Ernst Poensgen

Ernst Poensgen 1926

Carl Albert Ernst Poensgen (born September 19, 1871 in Düsseldorf , † July 22, 1949 in Bern ) was a German entrepreneur and patron of the city of Düsseldorf and came from the widely ramified Eifel Reidemeister family Poensgen .

education

Ernst Poensgen studied mathematics and chemistry at the University of Strasbourg from 1890 to 1892 , where he became a member of the Corps Rhenania . He completed his military service as a one-year volunteer in the Royal Prussian Field Artillery Regiment No. 15 and then studied mining and metallurgy at the Technical University Berlin-Charlottenburg and the Bergakademie Berlin from 1892 to 1895 . In 1895 he started a one-year internship in the peace hut in Upper Silesia .

From 1896 to 1929

In 1896 Poensgen became a production engineer, then an authorized signatory and in 1901 operations director of the family company Düsseldorfer Röhren- und Eisenwalzwerke AG , whose systems he fundamentally improved after several study visits to the United States .

In 1904 the Stahlwerkverband AG (also "Stahlwerkverband") was founded in Düsseldorf . Together with the Upper Silesian steelworks association, it dominated the entire German and Luxembourg steel industry. Poensgen was involved in the establishment and began his lifelong association activity. In 1905 the steelworks association moved its headquarters to Düsseldorf and placed the order for the construction of its headquarters in the Düsseldorf steel yard .

Poensgen also became a board member of Düsseldorfer Röhren- und Eisenwalzwerke AG in 1905, and in 1911 after the merger with “Phönix” AG for mining and smelting , in which the family had shares, its board member.

Ernst Poensgen lived with his family at Prinz-Georg-Straße 15 in the house of the heirs of the architect Bernhard Budde. From 1910 to 1911 he had a city palace built by the architect Max Wöhler at Malkastenstrasse 11 . Next door in No. 13, which was renamed No. 15, the city palace of Persil inventor Hugo Henkel was built at the same time .

From 1914 until its dissolution in 1933 he was chairman of the Northwest Employers' Association of the German Iron and Steel Industry Association .

After the outbreak of World War I, Ernst Poensgen volunteered for the military. In the winter of 1914/1915 he was employed as battery chief in Galicia , and from spring 1915 he was in the military administration of occupied Belgium with the control of the steel industry there. In 1916 he was released from service and worked as the technical director of the Phönix Group in (Dortmund-) Hörde. He also joined the "Deutscher Stahlbund" (German Steel Federation), an organization that existed during the First World War to ensure military iron and steel needs. For his services to the war economy, he was awarded the War Merit Cross 1st Class.

After the peace of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918 with Russia, Poensgen was one of the 15 representatives of German heavy industry who discussed in the Düsseldorf Stahlhof how German industry would fare "on the Euro-Asian continent ... after the loss of German maritime governance ... could hold harmless ”( George Hallgarten ). They planned a huge expansion of German exports to the east to be financed by the Reich. Poensgens Phoenix AG was involved when the financial basis of this plan was planned on June 4, 1918 together with bankers in the Reichswirtschaftsamt .

Ernst Poensgen joined the German People's Party (DVP), which was shaped by Gustav Stresemann and initially monarchist and later republican .

After the First World War, the regulatory powers of the federal states and the German Reich were badly shaken. The Rhenish-Westphalian heavy industry used this to bundle its influence for a dominant position. The Langnam Association , which she founded in 1871, was able to pursue an increasingly independent economic policy. The aim was to set up a "vertical" monopoly for coal, coke, gas and steel in Germany.

In this context, the (German) Crude Steel Community was founded in 1924 as a supplement to the steelworks association with the participation of Poensgen.

In addition, since the 1920s, Poensgen had also tried to reach international agreements in the steel sector. In close coordination with the Reich Ministry of Economics, negotiations were initially conducted bilaterally with France on mutual trade issues. They were overshadowed by attempts by the two governments to reach interstate trade agreements, whereby the return of the previously French-occupied territories was also important on the part of the imperial government . As part of the admission of the German Reich to the League of Nations , Poensgen was also a member of the German delegation as the spokesman for the deliberations on the reorganization of the international iron industry. He gained wide international recognition and was z. B. made an honorary member by the British Iron and Steel Institute .

