Eastern Aid (Osthilfe)
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Osthilfe (Eastern Aid) was a policy of the Government of the Weimar Republic to give financial support from Government funds to bankrupt estates in East Prussia.[1]
The policy was implemented because of the overwhelming need of the fledgling Government of the newly formed German Republic to retain the support of the influential Junker owners of these estates. This policy produced a major scandal in Germany in the late 1930's, the Osthilfeskandal, which implicated the President of the Republic, General von Hindenburg, who had been presented with such an estate in East Prussia at Neudeck.
After the donation of a further 5,000 acres to this property, and after the Nazis came to power, the matter ceased to command attention within the Third Reich.[2]