Carl Wilhelm August Weber

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Carl Wilhelm August Weber (born February 4, 1871 in Oldenburg , † November 17, 1957 in London ) was a German banker and politician (NLP, DDP, DStP).

Live and act

After attending grammar school in Oldenburg, Weber completed a three-year agricultural apprenticeship from 1889 to 1892. He then studied economics, history and law at the universities of Berlin , Jena and Marburg . In 1895 he received his doctorate. jur.

After serving for one year in the Oldenburg Infantry Regiment No. 91 , Weber joined Dresdner Bank as a correspondent in 1896 , where he later rose to become an authorized signatory. In 1900 he took over the management of a Saxon provincial bank in Löbau . In 1912 he moved to Berlin, where he also headed a bank.

During the First World War Weber was active in the war economy: After the war he took on tasks in the Reich Ministry of Economics . In the private sector, he distinguished himself as a board member of the Hansa Federation for Trade, Commerce and Industry and the Reich Association of German Industry and as a member of the Berlin Chamber of Commerce .

In the last few years of the Weimar Republic, Weber was a member of the board of directors of the Reich Association of German Industry and the Hansabund for trade, commerce and industry. He was also President of the Jute Industry Association.

In mid-August 1925, at the beginning of the decline of the Stinnes empire , he took over with a consortium that he led with the Berlin paper industrialist Walter Salinger, and became the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung together with the Norddeutsche Buchdruckerei- und Verlags AG for 3 million marks. The “right-wing press” feared that “national” circles ”might lose power over this“ important organ ”, although it was assured that the political direction of the newspaper would be maintained. Finally, the DAZ swung more and more on a right-conservative-anti-republican course, similar to parts of the middle-class in the environment of the DVP , in which the previous owner, the industrialist Hugo Stinnes was involved until his death in 1924.

After the National Socialists came to power in the spring of 1933, Weber was forced to resign from all of his commercial offices under pressure from the Gestapo . In 1938 he emigrated to Great Britain. He settled in London, where he took over the leadership of the local representation of the German Freedom Party and also participated in the Central European Joint Committee. In addition, there was journalistic engagement against the Hitler dictatorship.

In Germany, his activities brought Weber into the sights of the National Socialist surveillance organs, who classified him as an enemy of the state: In the spring of 1940, the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin put Weber on the special wanted list GB , a list of people who would be killed in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht, special SS commandos following the occupation forces were to be identified and arrested with special priority.

In 1943 Weber was one of the signatories of the appeal to found the Free Germany Movement , which he soon left in protest against the German policy of the Soviet Union and the KPD.

In his book A New Germany in a New Europe from 1944 Weber pleaded for a rebuilding of the Reich without losing territory, with state economic planning and participation.

Party activity

From 1907 to 1911 Weber was a member of the Reichstag for the National Liberal Party . In December 1918 Weber took part in the founding of the German Democratic Party (DDP), in contrast to the majority of the National Liberals. When this merged with the Young German Order in 1930 in the German State Party , Weber followed this path: From September 1930 to July 1932 he sat for the new party as a member of the Reichstag , in which he represented constituency 4 (Potsdam I) . During this time he held the chairmanship of the state party.

Fonts

  • The realm financial reform . Leipzig s. a. [1909].
  • War and banks . 1915.
  • Against National Socialism . Berlin 1932.
  • with Victor Schiff , Wilhelm Koenen , Irmgard Litten , Arthur Liebert : Germany's Road to Democracy . Drummond, London 1943
  • New Germany in a New Europe . London 1945.

literature

  • German Biographical Encyclopedia , Vol. 10 (Thies-Zymalkowski), p. 432.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stinnes Concerns , Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate, Newcastle (NSW / Australia) August 24, 1925, p. 5.
  2. ^ Volksstimme , Magdeburg, August 25, 1925, p. 2.
  3. ^ Entry on Weber on the special wanted list GB (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museum in London).
personal data
SURNAME Weber, Carl Wilhelm August
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Weber, August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German banker and politician (NLP, DStP), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH February 4, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH Oldenburg
DATE OF DEATH 17th November 1957
Place of death London