Heinrich Friedrich Albert

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Heinrich Albert, 1932

Heinrich Friedrich Albert (born February 12, 1874 in Magdeburg , † November 1, 1960 in Wiesbaden ) was Minister of the Weimar Republic (independent) in the Wilhelm Cunos cabinet , First State Secretary of the Reich Chancellery of the Weimar Republic, economic attaché on behalf of the Empire in New York, Lawyer and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Ford Motor Company AG from 1937 to 1945.

Life

Heinrich Friedrich Albert was born on February 12, 1874 as the second son of the private banker Friedrich Albert in Magdeburg. The upbringing in the parental home was based on the values ​​of the Catholic faith. In Magdeburg he attended the high school "to the monastery of our dear women". After graduating from high school, he studied law at the universities of Munich , Leipzig , Jena , where he also became a member of the Corps Thuringia Jena , and at the Halle an der Saale . From 1895 he worked as a trainee lawyer in Magdeburg, from 1901 he was employed as a legal assessor in the field of justice as an assistant judge and court assessor in Magdeburg . Then he was appointed to the Reich Office of the Interior on September 30, 1901, where he worked in the department for trade fairs and exhibitions. In 1904 he was employed as an attaché in the office of Reich Commissioner Theodor Lewald for the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. After his return from St. Louis in 1905, he worked in the cartel department. Here he wrote the memorandum "About the German cartel system". From 1908 he was appointed to the same position for the world exhibition in Brussels. During the World Exhibition he stayed in Brussels in 1910 and met the German diplomat Carl Gottlieb Bünz (1843–1918) there. Albert was from 1911 in the rank of lecturing council and held the title of Privy Councilor.

From mid-1914 Heinrich Albert was released from military service by his authority, but as an imperial privy councilor and economic attaché was commissioned by the German purchasing and delivery cooperative in the United States of America to set up an organization to supply Germany with food and raw materials. When he arrived in New York on August 27, 1914, he moved into his office in the Hamburg-America Line (HAL) Broadway 41-45 building. Carl Bünz was the general agent of HAL from the beginning of 1914. One of his first activities in the USA was that Albert made himself acquainted with the German ambassador Johann Heinrich Graf von Bernstorff (1862–1939), who had been accredited in Washington since 1908. During his activities in the USA, Albert avoided appearing in public with his state mandate, but presented himself as a private person and added the designation "privy councilor" to his name on business cards and letters. From August 1914 on, his areas of responsibility included the procurement of materials, the dispatch of goods to Germany, the procurement of money and the financing of businesses. But as early as 1914 there was also the procurement of war material or raw materials essential to the war effort, the dissemination of German-friendly publications, "measures to damage Germany's enemies" and unspecified "other things". He worked with the two military attachés of the German embassy in Washington, the military attaché Franz von Papen (1879–1969) and the naval attaché Karl Boy-Ed (1872–1930), both of whom had their New York office in close proximity to his office a very intense working relationship. By the beginning of the First World War , Boy-Ed and von Papen had set up an intelligence service active espionage and sabotage network, operating in the USA , Canada and Mexico , under the cover of their diplomatic position . To a large extent, Albert co-funded these secret activities through the funds he raised. The network of the two attachés continued to include the former German diplomat and from 1914 general agent of the Hamburg-America Line Carl Gottlieb Bünz (1843-1918), the consul Franz Bopp (1862-1929), the employee of the German embassy Franz von Rintelen (1878 –1949), the intelligence officer Horst von der Goltz (* 1884), the assistant to the military attaché Wolf Walter von Igel (1888–1970), the representative of the Krupp company in the USA Hans Tauscher (1867–1941) and others, also for certain Task to people brought into the country or recruited at short notice. Using camouflaged companies and the establishment of regional news offices, they organized the purchase of weapons and materials, collected information relevant to the war effort at military and critical points, violated passports and visas, and violated US customs and foreign exchange laws with the aim of harming Germany's war opponent Great Britain. Even after the outbreak of the First World War, they continued these intelligence activities in disregard of the neutrality status of the USA. They planned the demolition of certain railway lines in order to impede the transport of goods essential for the war effort, the demolition of military reloading points and other military intersections. They recruited massively skilled personnel from American arms factories and tried to trigger strikes in factories that were important to the war effort.

Heinrich Albert came into the public eye in 1915 when Karl Burke, a member of the American Secret Service , deliberately stole his briefcase on August 14 in the New York subway . The bag contained documents that provided evidence of the conspiratorial activities of German diplomatic representatives in the United States of America, in violation of the neutrality laws passed by the American Congress in 1915. However, since the theft of documents from an accredited agent from another country was in breach of international agreements, the American government could not bring this "illegally" uncovered evidence to justice. However, they were regarded as confirmation of the suspicious facts that had already been gathered in investigations against individual group members and especially against Albert about violations of American laws. Therefore, the authorities leaked these documents to the newspapers so that they could be made known to the public. Several court hearings against different people from this network took place in the USA in 1916 and 1917. As a result, Carl Boy-Ed and Franz von Papen, among others, were expelled from the country in 1916.

After the announcement that the United States would join the war on February 2, 1917 and diplomatic relations with Germany had been broken off, Heinrich Albert returned home. From 1917 to 1918 he acted as a trustee of the assets of hostile states in Germany (embassy buildings, financial resources, etc.). From 1918 to 1919 he assumed the post of President of the Reich Office for the disposal of military goods that became available after the end of the war. Thereupon he was appointed head of the Reich Chancellery in 1919 with the rank of Undersecretary of State . In this capacity he became State Secretary in 1920. Albert was the last Reich Treasury Minister in the Cuno cabinet from November 1922 to April 1923 , since the Ministry was finally incorporated into the Reich Ministry of Finance . Then he took over the Reich Ministry for Reconstruction . In allusion to the fact of the theft of his bag in the United States in 1915, Albert was also derisively called "Minister without portfolio" at the time. In 1923 Albert was offered the office of Reich Chancellor by Gustav Stresemann , which he refused.

