Hjalmar Schacht - The Magic of Money (1967).pdf

This is a rare economics book. Hjalmar Schacht was Hitler's Finance Minister, and a finance genius whose system of trade credits allowed German business to trade internationally without going through the usurous international banking system.

From the introduction:

I have often been called a financial wizard. The French edition of my book of memoirs 76 Jahre meines Lebens was published under the title Memoires d'un Magicien. The American edition has the title Confessions of the Old Wizard. Yet the truth is that nothing in the world has so little to do with magic as dealing with money. Money must be handled with clear and cool calculation. Anyone who does not obey this maxim is in danger of tying himself up in all the many ways of earning and spending money. Money can no more be conjured into existence than the alchemists were able to make gold. But money has many different kinds of attributes, some of them very intricate, so that the majority of people frequently find themselves unable to understand certain financial transactions. For this reason the monetary system is enveloped in a cloak of mystery, secrecy and magic.