Hjalmar Schacht was a German economist, banker, centre-right politician, and co-founder in 1918 of the German Democratic Party. He served as the Currency Commissioner and President of the Reichsbank under the Weimar Republic. He was a fierce critic of his country's post-World War I reparations obligations. He was arrested by the Gestapo in the summer of 1944.
He served in Adolf Hitler's government as President of the Central Bank 1933–1939 and became Minister of Economics.
While Schacht was for a time feted for his role in the German "economic miracle", he opposed Hitler's policy of German re-armament insofar as it violated the Treaty of Versailles and disrupted the German economy. His views in this regard led Schacht to clash with Hitler and most notably with Hermann Göring. He was dismissed as President of the Reichsbank in January 1939. He remained as a minister without portfolio, and received the same salary, until he was fully dismissed from the government in January 1943.
In 1944, Schacht was arrested by the Gestapo after the assassination attempt on Hitler on 20 July 1944 because he allegedly had contact with the assassins.