At the beginning of 1926 Poensgen founded the Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG (also called "VSt", "Vestag" or "Stahlverein") together with Emil Kirdorf and Fritz Thyssen . It was an amalgamation of initially seven company groups (Thyssen, "Phönix", Bochumer Verein etc.) and in 1937/1938 was one of the largest German companies with 194,000 employees. Poensgen was initially deputy chairman of the board and from 1935 chairman of the group's board of directors.

In the year of its foundation, the "United Steel Works" tried to control the gas industry across the empire. The plan was to cover the rest of Germany from the Ruhr area with a network of long- distance pipelines in which, under the protection of the Syndicate, cheaply produced blast furnace gas would be sold in competition with the still independent local gas works . The latter, in turn, should no longer be supplied with coal for gas production. The driving force behind these plans were, in addition to Ernst Poensgen, the general director of the “United Steelworks” Albert Vögler , Fritz Thyssen, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach and the general director of the Stinnes colliery, Alfred Pott . With the aim of nationwide domination, the Kohlenverwertungs-AG was founded , which in 1928 was given the now better-known name Ruhrgas AG. The means used by the cartel also included what would be called ' lobbying ' or 'maintaining the political landscape' today - including right-wing extremist forces hostile to democracy. In contrast, the German Association of Gas and Water Experts (supported by the municipal gas suppliers) pointed out the economic and economic disadvantages of the planned monopoly. The press, parliaments and finally the governments of the Weimar Republic increasingly followed this view . The plan for a nationwide sole supply by Ruhrgas AG failed.

On September 10, 1926, the German Reich was admitted to the League of Nations. Poensgen's good international contacts were ultimately one of the foundations for being able to found the International Crude Steel Community (IRG, also: "International Steel Cartel", "International Steel Cartel") as Vice President on October 1, 1926, together with Emil Mayrisch as President and Fritz Thyssen . This was a European cartel of selected companies from Belgium, Germany, France, Luxembourg and the Saar region (which was then independent from customs). It should protect them from competition in their own country and in third markets. In 1927 Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and finally Great Britain also joined the cartel. As already considered when it was founded, Germany withdrew from the International Crude Steel Community in 1929 with the aim of renegotiations.

Poensgen's lifelong confidante and colleague on the board, Albert Vögler , a founding member of the DVP in 1918, resigned from this party in 1924. In 1928 at the latest, when the DVP lost its importance due to wing fighting, Ernst Poensgen also left the DVP and, like his cousin Helmuth Poensgen and other parts of the family, joined the German National People's Party, which was much further to the right .

Since it was founded in 1928, Ernst Poensgen has also been part of the exclusive Ruhrlade circle . In 1929 he turned against the Young Plan to limit the reparation payments of the German Reich for the First World War. In the same year he became chairman of the Association of German Iron and Steel Industrialists (today: Wirtschaftsvereinigung Stahl ).

From 1930 to 1944

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Like most members of the Ruhrlade and the other representatives of the heavy industry of the Rhine and Ruhr in the Weimar Republic, Ernst Poensgen also tended to the right-wing conservative forces. He believed that an authoritarian form of government would be better suited to ending the ongoing severe crisis in the German Reich than parliamentary democracy . During the general meeting of the association on November 4, 1930, in accordance with the wishes of many members of the Langnam Association for the replacement of Weimar parliamentarism by an authoritarian imperial policy, as opposed to the equalizing efforts of Chancellor Heinrich Brüning , he demanded a "leader who will bring our people together again may lead purposefully ”.

