Helmuth Wohlthat

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Helmuth Wohlthat (1940)

Helmuth CH Wohlthat (born October 4, 1893 in Wismar ; † 1982 ) was a high-ranking German civil servant during the National Socialist era .

Life

After graduating from high school, Wohlthat entered the Engers War School in 1912 . He served as an officer in the cavalry in World War I and last reached the rank of first lieutenant . After his discharge from military service, he was a businessman in oils and fats from 1920 to 1929 and also studied in Cologne. From 1929 to 1933 he lived in the USA and continued his studies in political science at Columbia University in New York . During his stay in the USA he married a German-American teacher.

After returning to Germany, he worked briefly in the Reich Ministry of Food . In 1934, Hjalmar Schacht brought him to the Reich and Prussian Ministry of Economics , where he headed the Reich Office for Foreign Exchange Procurement as Ministerial Director from December 1934 . In 1938 he moved to the Prussian State Ministry and, as State Secretary in the authority for the “ four-year plan ”, was subject to Hermann Göring's direct instructions . There he was mainly responsible for foreign trade and foreign exchange management. This area of ​​responsibility included building up the German whaling fleet. At the beginning of 1938 he initiated and planned the German Antarctic Expedition 1938/39 . In February 1939, Wohlthat negotiated the Rublee-Wohlthat Agreement with George Rublee of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees , which was supposed to regulate the emigration of Jews from Germany. On March 23, 1939, he concluded an economic contract (“Wohlthat contract”) with the Romanian government , which enabled German investments in Romania, especially in the petrochemical industry.

After the occupation of the Netherlands in World War II , Wohlthat became a commissioner at the Dutch Bank in Amsterdam . In this key position, he controlled the Dutch foreign exchange flows from the end of May 1940 and thus the entire foreign trade. From April 1941 he was head of the German business delegation in Japan , where he also saw the end of the war.

After the war, Wohlthat held various supervisory board positions in the private sector. Wohlthat was proposed on September 10, 1954 by Fritz Schäffer , seconded by Franz Josef Strauss , as Executive Director for the Federal Republic of the World Bank , while Ludwig Erhard favored Otto Donner . In the vote, the majority of the Adenauer II cabinet voted for Wohlthat, but Donner received the post due to the intervention of Konrad Adenauer .

Honors

The Wohlthat massif in the Antarctic is named after Helmuth Wohlthat .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johannes Bähr, Axel Drecoll, Kim Christian Priemel & Bernhard Gotto: The Flick Group in the Third Reich . Oldenbourg, 2008, ISBN 3-486-58683-1 , p. 906 .
  2. ↑ Helmut Mutzmacher: German-English compensation efforts in the summer of 1939 . (pdf) In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte . 4, 1966, pp. 369-412. Retrieved April 21, 2009.
  3. ^ Günter Schubert: The stain on Uncle Sam's white vest. America and the Jewish refugees. Campus, 2003, pp. 97f. ISBN 3-593-37275-4
  4. ↑ Christoph Kreutzmüller, dealer and sales assistant. The financial center of Amsterdam and the major German banks (1918–1945) , Steiner-Verlag, 2005, p. 342f ISBN 978-3-515-08639-4
  5. ^ Willi A. Boelcke: The German economy 1930 - 1945: Internals of the Reich Ministry of Economics. Düsseldorf 1983, p. 88.
  6. ↑ Alfred Ritscher [ed.]. Scientific and aeronautical results of the German Antarctic Expedition 1938/39. Volume 1, Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 1942.
  7. ↑ Short biography on “Holocaust Chronologie” , accessed on April 21, 2009
  8. ↑ Joachim Drews: From soy cultivation to the 'Wohlthat contract'. The economic connection of Romania to the German Empire. in: Christoph Dieckmann u. a. (Ed.), Occupation and Alliance. German domination strategies in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Contributions to National Socialist Health and Social Policy, Volume 12, Berlin 1995, p. 90.
  9. ^ Christoph Kreutzmüller: Dealers and sales assistants. The Amsterdam financial center and the major German banks (1918-1945) . Stuttgart 2005, p. 155ff.
  10. ^ Cabinet minutes of September 10, 1954 [1]
  11. ↑ Christoph Kreutzmüller, Traders and sales assistants: The Amsterdam financial center and the major German banks (1918-1945) p. 342
  12. ↑ K. Brunk: Cartographic work and German naming in Neuschwabenland, Antarktis Archived from the original on June 26, 2011. (pdf) In: German Geodetic Commission, Series E: History and development of geodesy . 24 / I, 1986, pp. 1-24. Retrieved April 19, 2009.

Remarks

  1. ↑ According to some sources, the spelling of the first name is Helmut .
  2. ↑ In many sources the wrong year of death is given as 1952.

Web links

Commons : Helmuth Wohlthat  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Well done, Helmuth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Well done, Helmut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician in the time of National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH October 4, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Wismar
DATE OF DEATH 1982