Ewald Nowotny, Governor of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB, central bank of the Republic of Austria), stated at an international academic conference on Monday that the Great Depression of the 1930s had not only been an economic catastrophe, but that it had also considerably contributed to the rise of National Socialism.
He stressed that it was thanks to central banks’ concerted and intensified efforts that the recent crisis of 2007 and 2008 had not widened to any such global crisis.
Although Governor Nowotny mentioned historical economic phenomena in his opening speech, he neither alluded to current European consolidation programs, nor did he link current European fiscal policies with post-1929 economic policies.
Nowotny particularly objects to being put in opposition to Germany’s and German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s position by the German daily newspaper Bild-Zeitung.
Instead, both Governor Nowotny and the OeNB have repeatedly emphasized how imperative it is now for Europe to implement the measures agreed in the stability pact in order to secure the basis for future economic growth.