However , Poensgen did not agree to the political demands made by the Frankfurt am Main Economic Policy Association on July 27, 1931. Whether he, like his cousin Helmuth Poensgen , took part in the founding meeting of the Harzburg Front on October 11, 1931 with Alfred Hugenberg and Adolf Hitler is a matter of dispute; what is certain is that he did not publicly promote this organization. He took part in the well-known event on January 26, 1932 in the Düsseldorf Industry Club with a speech by Hitler , but unlike Fritz Thyssen, for example, without making any contributions of his own. Poensgen was one of the guests who presented the catalog of demands of the United Steelworks to Hitler and the accompanying NSDAP leadership on January 27, 1932 at Thyssen's Schloss Landsberg . The industrielleneingabe of 19 November 1932 with the numerous representatives of industry, high finance and agriculture to Reich President Paul von Hindenburg appealed, Hitler, succeeding Franz von Papen to appoint as Chancellor, he did not followed. Unlike Albert Vögler, for example, Poensgen did not join the so-called Förderkreis Keppler , which supported Hitler with donations and advice.

In contrast, Poensgen published in 1932 under the pseudonym Horst Hammer and the title Political Letters on Heavy Industry, a pamphlet against everything left, effeminate and pacifist .

Even before 1933, the National Socialists tried to eliminate the DNVP as a political opponent by specifically putting members of the DNVP under pressure and discrediting them through press campaigns and criminal charges and by agreeing that membership in the Stahlhelm and DNVP was incompatible. These campaigns intensified in 1933, although the DNVP was initially a coalition partner in the Reichstag. In April 1933, Reich Minister Alfred Hugenberg , chairman of the DNVP, felt compelled to raise public objections against the discrimination against German national officials and teachers. The situation of the party, which has since been renamed the German National Front (DNF), became even more difficult when he submitted his departure as Reich Minister on June 26, 1933. Ernst Poensgen was seen as an influential figure in the DNF at that time. So on June 27, 1933, together with the members of the DNF board of directors Friedrich von Winterfeld and Axel von Freytagh-Loringhoven, he visited Reich Chancellor Hitler . The draft of an agreement they brought with them about the honorable self-dissolution of the DNF was signed by these four people, reported by the Nazi press as a friendship agreement and the DNF board decided to dissolve the DNF.

It is also indisputable that organizations represented by Poensgen made several donations to National Socialist institutions before 1933, according to the United Steelworks and the North-West Employers' Association. And during the Second World War , companies for which Poensgen was responsible also recruited forced laborers and employed and disciplined them. The documents of the United Steelworks show that Poensgen reported to the entire board in 1942 about the "performance results when using Soviet workers" at Gelsenkirchener Bergwerks-AG. From 1943 there was a circular on "Ration cuts in the event of the behavior of foreign workers contrary to discipline". A letter from 1944 concerns the "German lessons for foreign workers" at the United Steel Works.

However, the economic policy measures and plans of the Nazi regime came increasingly to Poensgen's criticism after the seizure of power . His objections, for example against the formation of the Reichsvereinigung Eisen (RVE), which were also put forward on behalf of industrial associations, were unsuccessful. So later his colleague on the board of the United Steel Works, Hans-Günther Sohl, was appointed " Defense Economy Leader" of the RVE. The regime was now at the latest aware of Poensgen's lack of “loyalism” and tried to remove him from his offices or to assign people loyal to the regime to him - in view of his professional and international reputation, also with reference to his age. In 1933 he resigned from the board of directors of the Reich Association of German Industry . However, he succeeded in 1934 as the successor to Fritz Thyssen, against the will of the NSDAP, as chairman of the economic group iron-making industry and its regional group Northwest. As such, he and Hjalmar Schacht fought in vain against the creation of the Hermann Göring Works in 1937 and against the state's four-year plans . He criticized the main ring iron and steel operated by Albert Speer as "overorganization".

