This is a very interesting reference by John King.

Biographical details about Fritz Tarnow (1880-1951)  are in German under
http://www.fes.de/archiv/adsd_neu/inhalt/stichwort/tarnow.htm

He was one of the central figures of the German labour union movement.
Member of the Weimar parliament, speaker  of a German Labour Union
delegation to the USA in 1925.

Creator and propagator of the "purchasing power" theory of wages.
Anticipated and published in 1931  "Keynesian" public works programme.
Arrested in 1933 by the Nazis,  he could flee to Scandinavia. Returned to
Germany and became co-author of the current German constitution.
In the above link  there are  some further links. Some of his works  are
electronically accessible - but all in German.

I did not find the quote John King looked for. But a very interesting
article (in German) is:

http://library.fes.de/cgi-bin/digiarb.pl?id=01278&dok=1932&f=521&l=527

There he quotes and comments a plea by "Senator Agnelli"  of Turin of 1932
that in the crisis there should be massive hourly wage increase of 33%.
Surely a rare demand by an industrialist at that time - and unheard of in
the 2008/9 crisis.

Tarnow ridicules there the exhortations of  "individual responsibility"
under capitalism when (in 1932 !) most decision makers in the "free" economy
are big business's  quasi officials who walk away from the crisis with all
their previously accumulated premiums untouched. etc. All very readable, but
no translations.

Michael Ambrosi