Alfred Toepfer

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Alfred C. Toepfer (1990)

Alfred Carl Toepfer (born July 13, 1894 in Altona near Hamburg ; † October 8, 1993 in Hamburg) was a German entrepreneur. He was the founder and owner of Toepfer International , one of the leading international grain trading companies after the Second World War and founder of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation F.V.S.

While Toepfer's own role in the Nazi era is controversial to this day and Toepfer's supportive attitude to anti-Semitism and other central elements of National Socialism is rejected in the investigations of a relevant historians' commission, his personnel policy after the war, which was aimed at employing former members of the Holocaust and War crimes by actively involved National Socialists led, unanimously criticized.

Life

Until the end of the First World War

Alfred Toepfer came from a middle-class background. He first attended elementary school and completed a commercial apprenticeship. The very talented pupil imitated the secondary school leaving certificate in evening classes and learned several languages. In early 1912 he joined the Wandervogel, the German Association for Youth Hikes . Its leader Hans Breuer shaped his thinking, especially his demand for reflection on his own nationality . In 1913 Toepfer was one of the participants in the meeting of the First Free German Youth Day on the Hoher Meissner. Even Julius Langbehn's signature Rembrandt as Educator called Toepfer later as being essential, in particular the idea of a low-Germany , that of Holland until after Riga was enough.

Toepfer took part in the First World War as an infantryman from 1914 , u. a. in the winter battle in Masuria , the Second Battle of Flanders , the Battle of the Somme and the Fourth Battle of Flanders . He was wounded several times and demobilized in January 1919 as a company commander with the rank of lieutenant .

In the Weimar Republic (1919–1933)

In 1919 Alfred Toepfer joined the "Landesjägerkorps" under the leadership of General Maercker . As leader of a mounted machine gun division, he was initially deployed in Weimar to protect the Weimar National Assembly . In the following months Toepfer took part in the operations of the Freikorps against insurgent socialist and communist workers . a. in Halle (Saale) , Leipzig , Magdeburg , Braunschweig , Gotha , Erfurt and Eisenach . With the incorporation of the "Landesjägerkorps" into the Reichswehr , Toepfer took his leave at the end of 1919.

While he was still a member of the Freikorps, Toepfer had started to trade in agricultural products in Thuringia . Back in Hamburg he founded the trading company Alfred C. Toepfer , which was entered in the commercial register in January 1920 and u. a. worldwide trade (USA, Canada, USSR ) in agricultural products, especially grain, as well as a private bank and its own shipping company. From 1926, Toepfer began to grant the employees of his company above-average social benefits as well as to donate to projects to promote youth (e.g. youth hostel building ). His donation activities were guided by the idea of ​​a "renewal of nationality as the basis for German resurgence" after the defeat in the First World War. Toepfer has been a member of the Hamburg National Club from 1919 since the company was founded , and he eagerly attended to its lecture program. About contacts from the club, he learned at a meeting of the Federal Oberland also Ernst Niekisch know whose magazine resistance. Journal for National Revolutionary Politics he supported several times financially between 1928 and 1931. However, he did not share Niekisch's national Bolshevik enthusiasm for the USSR, whose then catastrophic economic situation he knew firsthand. Through Niekisch Toepfer also got to know Ernst Jünger and his brother Friedrich Georg and A. Paul Weber . The graphic artist Weber took on numerous design assignments for his Foundation F.V.S., founded in 1931 (also after the initials of Freiherr von Stein for "Freiherr vom Stein", "Friedrich von Schiller" and "Ferdinand von Schill", today the Alfred Toepfer Foundation FVS ). According to the statutes, the foundation should serve to promote the German Volkstum in Europe , especially in the countries and areas of German and Low German Volkstum bordering on the Reich but lying beyond the Reich borders . The first members of the Board of Trustees in 1932 were the rector of the University of Hamburg Alfred Wigand († 1932), who openly sympathized with the demands of the National Socialist German Student Union , and the Danish pastor and minority politician Johannes Schmidt-Wodder . Toepfer decided on the type and amount of donations independently of the Board of Trustees. In parallel to the establishment of the F.V.S. Foundation based in Hamburg, the J. W. G. Foundation (based on Goethe's initials ) was established in Vaduz for reasons of foreign exchange law and with funds from foreign business. This initially only served money transactions when Toepfer was active abroad (e.g. Austria , Alsace ).