After the end of the Cuno government in 1923, Heinrich Albert made a name for himself as one of the German business lawyers specializing in the USA who handled the most important transactions of American companies in Germany. He initially advised the Ford Group from 1924 onwards , and later took on a key management role for its subsidiaries in Europe, and on June 11, 1937, he became Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Ford Motor Company AG. In May 1932 he took over the general management of the Bremen-based Norddeutscher Lloyd for a year and a half . On January 18, 1926, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Braunschweig .

family

Heinrich Albert married Ida, nee Hansen, in 1905. The marriage had 3 children, Christian Friedrich, born in 1906, the daughter Elisabeth, born in 1908 and the son Hans, born in 1909.

Heinrich Albert died on November 1st, 1960 in Wiesbaden.

literature

  • Reichs Handbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft - The handbook of personalities in words and pictures. First volume, Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1930, p. 13, ISBN 3-598-30664-4 .
  • Marie-Luise Recker: Parliamentarism in Europe: Germany, England and France in comparison. P. 74 footnote 32; Munich 2004 (Oldenbourg).
  • Johannes Reiling: Germany, safe for democracy ?. Subtitle: German-American relations from the area of ​​activity Heinrich F. Alberts, Imperial Privy Councilor in America, First State Secretary of the Reich Chancellery of the Weimar Republic, Reich Minister, Supervisor of the Ford companies in the territory of the Third Reich 1914 to 1945 America and Germany between War and Peace, Contempt and admiration, enmity and friendship, Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1997.
  • Johannes Reiling: Society and diplomacy in a transatlantic context: Festschrift for Reinhard R. Doerries on his 65th birthday. Heinrich Wala (Ed.) Steiner, Stuttgart 1999, (USA Studies; Volume 11), p. 158.
  • Article about Privy Councilor Albert, head of the Reich Chancellery. (109343) Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (Berlin), No. 113 of March 8, 1919
  • Article about Reich Minister Heinrich F. Albert, born in Magdeburg 1874} (109343) Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (Berlin), No. 511 of November 24, 1922
  • Article on Albert Endeavors To Form Stopgap German (114429) New York Evening Post (New York, NY), No. 9, November 26, 1923
  • Article on Case Loss Tripped Albert, (114429) New York Evening Post (New York, NY), No. 9, Nov. 26, 1923
  • Articles about Dr. Albert Chancellor (011523) The Journal of commerce and commercial (New York, NY), No. 2945, Nov. 27, 1923

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Johannes Reiling: Germany, safe for democracy ?. Subtitle: German-American relations from the area of ​​activity Heinrich F. Alberts, Imperial Privy Councilor in America, First State Secretary of the Reich Chancellery of the Weimar Republic, Reich Minister, Supervisor of the Ford companies in the territory of the Third Reich 1914 to 1945 America and Germany between War and Peace, Contempt and admiration, enmity and friendship, Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1997. S. 14ff.
  2. ^ Reichs Handbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft - The handbook of personalities in words and pictures. First volume, Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1930, p. 13, ISBN 3-598-30664-4 .
  3. ↑ although Heinrich Albert was named Dr. Albert was approached, there is no evidence from the time of his studies and in the universities concerned at the archives that he obtained a doctorate.
  4. ^ Johannes Reiling: Germany, safe for democracy ?. Subtitle: German-American relations from the area of ​​activity Heinrich F. Alberts, Imperial Privy Councilor in America, First State Secretary of the Reich Chancellery of the Weimar Republic, Reich Minister, Supervisor of the Ford companies in the territory of the Third Reich 1914 to 1945 America and Germany between War and Peace, Contempt and admiration, enmity and friendship, Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1997. P. 128ff.
  5. ↑ Article on Case Loss Tripped Albert, (114429) New York Evening Post (New York, NY), No. 9, November 26, 1923
  6. ^ Johannes Reiling: Germany, safe for democracy ?. Subtitle: German-American relations from the area of ​​activity Heinrich F. Alberts, Imperial Privy Councilor in America, First State Secretary of the Reich Chancellery of the Weimar Republic, Reich Minister, Supervisor of the Ford companies in the territory of the Third Reich 1914 to 1945 America and Germany between War and Peace, Contempt and admiration, enmity and friendship, Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, p. 78ff.
  7. ↑ Files of the Reich Chancellery. Retrieved September 17, 2019.
  8. ↑ Article on Reichsminister Heinrich F. Albert, born in Magdeburg 1874} (109343) Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (Berlin), No. 511 of November 24, 1922
  9. ^ A b Marie-Luise Recker: Parliamentarism in Europe: Germany, England and France in comparison. P. 74 FN 32; Munich 2004 (Oldenbourg).
  10. ^ A b Johannes Reiling: Society and Diplomacy in the Transatlantic Context: Festschrift for Reinhard R. Doerries on his 65th birthday. Heinrich Wala (Ed.) Steiner, Stuttgart 1999, (USA Studies; Volume 11), p. 158.
  11. ^ Albert, Heinrich (1874–1960), Reichsminister a. D. (Dr.-Ing.Eh) ( Memento from June 26, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 214 kB) on biblio.tu-bs.de
personal data
SURNAME Albert, Heinrich Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician and last Reich Treasury Minister
DATE OF BIRTH February 12, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Magdeburg
DATE OF DEATH November 1, 1960
Place of death Wiesbaden