Bernhard Dernburg

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Bernhard Dernburg (July 1931)

Bernhard Dernburg (born July 17, 1865 in Darmstadt , † October 14, 1937 in Berlin ) was a German politician and banker .

Live and act

Dernburg was the son of the publicist and national liberal politician Friedrich Dernburg (1833-1911), who came from a Jewish family of scholars, had converted to the Evangelical Lutheran faith and in 1864 had married the pastor's daughter Luise Stahl. After working for various banks, including the Deutsche Bank , Bernhard Dernburg became director of the Deutsche Treuhand-Gesellschaft in 1889 . In 1901 he moved to the Darmstadt Bank for Trade and Industry as a member of the board .

He gained a reputation as a renovator early on. Because of his success, the Berlin business community gave him the honorary title of "Medical Councilor". In 1901, together with Hugo Stinnes , he founded the Deutsch-Luxemburgische Bergwerks- und Hütten-AG (DL) from various unprofitable companies , which subsequently quickly became one of the largest and most expansive German mining companies. Dernburg held numerous supervisory board mandates in heavy industry , for example at DL and Phönix AG for mining and smelting .

In 1902, Dernburg played a leading role in the transformation of the Cologne chocolate company Gebr. Stollwerck OHG into a family stock company (Gebrüder Stollwerck AG). Based on his experience with preference shares in the USA, these shares were also introduced at Stollwerck. With his Darmstädter Bank, Dernburg took on the role of consortium leader in the conversion and received a supervisory board mandate at Gebr. Stollwerck AG.

Bernhard Dernburg (identified by "BD", center right) in German East Africa (1907)

In 1906 Dernburg switched to politics, first as a Prussian authorized representative at the Federal Council . On September 10, 1906, he took over the colonial department of the Foreign Office . In May 1907 he became State Secretary of the Colonial Department, which had been raised to the Reichskolonialamt (he resigned from the office in 1910). A fundamental reform course in German colonial policy is associated with his name. According to Dernburg, colonization should now be carried out with “means of preservation” instead of “means of destruction”. The colonial economy was no longer to be shaped by alcohol and arms trading companies, but by missionaries, doctors, railways and science. The aim of this overseas economic development nevertheless remained the greatest possible exhaustion of the local workforce by the colonialists.

Dernburg initiated numerous disciplinary proceedings, brought powerful and notorious colonial officials such as Governor Jesko von Puttkamer to account and dismissed older officials for the restart. As the first high colonial official of this rank, he also looked at the problems in the colonies “on site”. In 1907 he was in German East Africa and in 1908 he traveled to British South Africa and German South West Africa .

After the First World War , Dernburg participated in the founding of the DDP and became a member of the Reich Executive Committee. In 1919/20 he was a member of the Weimar National Assembly . From April 17 to June 20, 1919, Dernburg was Finance Minister and Vice Chancellor of the German Reich in Scheidemann's cabinet .

Wall grave site

From 1920 to 1930 he was a member of the Reichstag as a member of the DDP . Bernhard Dernburg found his final resting place in the Grunewald cemetery in Section IV Erb. 17. The wall grave site was carried out according to a design by Max Seliger .

See also

Publications

  • Colonial Financial Problems , 1907.
  • Colonial apprenticeship years , 1907.
  • South West African Impressions , 1909.
  • Industrial Advances in the Colonies , 1909.
  • The Reichstag and the colonies. Reichstag speech, Berlin, November 29 ( online ).

literature

Web links

Commons : Bernhard Dernburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerald D. Feldman : Hugo Stinnes. Biography of an industrialist 1870–1924 . CH Beck, Munich 1998, p. 77. ISBN 3-406-43582-3 .
  2. ↑ Hermann AL Degener: Who is it? , VI. Edition, Leipzig 1912, p. 294.
  3. ^ Wilfried Westphal: History of the German colonies . Gondrom, Bindlach 1991, ISBN 3-8112-0905-1 , p. 254 ff.
  4. ^ Winfried Speitkamp : German Colonial History . Reclam, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-15-017047-8 , pp. 140 f.
  5. ↑ Frank Bösch : Public Secrets. Scandals, politics and media in Germany and Great Britain 1880–1914. Oldenbourg, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-486-58857-6 , p. 303 f.
predecessor Office successor
––––– Secretary of State in the Colonial Office
1907 - 1910 		Friedrich von Lindequist
personal data
SURNAME Dernburg, Bernhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (DDP), MdR and banker
DATE OF BIRTH July 17, 1865
PLACE OF BIRTH Darmstadt
DATE OF DEATH October 14, 1937
Place of death Berlin