Toepfer's commitment to the Hüneburg , a separatist project aimed at separating Alsace from France, is particularly noteworthy . A hikers' hostel and a base for a folk “Germanness” were to be built there, for which he made funds available. Similarly, promoted Toepfer in Nordschleswig a project of a hostel of German-Danish separatists who wanted to achieve a reincorporation of Northern Schleswig to Germany, which had been awarded in a referendum in 1920 Denmark. This youth hostel was built on the Knivsberg near Aabenraa . At Toepfer's request, it was named after the nationalist and anti-Semitic cultural critic August Julius Langbehn , who came from Aabenraa and whose most famous book "Rembrandt als Erzieher" was of great importance to Toepfer.

1933–1945: Volkstums activist of the SD

The available information about Toepfer's behavior in the first time after the " seizure of power " is not clear, but he probably campaigned publicly for Jewish merchants from Hamburg. In his market reports , which have been sent to business partners since 1930, he expressed criticism of the National Socialist economic policy , which he himself understood as positive (in the sense of helping to establish the state ). At the instigation of the Reich Food and Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda were market reports therefore prohibited 1934th

In the following years Toepfer continued to work successfully as an entrepreneur. In addition, he devoted himself to the expansion of his agricultural goods, which, according to his ideas, should become economic, social and cultural model institutions. Kalkhorst Castle, in particular, was intended to promote an elite to strengthen the German people outside the big city. The F.V.S.-Foundation remained largely unknown to the public until 1945. But as early as June 1933 Toepfer appointed National Socialists such as the historian Adolf Rein and the writer Hans Friedrich Blunck to the Board of Trustees. With her help, Toepfer established contacts in the academic and cultural milieu as well as the Propaganda Ministry and created numerous cultural prizes from 1935 onwards . Between 1933 and 1937 he made numerous trips to neighboring countries, during which he made contact with separatists from Alsace , Lorraine and Flanders as well as with German-friendly Luxembourgers and Swiss . He also got in touch with foreign National Socialists of the National Front in Switzerland and the Nationaal-Socialistische Bewegungsing in the Netherlands. Through the use of Kalkhorst Castle as Reichsfuhrer School I of the VDA , there was a close relationship with the Volksbund für das Deutschtum Abroad (VBA) and its leader Hans Steinacher . Intensive contacts built Toepfer to members of the Austrian Nazi Party, which in 1934 after their failed coup attempt had fled to Germany: the later Gauleiter Friedrich Rainer and Odilo Globocnik were Toepfer personally to staying on his Hofgut Siggen in Holstein invited as Franz Hueber , the Brother-in-law of Hermann Göring . In 1935 Konrad Henlein , the leader of the Sudeten German Party (SdP) made a secret visit to Gut Siggen. In the same year Henlein was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the F.V.S. Foundation and made its honorary chairman in 1937. In January 1937 Toepfer made his first acquaintance with Werner Best , whom he - however unsuccessfully - also offered to join the board of trustees. Even Werner Lorenz , head of the People's Mittelstelle (VOMI) , which from 1937 instead of the VBA was responsible for Volkstumsarbeit, was interested Toepfer for the work of his foundation.

In June 1937. Toepfer in an investigation that the first prosecutor was Henry Jauch brought against him, arrested for currency violations and remained until May 1938 in custody . The Gestapo searched his company and his private rooms. Finally Toepfer was released without conviction after Werner Lorenz had taken over the supervision of the F.V.S. Foundation as trustee. Toepfer continued to work as a donor in the period that followed.

The SD - Oberabschnitt West in Dusseldorf was reached early in 1937 to the conclusion that there can not be the task of a Nazi party official or otherwise semi-official agency to conduct foreign policy towards the West. Otherwise there is a risk of interference in the affairs of foreign states. This necessary work must therefore lie in the hands of a person who appears to the outside only as a private person, but who has to work internally according to instructions. That was Toepfer. According to the SD, he was one of the private individuals who supported those ethnic networks in the Benelux countries who campaigned for the recovery of the so-called Germanic-German areas in border culture politics. Toepfer's network of private foundations in Hamburg, Freiburg, and Vaduz and Basel played a central role as the foundation facade, both in the procurement and provision of foreign currency and in establishing contacts with the local Nazis in neighboring countries. The foreign policy camouflage through ethnic German “culture prizes” was for the SD only a “functional weapon” of the infiltration of states on their way to a Europe under German domination .

