As a matter of fact, about the only tax imposed in Germany since
the outbreak of the war has been the tax upon cost or war profits.
It has been the policy of Germany to pay for the war by great
loans raised by popular subscription, after authorisation by the
Reichstag. I calculate that the amounts thus raised, together
with the floating indebtedness, amount to date to about eighty
billions of marks.
For a long time the Germans expected that the expenses of the
war would be paid from the indemnities to be recovered by Germany
from the nations at war with it.
Helfferich shadowed this forth in his speech in the Reichstag,
on August 20, 1915, when he said: "If we wish to have the power
to settle the terms of peace according to our interests and our
requirements, then we must not forget the question of cost. We
must have in view that the whole future activity of our people,
so far as this is at all possible, shall be free from burdens.
The leaden weight of billions has been earned by the instigators
of this war, and in the future they, rather than we, will drag
it about after them.
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