Alexander Kreuter

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Alexander Kreuter (born November 29, 1886 in Speyer ; † September 27, 1977 ) was a German business lawyer.

Act

Kreuter studied after the Abitur at Maximiliansgymnasium in Munich from 1906 Law and Political Science at the University of Munich and in 1909 at Walther Lotz to Dr. oec. publ. PhD . As a young assessor in the Reich Service, Kreuter was civil commissioner for the province of Leuven in occupied Belgium during the First World War . In 1918 he was advisor to the Armistice Commission and the delegation for the Peace Treaty of Versailles for economic and financial affairs. As a consultant for economic relations he worked in the Reich Ministry of Economics and in 1919 was one of the last to receive the title Real Privy Council and Lecturing Council .

In 1919 he was commissioner for raw materials and products of the "Dictatorial Economic Committee". In 1922 he became a member of the Provisional Reich Economic Council . He negotiated the German-Dutch financial agreement of May 11, 1920 with the Dutch government. After leaving the civil service, he founded the trust administration for the German-Dutch financial agreement GmbH ("Tredefina") , which he headed for over fifty years. For his services as head of the Tredefina, he was appointed by the Dutch government to command the Order of Orange-Nassau .

Kreuter was a busy man. At the same time, he was the Berlin representative of the New York investment bank Dillon, Read & Co. and for many years personally liable partner of the "Deutsche Kreditsicherungs-KG in Berlin, later Düsseldorf, which received a 10 million dollar loan from Dillon, Read & Co. Co. was founded in the 1920s. "

Memorial plaque for Alexander Kreuter in Waidring , Tyrol

In 1938 Kreuter donated five church bells for the parish church Waidring in Tyrol, where he usually spent his summer holidays. During the Second World War , Kreuter, now a member of the General SS , went to Paris soon after France's surrender in the service of the foreign intelligence service headed by Walter Schellenberg in Amt VI of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) of the SS.

There he directed a. a. the "Société de Crédits et d'Investissements" (SCI), the "Aryanized" former "Société Financière pour l'Étranger" (SFE), which was funded by a capital increase in July, financed mainly by Tredefina and to a lesser extent by Barclays Bank In 1942 it was renamed “Société de Crédits et d'Investissements” and was henceforth controlled by Tredefina. The funds contributed by Barclays, 200 million francs transferred on July 3, 1942, came from the assets of foreign Jews and were transferred by the German administrators of these companies to the French subsidiary of Barclays by order of the German military administration in France. From there, the funds found their way through Treuverkehr Deutsche Treuhand AG in Paris and Seligman Frères & Cie. to Kreuters SCI. With funds from Tredefina, the SCI acquired “Aryanized” shares in French companies. a. the Société des Schistes Bitumineux d'Autun, which exploited the oil shale near Autun , and the department store chain Galeries Lafayette .

He was also head of the German subsidiary of Bank Worms et Cie ., Which is closely associated with the Vichy government .

Former chapel of the dead in Waidring, last resting place of Alexander Kreuter

After four of the church bells donated in 1938 were melted down during World War II , Kreuter donated four church bells again in 1958. After his death, Kreuter was buried in the former chapel in Waidring.

Honors

He was awarded the Bavarian Order of Merit on December 15, 1959. In February 1967 he received the Grand Cross of Merit with Star of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his services to the Art History Institute in Florence ; since 1960 he had been treasurer of the Association for the Promotion of the Art History Institute in Florence . In 1967 he became an honorary member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts .

family

He was married to the art historian Helga Kreuter-Eggemann , whom he met in occupied France when she was working for the Reichsleiter Rosenberg's operational staff during art theft in France from 1941 to 1944 .

Publications

  • For pricing in the liner shipping company. A contribution to the morphology of the sea freight market. Munich 1909 (dissertation)

literature

  • James Stewart Martin: All Honorable Men. Little, Brown, Boston 1950, pp. 205–208 full text (PDF; 4.6 MB)
  • Annie Lacroix-Riz: Industriels et banquiers français sous l'Occupation (New, revised edition), Arman Colin, Paris, 2013, ISBN 978-2-200-28891-4
  • Burkhardt Göres: Works of art for the castle. A donation in memory of privy councilor Dr. Alexander Kreuter. In: Museumsjournal 14, 1 (2000) 43–45 with picture
  • Christina Giannini: I giorni dell'alluvione al Kunsthistorisches Institut dalla corrispondenza di Alexander Kreuter e Hans Martin von Erffa. In: Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz 54, 1 (2010/12), pp. 196–206

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ F. Calvi et M.-J. Masurovsky: Le Festin du Reich. Le pillage de la France occupée. Fayard, Paris, 2006, pp. 390-394.
  2. ^ John Gillingham: On the prehistory of the Montan Union: Western Europe's coal and steel in the depression and war. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , Volume 34, Issue 3, Institute for Contemporary History, Munich & Berlin, 1986, pp. 399–400
  3. ^ Office of Strategic Services, Art Looting Investigation Unit: Consolidated Interrogation Report No. 1, 15 August 1945, Activity of the Einsatzstab Rosenberg in France , p. 52 (PDF; 376 kB)
personal data
SURNAME Kreuter, Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German business lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH November 29, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Speyer
DATE OF DEATH September 27, 1977