered banking, working as a vice director of the Dresdener Bank. During World War I he acted as a consultant for the German occupational government in Belgium, and in 1916 he was named a director of the German National Bank.

After Germany surrendered in 1918, the Allies forced it to pay reparations for...