Weber, a German banker and industrialist, was a leader of the Deutsche Staats partei under the Weimar Republic. He opposed the Nazis but not the militarism of the Junkers or the centralism of the Prussians. Bismarck meets with his approval but not Brüning. In general he exaggerates the political importance of liberalism in pre-Hitler Germany, and his faith in her democratic future is somewhat less than convincing.