Above all, Poensgen had fundamental reservations about the racist dogmas of the National Socialists. He himself showed tolerance for those who think differently. He supported his adoptive son Alfred Sohn-Rethel , who lived with the Poensgen family from 1908 to 1912, even when this became dangerous in the Nazi German Reich because of his Marxist attitude . After 1945, evidence from his denazification also revealed that Poensgen had protected Jewish people from Nazi persecution in several cases. Against this background, it can be assumed that Ernst Poensgen, like many similarly prominent industrialists, was very precisely and repeatedly informed about the mass murders by National Socialist forces in the occupied eastern territories, through official channels, through correspondence and discussions and even through reports from his own functionaries such as Ulrich's Faulhaber from the iron and steel industry business group.

Because of these reservations, Poensgen did not join the NSDAP - unlike many of the economic giants at the time - even after the DNF was dissolved, nor did he personally support National Socialist organizations financially, as did numerous other large industrialists such as Emil Kirdorf, Franz Thyssen, Fritz Springorum, Friedrich Flick and Alfred Hugenberg happened.

In 1937, General Georg Thomas , Chief of the Wehrmacht's Economic Staff, awarded him the title of Wehrwirtschaftsführer because of his services to rearmament . However, this did not mean recognition in the National Socialist sense, because Thomas (who himself participated in plans to eliminate Hitler in 1938/1939 and was therefore arrested in 1944 and held in a concentration camp until the end of the war), on the contrary, aimed to gain the influence of Poensgen as a force critical of the regime secure and at the same time to protect him from reprisals by the Nazi regime.

Similarly, it is not to be interpreted as a sign of National Socialist conviction that Poensgen continued secret negotiations with representatives of the heavy industry of Great Britain, the United States and France, also as a representative of the Nazi regime, in order to subordinate the International Crude Steel Community , which was previously limited to Europe, through a cartel To replace the inclusion of Germany, but now also the United States. This International Crude Steel Export Association (IREG) was founded on June 1, 1933, and Great Britain also joined in 1935. The fact that the representatives of these foreign companies took part in these negotiations for years suggests that if necessary they would have set up such a cartel even without the German Reich. Poensgen's participation corresponded to a comparable German interest. The agreements, the documents of which were found by Allied troops in Luxembourg in 1945, survived the breach of the Munich Agreement through the establishment of the so-called Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and only ended 6 months later with the German invasion of Poland .

After the occupation of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France in the summer of 1940, the Nazi regime asked the industry to name compensation claims for damage caused by the Versailles Treaty. Poensgen was one of them. who were reluctant to expropriate and take over the industrial facilities there and rather pleaded for the use of these facilities.

In 1941, Reich Economics Minister Funk awarded him the “ Eagle Shield of the German Reich ” award (introduced in the Weimar Republic) , and General Thomas gave him an eulogy in the same year on his 70th birthday in the Stahlhof in Düsseldorf . He was also appointed to the exclusive armaments council at the beginning of 1942 by the Reich Minister for Armaments and Ammunition Albert Speer .

On May 30, 1942, however, the 70-year-old was relieved of leadership of the iron-making industry economic group in favor of a party member , and in the following months he gave up other offices himself: In June 1942, he resigned the leadership of the Northwest district group and resigned from the chairmanship of the Rohstahlgemeinschaft. Relocated to Kitzbühel in Tyrol, he announced on October 15, 1943 Albert Vögler his resignation from the chairmanship of the board of the United Steelworks. He then appointed Walter Rohland with this post. Poensgen moved to the company's supervisory board .

United steel works documents were partly intentionally destroyed at the end of the war and partly destroyed by the effects of the war. What was left behind and is publicly available (e.g. in company and city archives and in documents from the Nuremberg Trials , especially the Flick Trial ) does not allow Poensgen to appear as a National Socialist. Ernst Poensgen was gradually ousted by the National Socialist regime, but not persecuted by the Nazi regime. In fact, in 1943 he traveled from Kitzbühel to the funeral of a brother-in-law in Berlin and back without any sanctions.