After the official termination of the investigation in October 1939, Toepfer was reactivated as a soldier with the rank of lieutenant, but initially remained on leave. At the end of 1939, because of his knowledge of the Dutch language, he was drafted into the defense under Admiral Canaris and, after a brief training, assigned to Department 2, which was responsible for minorities and political groups abroad. From May to June he worked in the occupied Netherlands . He often made contact with Dutch National Socialists such as Anton Mussert , whose movement he knew from the pre-war period. AJ van Wessem, a colleague of Mussert, had been on the board of trustees for the “Rembrandt Prize” of the Toepfer Foundation FVS for a long time.

In Amsterdam he also accepted to join the Flemish nationalists of the Vlaams Verbond van Frankrijk , who wanted to separate Northern France from their state. He worked for a short time in Belgium under Friedrich Carl Marwede , where he visited the Vlaamsch National Verbond (VNV). In July 1940 he was transferred to the Paris Abwehr control center in the Hôtel Lutetia . In the early summer of 1941, Toepfer's unit put together a “France report” which served to “völkisch screening” the occupied country and dealt intensively with French regionalism against the background of the National Socialist plans for Europe . During this time Toepfer maintained contact with French separatists such as the occupation authorities on behalf of the occupation authorities. B. Hermann Bickler ( Alsace ) and Olier Mordrel ( Bretagne ), whom he already knew from the pre-war period, also in order to infiltrate resistance groups with their help and to split and thus weaken the resistance of the French against the German occupation. There was also close contact with Werner Best , who had meanwhile become head of the war administration at the military commander in France , as well as with Ernst Jünger , who was stationed in Paris.

In July 1942 Toepfer left the Abwehr with the rank of captain for reasons that were not yet clear and switched to the economic department of the military commander in France. On behalf of the Reich Ministry of Economics , he founded the Reich's own purchasing office Bureau d'achat du capitaine Toepfer et Stahlberg et Cie . In Paris in June 1943 . This office was supposed to control and fight the black market in France, procure foreign currency by selling goods from occupied France to neutral countries, and handle secret compensation transactions for the procurement of strategically important raw materials from Spain and Portugal. Toepfer left Paris in August 1944 shortly before the liberation by the Allies. In April 1945 Toepfer was released from military service and lived as a civilian in Hamburg at the end of the war.

After 1945

Memorial stone for Alfred Toepfer in the heathland near Niederhaverbeck

Alfred Toepfer initiated the Reconstruction Foundation of the Hamburg State Opera in 1952 . Under its honorary managing director Wilhelm Oberdörffer, the foundation raised 1.5 million marks in sponsorship funds within a few months. The Hamburg State Opera , reopened on October 15, 1955, was the first new building among the large German opera houses that were destroyed in the war.

His company, Alfred C. Toepfer , rose to become one of the “leading international grain and animal feed trading companies”, which, including its holdings in land trade and shipping, achieved sales of around DM 10 billion in the mid-1970s. The capital of the company's personally liable partner, the Alfred C. Toepfer Verwaltungsgesellschaft , had already been transferred in full to Toepfer's FVS Foundation in 1961, which, in addition to its tasks promoting cultural interests, was the company's major capital carrier until the 1980s.

The entrepreneur was a pioneer in landscape and nature conservation . Between 1954 and 1985 he was chairman of the national nature conservation park association . Toepfer's particular concern was the preservation of the Lüneburg Heath and the creation of nature parks in Germany. This succeeded from 1956 with the announcement of the nature park program in the auditorium of the University of Bonn , at which Federal President Theodor Heuss was present.

Alfred C. Toepfer was buried in the forest cemetery in Hamburg-Wohldorf-Ohlstedt .

reception

International criticism and historical research

Until his death Toepfer hardly commented publicly about his activities during the National Socialist era . In the 1990s, its role and the activities of its foundation prior to 1945 were examined increasingly critically. Toepfer was an “advocate of an ethno-pluralistically structured Europe of the regions” and in this context has continued to position himself as a “patron of an institutionalized Low German promotion”. The Swiss historian of science Michael Fahlbusch wrote that Toepfer co-financed official cultural policy and that his foundation, as the “ fifth cultural column ”, pursued pan-Germanist goals for the period after the Second World War . In 1996 the city ​​of Strasbourg terminated its collaboration with the foundation. In 1997, the Alfred Toepfer Foundation founded an independent commission of historians under the direction of Hans Mommsen , which in 2000 under the title Alfred Toepfer. Founder and businessman. Building blocks of a biography. Critical inventory published an anthology with a critical inventory of Toepfer's biography and foundation history.

