Friedrich Kadgias

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Friedrich Kadgien (born June 23, 1907 in Elberfeld , † 1978 in Buenos Aires ) was a German lawyer , National Socialist special representative of the four-year planning authority . As a ministerial advisor, Kadgien was one of Adolf Hitler's most important financial experts and responsible for the exploitation of Jewish assets. He made millions in South America . For years the Allies searched in vain for the man they called the "snake".

Career

Pre-war period

Kadgien worked in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior , where he was responsible for the procurement and allocation of foreign currency as head of the foreign exchange business group . He was an expert in drafting the National Socialist currency law . In 1933 he joined the NSDAP and in 1935 the SS . From 1938 Kadgien was a special agent under the person responsible for the four-year plan , Hermann Göring . Kadgien's department was responsible for foreign exchange and precious metals as well as forced labor . He coordinated the sale of stolen stocks and securities through Swiss front companies and banks. Kadgien significantly linked the business with large German companies and banks and their relationships with Swiss partners. Friedrich Kadgien was considered Hermann Göring's right-hand man in the Third Reich.

post war period

When the end of the Second World War and with it the Nazi rule began to emerge, Kadgias left for Switzerland on March 1, 1945 via Kreuzlingen . He stayed in the Verenahof, a posh spa hotel in Baden. On June 19, 1945, he officially registered in Baden, and on January 27, 1949, he left. Nevertheless, he was picked up again by the police in Baden in December 1950. By the time a lawsuit was filed with the Zurich District Attorney in 1951, he had already gone abroad. In Switzerland he had access to secret Nazi accounts. Estimates assume that at the end of the war there would be between one and three billion Reichsmarks hidden there . In 1948 he was on the straw man Ernst Imfeld in Sarnen the Imhauka AG (from the initials of the founders Imfeld, main, Kadgien), a trading and finance company, entered in the local register. In the same year, American investigators tracked him down and questioned him, but initially there were no consequences for him. But when things got too hot for him, he left Switzerland with a false passport in 1949 and did not reappear in Rio de Janeiro until 1951 . How and how he got there is not known. Possibly he used the rat route .

He lived there exclusively in the district of Santa Teresa and business with his former colleagues in the Four-Year Plan and then partner Ludwig main , and who fled with him to Brazil wife of his Swiss straw man Imfeld, Anna Imfeld, a company incorporated in December 1955 branch on Avenida Rio Branco with The name Imhauka Brasileira Industrial e Comercial SA In Mato Grosso , the two invested the money they brought with them in the form of 85,000 hectares of land (an area like the whole of Berlin ). In 1953 the fazenda on the Rio Taquari and its 20,000 cattle were sold on.

Around the same time established Kadgien in 1951 in Buenos Aires , the Imhauka Argentina SA and, as a representative of his company in Argentina and Brazil worked. He bought a house in the Vicente López district . Kadgien arranged business as a middleman between German companies, including Siemens , and the Argentine government of Juan Perón . He sold the Brazilian military junta on behalf of Rheinmetall weapons worth millions, such as the HK G3 with a 5% commission claim.

In 1978 Friedrich Kadgien died in Buenos Aires. He is buried there in the German cemetery. One of his grandsons, Lucas Colonel Kadgien, now lives in Santiago de Chile as a representative of the motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson . A photo of his grandson published on the internet gave WDR reporter Ingolf Gritschneder the idea of making a TV documentary about the Nazi Friedrich Kadgien. The report was broadcast on ARD in spring 2015 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Short biography at Swiss Foreign Economic Policy 1930–1948 . chronos-verlag.ch. Accessed May 5, 2015.
  2. ↑ Ralf Banken: Precious metal shortage and large-scale robbery: the development of the German precious metal sector in the "Third Reich" 1933–1945. Akademie Verlag, 2009, ISBN 978-3-05-004380-7 , pp. 734ff.
  3. ↑ Schmetterling Verlag: Interview with the historian Janis Schmelzer, author of the book "Devisen für den Endsieg"
  4. ↑ aargauerzeitung.ch
  5. ↑ A NAZI COLLABORATOR INSIDE PERMINDEX . somesecretsforyou.blogspot.pt. Accessed May 5, 2015.
  6. ^ "Friedrich Kadgien - Brasil, Cartões de Imigração, 1900-1965," Arquivo Nacional, Rio de Janeiro (National Archives, Rio de Janeiro); FHL microfilm . familysearch.org. Accessed May 5, 2015.
  7. ^ Diário Oficial da União . jusbrasil.com.br. Accessed May 5, 2015.
  8. ↑ The Snake's Trail: In Search of the Nazi Billions. ( Memento from May 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: WDR . Accessed April 12, 2018.
  9. ^ Kadgien, Friedrich in the Dodis database of the diplomatic documents of Switzerland
  10. ↑ TV documentary about the Nazi Friedrich Kadgien: "He must have had large amounts of money". ( Memento from May 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: WDR. Accessed April 13, 2018.
  11. ↑ Harley-Davidson inaugura tienda ícono en Santiago . yofui.com. Accessed May 5, 2015.
  12. ↑ Lucas Colonel Kadgien on Flickr . flickr.com. Accessed May 5, 2015.
  13. ↑ Video on YouTube
  14. ↑ TV documentary about the Nazi Friedrich Kadgien ( Memento from May 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: WDR. Accessed April 13, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Kadgias, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, politician (NSDAP) and functionary
DATE OF BIRTH June 23, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Elberfeld
DATE OF DEATH 1978
Place of death Buenos Aires