From 1945 to 1949

Triggered by Allied allegations that the Ruhr industrialists supported the National Socialist regime, Poensgen began working on a memorandum for Hitler and the Ruhr industrialists as early as February 1945 - a look back . Walter Rohland, who initially remained in office as Poensgen's successor on the board of the United Steel Works after the end of the war, wrote a memorandum addressed to the occupying power in early June 1945 and circulated it in the Ruhr industry. Then he visited Poensgen in Kitzbühel, where he “worked through” his draft of the retrospect according to his own statements. Not only Poensgen's advanced age may have helped him to achieve his intentions, but also his health, which has been impaired by a stroke. The result was a text that traded under the name of Ernst Poensgen, but in its second part shows striking similarities to Rohland's memorandum: "It is not in contradiction to this [the NSDAP negative] attitude when I confess that we After the outbreak of war, industrialists in the Ruhr did everything we could to increase the quality and quantity of armaments production. (...) The rule here was for each individual: to do his or her duty to the fatherland to the last. " It was Rohland who ensured the rapid dissemination of this text under Poensgen's name. In July 1945 Konrad Adenauer initially reacted to the "review" with a memory: In 1934 a British politician reported to him that Ernst Poensgen had repeatedly shown himself to be an enthusiastic friend and admirer of the party and Hitler. Then Adenauer continues: "Apparently Mr. Poensgen's memory has clouded over a little." Paul Reusch reacted in a similar way , who had received a copy of the "Review" with the request "to confirm the correctness of the statement if necessary". Reusch did not allow himself to be restrained, he replied: "I can only repeatedly express my admiration for the fact that Poensgen still has such an excellent memory despite having suffered a stroke". Karl Jarres' July 1945 continued the series of memoranda in favor of the Ruhr industry .

Shortly afterwards, Poensgen was expelled from Austria and temporarily lived in Kiefersfelden on German territory , then he moved into his “Brunn Matte” chalet in Zermatt . In 1946, with the approval of the British occupying power, he again took up leading positions in heavy industry in what was then the western zone . He remained on the supervisory board of the United Steelworks, became chairman of the Association of German Ironworkers, today's VDEh steel institute , and joined the supervisory board of Hanomag . Newspapers from the then Soviet-occupied part of Germany, but also US newspapers, were particularly fierce criticism. Finally, in 1947, the British put Poensgen on an international wanted list and his property in Zermatt was temporarily confiscated. However, due to the supportive statements of influential personalities from all over the world, he was relieved of political accusations and so - especially since he was already too sick to travel at that time - neither extradited nor - like those responsible for the Flick , Krupp and IG Farben companies - im Indicted or summoned as a witness during the Nuremberg Trials . Until shortly before his death he received a visit in Switzerland, for example from Ferdinand Sauerbruch and Paul Silverberg .

Ernst Poensgen died in 1949 in the Salem Hospital in Bern and was buried in Kitzbühel on July 25, 1949. His second wife Louise also rests there. He bequeathed the “Brunn Matte” chalet in Zermatt to his doctor there.

Patron, local politician and private citizen

Poensgen was one of the initiators of the Great Exhibition for Health Care, Social Welfare and Physical Exercise in Düsseldorf 1926 (GeSoLei), which was internationally recognized at the time , as well as chairman of the Reich Exhibition of Creative People in Düsseldorf in 1937 and a member of the Düsseldorf City Council until the Second World War. 1927 awarded him the RWTH Aachen University , the honorary doctorate (Dr.-Ing. E. h.) For his services to the reorganization of the international steel market and the GeSoLei. After the occupation of Alsace-Lorraine by the National Socialists, his old alma mater Strasbourg also awarded him an honorary doctorate.

Together with other entrepreneurs, Poensgen founded the non-profit Ernst Poensgen Foundation for the promotion of art and science, based in Düsseldorf. Like his mother before, he supported the Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf .

He was active in sports until old age and was also a sponsor of sports in Düsseldorf. He was one of the founders and chairmen of the Rochusclub tennis club and supported its expansion in 1927. According to him, are Poensgen games of tennis ladies were named. He was also chairman of the Düsseldorf rowing club in 1880 . Primarily for the headquarters of the "United Steelworks" he 1937 in Dusseldorf-Lierenfeld a sports stadium, the Ernst-Poensgen-arena , for the Düsseldorf SV 04 building. He initiated the construction of the Düsseldorf ice rink on Brehmstrasse and the merger of various ice sports clubs to form the Düsseldorf Ice Skating Association (DEG). The former Stadtwaldstrasse was renamed Ernst-Poensgen-Allee in recognition of its services to the city .

In Bonn, Poensgen has been responsible for the continued use of the entire property since Lili Hammerschmidt, the mother of his second wife, moved out of the Villa Hammerschmidt in 1928.

family

Ernst Poensgen with son Georg and father Carl, around 1903

Origin, parents and siblings

Ernst Poensgen comes from the widely ramified Poensgen family , whose members initially founded numerous iron industry companies in the Eifel and from around 1860 in the Düsseldorf area. He was the first of ten children of Carl Poensgen (January 27, 1838 to November 3, 1921) and Clara nee. Poensgen (June 14, 1846 to August 4, 1910). Of his 9 siblings, at least the second youngest, Kurt (November 24, 1885 to March 8, 1944), had children: from his marriage to Elisabeth ("Lilli"), née. Gelpcke, along with their son Carl Poensgen (July 25, 1922 to August 23, 1944), came from the daughter Christa ("Kika") Elisabeth Poensgen (May 1, 1926), who later became ENT professor Norbert Karl Willm Wagemann on July 13, 1955 got married. Another brother, Albert Poensgen (1881-1976) was President of the Finance Court and multiple world and vice world champion in billiards.

Marriages and children

1. September 26, 1895 in Berlin with Elisabeth born. Cohnitz (1876–1917) from Langerfeld near (Wuppertal-) Barmen, son and only child of Ernst Poensgen: Georg Poensgen (December 7, 1898 to January 11, 1974), author of numerous works of art history, especially from the Middle Ages, as captain in October 1941 involved in moving the Amber Room from the Katharinen-Palais in Pushkin near Leningrad to Königsberg, director of the Kurpfälzisches Museum Heidelberg, married to Emma Elisabeth Agnes Hübner (January 6, 1898 to March 4, 1980), without children. On the initiative of Ernst Poensgen, Alfred Sohn-Rethel grew up as a foster child together with Georg.
2. October 30, 1918 in Düsseldorf with Louise Julie called "Lulu" born. Hammerschmidt (1885–1944), a daughter of Rudolf Hammerschmidt and first married to Dr. Hans Wolff; this marriage remained childless.

Other relatives

Carl Rudolf Poensgen was one of Ernst Poensgen's numerous cousins ; like this one in Düsseldorf he is known for his patronage.