The commission came to the conclusion that Toepfer did not share the central goals and motives of National Socialism, not even anti-Semitism, and in particular did not enrich himself with "Aryanized" property. However, after the war he pursued an extremely problematic personnel policy. Exposed examples of this are the former Reich Plenipotentiary for Hungary Edmund Veesenmayer , who was one of the organizers for the murder of 400,000 Hungarian Jews in 1944, and the former Nazi State Secretary in the Ministry of Food, Hans-Joachim Riecke , one of those responsible for starvation practice in 1941 Eastern territories occupied until 1944, called. While the cooperation with Veesenmayer was limited to the years 1952 and 1953 as a liaison officer for Toepfer's company in Iran, Toepfer Riecke “initially employed a managerial role in the company” and left him “in the highest representative functions of the foundations in the 1960s [ climb]". The statements of the commission with regard to Toepfer's own relationship to National Socialism are questioned by numerous authors.

Awards

Publications

  • Westschau 1940. Assmus, Berlin 1940 (printed as a manuscript)
  • Memories from my life. 1894-1991. Christians, Hamburg 1991.

literature

  • Georg Kreis , Gerd Krumeich , Henri Menudier, Hans Mommsen , Arnold Sywottek (eds.): Alfred Toepfer. Founder and businessman. Building blocks of a biography. Critical inventory . Christians, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-7672-1373-7 ( introduction as full text ).
  • Jan Zimmermann : The Culture Awards of the F. V Foundation, pp. 1935–1945. Presentation and documentation. Ed. Dies., Hamburg 2000.
  • Lionel Boissou: Les activités du "Bureau d'achat du capitaine Toepfer et Stahlberg" & Cie. P. 277–295 in: Stefan Martens, Maurice Vaïsse: France and Germany at War (November 1942 - autumn 1944). Occupation, collaboration, resistance . Paris Historical Studies, ed. by the German Historical Institute Paris, Volume 55.Bouvier, Bonn 2000 = files of the Franco-German colloquium in Paris on March 22nd and 23rd, 1999, organized by the German Historical Institute Paris and the Center d'Études d'Histoire de la Défense , Vincennes in collaboration with the Institute for Contemporary History , Munich and the Institut d'Histoire du Temps Présent , Paris-Cachan. ISBN 3-416-02908-9 .
  • Burkhard Dietz, Helmut Gabel, Ulrich Tiedau (eds.): The grip to the west. The "West Research" of the ethnic-national sciences on the north-western European area 1919-1960. Waxmann, Münster 2003, ISBN 3-8309-1144-0 .
  • Georg Kreis: Doubtful handling of “doubtful past”. On the ongoing dispute over the Alfred Toepfer Foundation. In: Georg Kreis: Prehistory to the present. Selected essays. Volume 3, Schwabe, Basel 2005, pp. 501-523.
  • Ulf-Thomas Lesle : Alfred Toepfer. Merchant and patron. In: Future, Home, Lower Saxony. 100 years of the Lower Saxony Heimatbund. Edited by the Lower Saxony Homeland Association. Delmenhorst 2005, pp. 143-158.
  • Ulf-Thomas Lesle: Identity Project Low German. The definition of language as a political issue. In: Robert Langhanke (Ed.): Language, Literature, Space. Festschrift for Willy Diercks . Publishing house for regional history, Bielefeld 2015, ISBN 978-3-89534-867-9 , pp. 693–741.
  • Karl Heinz Roth , Ulf-Thomas Lesle: Ethnic networks: Alfred Toepfer and the foundation company ACT / FVS A research balance sheet. In: Journal of History. Vol. 64, 2016, pp. 213-234.
  • Jan Zimmermann: Alfred Toepfer. ( Hamburg Heads series , published by the Zeit Foundation ). Ellert & Richter, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-8319-0295-8 .
  • Alfred C. Toepfer , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 01/1994 of December 27, 1993, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of the article freely available)
  • Karl Heinz Roth: Alfred C. Toepfer. In: Michael Fahlbusch , Ingo Haar , Alexander Pinwinkler (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Völkischen Wissenschaften. Actors, networks, research programs. With the assistance of David Hamann. Volume 1. 2., fundamentally expanded and revised edition. de Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-11-042989-3 , pp. 825-843.

Radio and film

  • 1974: Alfred Toepfer. In: Series: Patrons. Production by Saarland radio / television. 15 minutes. Script and direction: Klaus Peter Dencker.
  • 2012: Alfred C. - From the life of a grain dealer. Radio play by Hermann Bohlen . Production Deutschlandradio Kultur / HR . 56:30 minutes. Direction: Judith Lorentz and Hermann Bohlen.

