Fritz Thyssen was a prominent German industrialist who played a significant role in the 1931 European banking crisis. He was an investor in Creditanstalt, a major Austrian bank that had made risky investments in Eastern Europe. As a big shareholder of the bank, Thyssen withdrew his funds due to financial concerns, which sparked a run on the bank and eventually led to its collapse. This event contributed to a broader banking crisis in Europe.

Although Thyssen’s role in engineering the run on the Creditanstalt bank remains uncertain, he was the great beneficiary of this crisis. He openly supported the Nazi Party financially during their early period, and even became a member in 1933. It’s possible to view the run on the bank as a “zero to one” moment in the sense that it involved a sudden and unexpected shift in market behavior that created far-reaching consequences.

While the concepts of “zero to one” and “creative destruction” can be combined and complement each other in certain contexts, these processes can exacerbate social and economic inequality, leading to political instability and the rise of authoritarianism. The playbook used by Thyssen and the Nazi Party succeeded only in short violent bursts in Germany and Italy, but always failed in the United States, sometimes at great cost. This is because the tenets of such a playbook are fundamentally incompatible with a functioning democracy.

In conclusion, Fritz Thyssen played a significant role in the 1931 European banking crisis as an investor in Creditanstalt. His actions sparked a run on the bank and contributed to a broader banking crisis in Europe. Thyssen’s open support for the Nazi Party and his role in the collapse of the bank illustrate the dangers of “zero to one” moments and “creative destruction” processes in exacerbating social and economic inequality, fueling political instability, and leading to the rise of authoritarianism.