literature

• Gerhard Th. Mollin:  Poensgen, Ernst. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , p. 569 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Hans Radandt: Ernst Poensgen. In: Gerhart Hass u. a. (Ed.): Biographical Lexicon on German History. From the beginning until 1945. Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1970.
• Reinhard Neebe: Big Industry, State and NSDAP 1930–1933: Paul Silverberg and the Reich Association of German Industry in the Crisis of the Weimar Republic (= critical studies on historical science . Volume 45). Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1981, ISBN 3-525-35703-6 .
• Holger Menne, Michael Farrenkopf: Forced labor in the Ruhr mining industry during the Second World War. Special inventory of the sources in North Rhine-Westphalian archives. (= Publications from the German Mining Museum Bochum, No. 123; publications from the Mining Archive, No. 15). Self-published by the German Mining Museum Bochum, 2004, ISBN 3-937203-06-0 .
• James Stewart Martin: All Honorable Men. Little, Brown and Company, Boston, USA 1950.
• Ursula Salentin, Liselotte Hammerschmidt: Chronicle of the Villa Hammerschmidt and its residents. 1st edition. Bastei-Lübbe, 1991, ISBN 3-404-65087-5 .
• Alfred Sohn-Rethel: Industry and National Socialism. Notes from the> Central European Business Day <. Carl Freytag (ed.). Wagenbach, Berlin 1992.
• Klaus-Dietmar Henke: The American occupation of Germany. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 1996.
• Eugene Davidson: The Making of Adolf Hitler: The Birth and Rise of Nazism. University of Missouri Press, Columbia 1997.
• Paul Erker, Toni Pierenkemper: German entrepreneurs between war economy and reconstruction. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 1999.
• Doris Pfleiderer: Germany and the Youngplan. The role of the Reich government, Reichsbank and economy in the creation of the Young Plan. Dissertation. Faculty of History, Social and Economic Sciences at the University of Stuttgart, Historical Institute at the University of Stuttgart, 2002.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kösener Korps-Lists 1798-1910, Verlag der Academischen Monatshefte, Starnberg, 1910, pdf (54 MB) No. 151 p. 839
2. ↑ Prinz-Georg-Str. 15: (E. Erben Budde), Poensgen, Ernst, industrialist , in address book for the city of Düsseldorf, 1911, p. 287
3. ^ Malkastenstrasse 11 (E. Poensgen, Ernst, Prinz-Georgstrasse 15) new building , in address book for the city of Düsseldorf, 1911, p. 244
4. ↑ George WF Hallgarten, Joachim Radkau: German industry and politics from Bismarck to the present. Reinbek 1981, p. 134f; based on Fritz Fischer : Griff nach der Weltmacht, Düsseldorf 1964, p. 497f
5. ^ Lutz Hatzfeld: Ernst Poensgen. In: Rheinische Lebensbilder. Volume 7, Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne 1977, pp. 203-225.
6. ^ Hugo Weidenhaupt: The industrial and administrative city (20th century). (= Düsseldorf: History from the Origins to the 20th Century, Volume 3). Schwann im Patmos-Verlag, 1989, ISBN 3-491-34223-6 , p. 310.
7. ↑ Carl Freytag: Germany's "Drang nach Südost": the Central European Business Day and the "Supplementary Area Southeast Europe" 1931–1945. (= Contemporary History in Context, Volume 7). V&R unipress, 2012, ISBN 978-3-89971-992-5 , p. 44, footnote 109.
8. ↑ Dieter Fricke (Ed.): The bourgeois parties in Germany. Volume 1: Pan-German Association-Progressive People's Party. Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1968, DNB 367015587 , p. 749.
9. ↑ Irene Strenge (Ed.): Ferdinand von Bredow: Notes from February 20, 1933 to December 31, 1933. Daily records from 1/1/1934 to 6/28/1934. (= Contemporary History Research, Volume 39). Duncker & Humblot, 2009, ISBN 978-3-428-52960-5 , p. 140.
10. ^ Anton Ritthaler: A stage on Hitler's path to undivided power. Hugenberg's resignation as Reich Minister . [1] (PDF; 1.4 MB) In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte. 2nd issue / April 1960, pp. 193-219.
11. ^ Trials of war criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals , vol. VI, The Flick case [2] PDF 56 MB, p. 729.
12. ^ Trials of war criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals , vol. VI, The Flick case [3] PDF 56 MB, p. 819.
13. ^ Alfred Sohn-Rethel: Memories . Radio Bremen, transcript of an interview, broadcast on May 17, 2003 http://www.radiobremen.de/online/sohn_rethel/erinner/portrait6.htm ( Memento from September 8, 2003 in the Internet Archive )
14. ^ Trials of war criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals , vol. VI, The Flick case [4] PDF 56 MB, pp. 694, 1013.
15. ^ Trials of war criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals , vol. VI, The Flick case [5] pdf 56 MB, pp. 873, 885.
16. ^ Trials of war criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals , vol. VI, The Flick case [6] PDF 56 MB, p. 248.
17. ↑ Kim Christian Priemel, Alexa Stiller (Ed.): Reassessing the Nuremberg Military Tribunals: Transitional Justice, Trial Narratives, and Historiography. (= Studies on war and genocide, Volume 16). Verlag Berghahn Books, 2012, ISBN 978-0-85745-530-7 , p. 175.
18. ↑ without own web presence; Brief description by the Ministry of the Interior and Municipal Affairs of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia [7]
19. ↑ Clubs: Düsseldorfer Ruderverein eV, chairman Ernst Poensgen, Malkastens. 11, Bootshaus am Kunstpalast , in Düsseldorfer address book, 1924, p. 33
20. ↑ Ulrich S. Soénius, Klara van Eyll (eds.): Moving, connecting, shaping: Entrepreneurs from the 17th to the 20th century: Festschrift for Klara van Eyll on September 28, 2003 p. 72 in: Volume 44 von Schriften zur Rheinisch -Westphalian economic history , ISBN 9783933025395 .