Web links

Historians' dispute over Toepfer

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jan Zimmermann (2008), pp. 17-25.
  2. ↑ Jan Zimmermann (2008), pp. 26–31.
  3. ↑ Jan Zimmermann (2008), pp. 32–35.
  4. ^ Peter Hopp: Alfred Toepfer, A. Paul Weber and Schmidt-Wodder in the years 1930 to 1938. In: Journal of the Society for Schleswig-Holstein History. 109, 1984, pp. 243-286 (digitized version )
  5. ↑ Jan Zimmermann (2008), pp. 35–53.
  6. ↑ "March 22, 1932: On the 100th anniversary of Goethe's death, donation of 100,000 FFr. For the construction of a youth hostel in Alsace, which will later finance the purchase of the property for the youth hostel Hünenburg (sic)." toepfer-stiftung.de (PDF; 33 kB).
  7. ↑ Georg Kreis, Gerd Krumeich, Henri Menudier, Hans Mommsen, Arnold Sywottek (eds.): Alfred Toepfer. Founder and businessman. Building blocks of a biography. Critical inventory . Christians, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-7672-1373-7 , pp. 197-202.
  8. ↑ Jan Zimmermann (2008), pp. 54–59.
  9. ↑ Jan Zimmermann (2008), pp. 60–78.
  10. ↑ Toepfer stylized his time in pre-trial detention as “Gestapo detention”, which was due to his contacts with Ernst Niekisch , who was arrested at the same time. S. Jan Zimmermann (2008), pp. 78-79.
  11. ↑ Michael Fahlbusch: A questionable philanthropist. The subversive activities of the German-Völkisch foundation founder Toepfer in Switzerland. In: Sozial.Geschichte Online H. 12, 2013, S. 44f. (Full text)
  12. ↑ Jan Zimmermann: Alfred Toepfers Westschau, in Burkhard Dietz, Helmut Gabel, Ulrich Tiedau (ed.): The grip on the west. The "West Research" of the ethnic-national sciences on the north-western European area 1919-1960. Waxmann, Münster 2003, ISBN 3-8309-1144-0 , p. 1072. Toepfer consistently in these volumes, which are based on source evaluations, at least 37 mentions.
  13. ↑ Lionel Boissou: Les activités du "Bureau d'achat du capitaine Toepfer et Stahlberg" . In Stefan Martens , Maurice Vaïsse: France and Germany at War (November 1942 - Autumn 1944). Occupation, collaboration, resistance . (= Paris historical studies ), 55th ed. German Historical Institute Paris. Bouvier, Bonn 2000, files of the Franco-German colloquium in Paris on March 22nd and 23rd, 1999, organized by the German Historical Institute Paris and the Center d'Études d'Histoire de la Défense , Vincennes in cooperation with the Institute for Contemporary History , Munich and the Institut d'Histoire du Temps Présent , Paris-Cachan. ISBN 3-416-02908-9 , p. 278.
  14. ↑ Lionel Boissou: Les activités du "Bureau d'achat du capitaine Toepfer et Stahlberg" . In Stefan Martens , Maurice Vaïsse: France and Germany at War (November 1942 - Autumn 1944). Occupation, collaboration, resistance . (= Paris historical studies ), 55th ed. German Historical Institute Paris. Bouvier, Bonn 2000, files of the Franco-German colloquium in Paris on March 22 and 23, 1999, organized by the German Historical Institute Paris and the Center d'Études d'Histoire de la Défens , Vincennes in cooperation with the Institute for Contemporary History , Munich and the Institut d'Histoire du Temps Présent , Paris-Cachan. ISBN 3-416-02908-9 , p. 295. According to the information provided by Jan Zimmermann (2008), the company's economic success was probably only slight. Toepfer is said to have had no private economic benefit and only received his salary as a captain. However, in the course of his activities he was able to establish contacts that were of economic use to him in the post-war period.
  15. ↑ Jan Zimmermann (2008), pp. 88–117.
  16. ↑ Photo gallery for the 75th anniversary of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation FVS ( Memento from May 23, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (last accessed on January 8, 2012)
  17. ↑ Georg Kreis, Gerd Krumeich, Henri Menudier, Hans Mommsen, Arnold Sywottek (eds.): Alfred Toepfer. Founder and businessman. Building blocks of a biography. Critical inventory . Christians, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-7672-1373-7 , pp. 450f.
  18. ^ Jan Zimmermann: Alfred Toepfer. Ellert & Richter, Hamburg 2008, p. 129 u. P. 195.
  19. ^ Photos family grave Alfred C. Toepfer, Waldfriedhof Hamburg-Wohldorf-Ohlstedt
  20. ↑ "Alfred Toepfer rarely commented in public reviews of his behavior in the» Third Reich «, and almost never on his activities in World War II. His remarks often did not get to the core of the events he reported. This is particularly true for his commitment to Alsace. Although he did not completely ignore his unsuccessful efforts to gain approval from the National Socialist leadership, he mainly referred to situations whose outcome could put him in a good light. " Georg Kreis, Gerd Krumeich, Henri Menudier, Hans Mommsen, Arnold Sywottek (eds.): Alfred Toepfer. Founder and businessman. Building blocks of a biography. Critical inventory . Christians, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-7672-1373-7 , introduction p. 11.
  21. ↑ Ulf-Thomas Lesle: Identity Project Low German. The definition of language as a political issue. In: R. Langhanke (Ed.): Language, Literature, Space. Festschrift. for Willy Diercks . Publishing house for regional history, Bielefeld 2015, p. 726 f.
  22. ^ H. Georg: Washed white. In: Neue Rheinische Zeitung . December 24, 2008 (with photo by Alfred Toepfer; accessed October 13, 2012).
  23. ↑ Georg Kreis, Gerd Krumeich, Henri Menudier, Hans Mommsen, Arnold Sywottek (eds.): Alfred Toepfer. Founder and businessman. Building blocks of a biography. Critical inventory . Christians, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-7672-1373-7 .
  24. ↑ Georg Kreis, Gerd Krumeich, Henri Menudier, Hans Mommsen, Arnold Sywottek (eds.): Alfred Toepfer. Founder and businessman. Building blocks of a biography. Critical inventory . Christians, Hamburg 2000, p. 24 (quotation) and P. 378.
  25. ↑ z. B. "Westforschung", see Ref.
  26. ↑ Honorary Senators of the University of Hamburg ( Memento from December 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  27. ^ Faculty of Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences at the University of Kiel: Honorary Doctors (accessed on November 10, 2012).
  28. ^ Honorary members in the Heimatbund Lower Saxony ( Memento from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on May 6, 2010.
  29. ↑ drs.ch Swiss Radio DRS : Old Nazi as honorary doctor - history catches up with University of Basel (accessed on November 10, 2012).
  30. ^ German Hiking Association (Ed.): 125 years of hiking and more . Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2008, ISBN 978-3-86568-221-5 , p. 172.
  31. ↑ Toepfer welcomed the German attack on Western Europe. He accepted quotes from the Swiss National Socialist Alfred Zander . See Jan Zimmermann, Alfred Toepfers 'Westschau'. In: Helmut Gabel, Burkhard Dietz, Ulrich Tiedau (eds.): Griff nach dem Westen. The ' western research ' of the ethnic-national sciences on the north-western European area 1919-1960. Münster 2003, p. 1065; Martin J. Bucher, “We carry the flapping flags of the future!” The Swiss National Youth. a Swiss counterpart to the German Hitler Youth. In: Swiss journal for history. Vol. 61, 2011, pp. 315–334. Toepfer supposedly distributed Zander's anti-Semitic book Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft und Reich in Germany since 1937 , see Michael Fahlbusch: A questionable philanthropist. The subversive activities of the German-Völkisch foundation founder Toepfer in Switzerland. In: Social.History Online. Issue 12, 2013, p. 48 (full text)
  32. ^ Name giver for Stahlberg & Cie. was Friedrich Stahlberg, a Bremen merchant see Alfred Toepfer. Founder and businessman. Building blocks of a biography. Critical inventory. P. 400. The company resided in Paris and Hamburg at Toepfer's headquarters and is referred to as "richly owned".
  33. ^ Investigation of Toepfer's activities in France during the German occupation, mostly in French with a German summary, partly also in German.
  34. ↑ Names the participants and describes the lines of conflict in the historians' dispute; but also indicates how much Toepfer's appearance in the post-war period and his handling of his own past created the conditions for the disputes.
  35. ↑ ALFRED C. - From the life of a grain dealer (original broadcast) Program information (accessed on November 10, 2012).
personal data
SURNAME Toepfer, Alfred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Toepfer, Alfred Carl; Hoffmann, HA (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur and founder of the largest private foundation in Germany
DATE OF BIRTH July 13, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Altona near Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH October 8, 1993
Place of death Hamburg