Other sources

• Rheinbahn: Memory of the "Great Exhibition in Düsseldorf 1926 for health care, social welfare and physical exercise (Gesolei)"
• Ernst Poensgen: Hitler and the Ruhr industrialists. A review. Typescript, 1945, with two supplements 1946 16 SU a. in: Archive Thyssen, VSt 4146; Mannesmann Archive, P 2.25088; Walter Rohland estate (see NOR / 13 in: Holger Menne, Michael Farrenkopf: Forced labor in the Ruhr mining industry during the Second World War. Special inventory of the sources in North Rhine-Westphalian archives. (= Publications from the German Mining Museum Bochum, No. 123; writings des Bergbau-Archiv, No. 15) Self-published by the German Mining Museum Bochum, 2004, ISBN 3-937203-06-0 ; reprint in: Willi Eichler “Europe speaks” (press correspondence of the International Socialist League), September 1945, London )
• Herald American, Syracuse, NY, USA, Sept. 30, 1945.
• Konrad Adenauer: Letter dated July 21, 1945 to Robert Pferdemenges, RWWA Cologne, Dept. I d, Hilgermann branch
• Paul Reusch: Letter of Aug. 17, 1945 to Hermann Kellermann, Haniel-Archiv, 400 101 2003/35
• The Oakland Tribune, Oakland, California, June 22, 1946.
• Die Freiheit, Halle, June 7, 1946, pp. 55 + 56
• Daily Rundschau, Berlin, May 17, 1946, p. 59 f.
• Statements about, correspondence from and to Ernst Poensgen in the documents of the Nuremberg Flick Trial [8] PDF 56 MB
• The Nevada State Journal, Reno, Nevada, USA. March 5, 1949. Almost identical in content also in:
• The Sheboygan Press, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, USA. March 5, 1949.
• The Statesville Daily Record, Statesville, North Carolina, USA. March 5, 1949.
• The Mansfield News Journal, Mansfield, Ohio, USA. March 6, 1949.
• The Chillico Constitution Tribune, Chillicothe, Missouri, USA. March 7, 1949.
• The Independent, Long Beach, California, USA. March 7, 1949.
• The Daily Register, Harrisburg, Illinois, USA. March 7, 1949.
• President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Office Files 1933-1945, Part 5: The John Franklin Carter Files on German Nazi Party Members, Reel 18, List of Key Nazis, p. 74, entry 0201. In: Microfilm Edition of Research Collections in American Politics . Microfilms from Major Archival and Manuscript Collections, General Editor: William E. Leuchtenburg
• Kurt Düwell: "Operation Marriage" - British obstetrics in the founding of North Rhine-Westphalia ", speech on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia to members of the German-British Society, September 14, 2006, Düsseldorf (PDF)
• Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, military commander in France: "Situation report on administration and economy June / September 1942", quoted in. n. Institut d'histoire du temps présent, Paris [9]
• Office of Strategic Services: Ernst Poensgen's biography. April 1945 [10] PDF 3 MB
• Announcements of the Langnam Association, issue 19, 1930.
• Announcements of the Langnam Association, No. 1, 1931.

Web links

• Literature by and about Ernst Poensgen in the catalog of the German National Library
• Newspaper article about Ernst Poensgen in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .