Hugo Stinnes

Hugo Stinnes, around 1900

Hugo Stinnes (born February 12, 1870 in Mülheim an der Ruhr , † April 10, 1924 in Berlin ) was a German industrialist and politician . The mining , industrial and trading group that he created from 1893, and especially after the First World War , was one of the largest corporate conglomerates in Germany. At the beginning of the Weimar Republic , Stinnes was one of the most influential personalities in the German Empire . On the employer's side , he played a key role in reaching an agreement with the labor movement after the First World War ( Stinnes-Legien Agreement ). As he profited greatly from post-war inflation through aggressive external financing of his companies, he is also remembered as the inflation king.

family

Hugo Stinnes at the age of 10 months

Stinnes was the second son of Hermann Hugo Stinnes (1842–1887) and Adeline Stinnes (1844–1925), nee Coupienne, born into a wealthy Mülheim entrepreneurial family that had been active in trade and mining since the beginning of the 19th century . The Stinnes family owned at least since the successful company was founded by Hugo Stinnes' grandfather Mathias Stinnes , 1808 with the transport of coal and other goods on the Rhine between Cologne and Amsterdam had begun to the prestigious and wealthy families Mülheims. As early as 1839 the family began to invest in mining investments. The family's trading activities were bundled in Mathias Stinnes KG , the mining holdings included the Kux majority in the Victoria Mathias , Graf Beust , Friedrich Ernestine , Carolus Magnus and Mathias Stinnes collieries .

Hugo Stinnes was married to Clare Stinnes , née Wagenknecht, from 1895 . Together they had a total of seven children: Edmund (1896–1980), Hugo Hermann (1897–1982), Clärenore (1901–1990), Otto (1903–1983), Hilde (1904–1975), Ernst (1911–1986) and Else (1913-1997).

Entrepreneurial career

After teaching stays at the Koblenz trading company Carl Spaeter and at the Mülheim Zeche Wiesche , Stinnes studied mining and chemistry at the Royal Mining Academy in Berlin and joined the family business Mathias Stinnes KG in 1890 as an authorized signatory .

Hugo Stinnes GmbH

See main article: Hugo Stinnes GmbH

At the age of 23, Stinnes fell out with the managing director of Mathias Stinnes KG , his cousin Gerhard Küchen, whom he accused of incapacity and a tendency to alcohol, and went into business for himself despite his young age. His mother and other family members supported him financially. His mother sold her stake in Mathias Stinnes KG . Stinnes founded a sole proprietorship, which was converted into Hugo Stinnes GmbH in 1903 . Independent of the family business, he began to build up his own international trading group, which by far exceeded the previous family ownership. Stinnes acquired the family-owned Mathias Stinnes colliery and the Strasbourg-based coal processing company , from which they built up a coal trade with southern Germany and Switzerland . He expanded this trading business with a modest shipping company , which he quickly expanded. He expanded and opened branches throughout Europe and overseas for Hugo Stinnes GmbH . In addition to the global coal trade and the import and export of iron and steel products, he especially promoted the trade in by-products and intermediate products from heavy industry . The company was also a major importer of wood from Russia and the Baltic States for the mining industry and of Swedish iron ore .

Vertical integration of heavy industry

Stinnes showed himself to be a successful organizer of vertical interrelationships in trade and heavy industry and was subsequently involved in the founding of numerous large corporations in the Rhineland and in the Ruhr area , where he aimed in particular at the formation of large and efficient units. In contrast to Anglo-Saxon trusts - for example the Standard Oil Company - Stinnes always tried to achieve synergy effects through vertical integration of the heavy industrial production stages. He often worked with August Thyssen and had relationships with numerous bankers such as Waldemar Mueller ( Dresdner Bank ) , Carl Klönne ( Schaaffhausen / Deutsche Bank ) and Bernhard Dernburg ( Darmstädter Bank ) to cover the enormous capital requirements of his rapidly growing group .

In addition to Hugo Stinnes GmbH , the focus of his entrepreneurial activity was the establishment and expansion of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Elektrizitätswerke (RWE), the Mülheimer Bergwerk-Verein (MBV) and the rise of the German-Luxembourgish Mining and Hütten AG (German-Luxembourg) . In addition, he was significantly involved in companies such as the Saar- und Mosel-Bergwerks-Gesellschaft (Saar-Mosel) and HAPAG .

In the energy and transport sector in particular, Stinnes was an advocate of mixed-economy approaches with which he wanted to combine private entrepreneurship and thus efficient control with sovereign tasks and national interests. This made him one of the main initiators of the electrification of West Germany, the expansion of West and South German local public transport , the consolidation of European heavy industry, the creation of more efficient global distribution channels for German coal and the economic use of gas for energy generation.

In June 1923, after taking over A. Riebeck'schen Montanwerke , Stinnes began to form the Hugo Stinnes-Riebeck Montan- und Oelwerke AG as the core of a vertically integrated mineral oil company. The oil base of the mine owned in the Halle (Saale) and Weißenfels-Zeitz area and the oil concessions in Argentina were strengthened by the majority of the Kuxe of the mining trade union Concordia near Nachterstedt and 931 of the 1,000 Kuxe of the Messel union on the Messel pit . In addition, there was the AG für Petroleumindustrie (Api) in Berlin, the Erdölwerke Dollbergen refinery and, as a sales organization, the Oleawerke AG für Mineralöl-Industrie , which later became Deutsche Gasolin .

Mülheim Mining Association

See main article: Mülheim Mining Association

After the establishment of the Rheinisch-Westfälischen Kohlen-Syndikates in 1893, Stinnes recognized the opportunity offered by the massive expansion of funding combined with its own sales channels, as the cartel kept funding quotas and prices artificially high through vertical integration, larger production units, modernization and the expansion of use of by-products but at the same time enormous synergy effects could be realized. To this end, he began to borrow on a large scale to finance the acquisition of collieries and to modernize the acquired facilities. In 1895 he acquired the Graf Beust and Carolus Magnus collieries with credits from the Essen Credit Institution . Together with August Thyssen and the banker Leo Hanau from Rheinische Bank , he acquired the Wiesche mine in 1897 . Subsequently, in 1898, the same participants combined several, mostly inefficiently working collieries around Mülheim an der Ruhr, including Wiesche , to form the MBV, which became one of the largest German mining companies and was able to realize considerable synergy effects through the physical merger of several mines. From 1898 until his death, Stinnes served as chairman of the supervisory board.

Rheinisch-Westfälische Elektrizitätswerke

RWE share from 1910 with Stinnes' signature as chairman of the supervisory board

See main article: RWE

The Rheinisch-Westfälische Elektrizitätswerke, founded in 1898, built their first power station on the site of the Stinnes-Zeche Victoria Mathias . Stinnes has been a member of the supervisory board since it was founded . In 1902, Stinnes, together with August Thyssen and a banking consortium with the participation of Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank and Disconto-Gesellschaft, acquired the majority in RWE during the so-called energy crisis . From 1903 until his death, Stinnes served as chairman of the supervisory board. At the instigation of Stinnes, RWE began an aggressive expansion under the leadership of his confidante Bernhard Goldenberg by concluding exclusive energy supply contracts with municipalities and districts in the Rhineland and Westphalia as well as by taking over local transport and railway companies such as Süddeutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft AG (SEG ) , which operated trams and branch lines in central, western and southern Germany. This significantly accelerated electrification in Germany. To finance growth and to obtain the necessary licenses and permits, RWE was organized as a mixed-economy company with private, municipal and state shareholders. Above all, the influence of Stinnes on the energy supply was often viewed critically by the authorities. The founding of the VEW was originally a defense measure by concerned district administrators and competitors against the rapid expansion of the RWE .

German-Luxembourgish mining and smelting company

See main article: Deutsch-Luxemburgische Bergwerks- und Hütten-AG

From 1901, Stinnes and Bernhard Dernburg built up the German-Luxemburgische Bergwerks- und Hütten-AG (hereinafter referred to as "DL"), one of the largest vertically integrated German mining companies, from several deficit mines in the Ruhr area and Hütten in Differdingen ( Luxembourg ). Even stronger than the RWE or the MBV, the "DL" was a prime example of Stinnes' growth strategy. Although the company was always very weakly capitalized, "DL" expanded through constant acquisitions in order to either secure access to preliminary products or to build up capacities in the subsequent processing stages of production. The "DL" is at the same time an example of the creative use or circumvention of the cartel agreements of the RWKS, in which Hüttenzechen - i.e. integrated mining and steelworks - could use their own coal production at a price below the cartel price, while major customers purchase it at the sales price had to. In addition to the secured sale of the mines, the steel processing parts of the group were able to realize cost advantages. The largest acquisitions of the group were the Dortmunder Louise Tiefbau AG (1908), the Dortmunder Union (1910), the Saar-Mosel (1910/1916) originally built by Stinnes and August Thyssen and the North Sea Works .

In 1920 the company was merged with the Bochumer Verein and Gelsenkirchener Bergwerks-AG (GBAG) to form the Rhein-Elbe-Union AG interest group. This was also expanded in 1920 with the participation of the Siemens companies to form the Siemens-Rheinelbe-Schuckert-Union interest group based in Düsseldorf .

From 1906 until his death, Stinnes was chairman of the supervisory board of the German-Luxembourgish mining and smelting company.

Other important mandates

• Westfälisch-Anhaltische Sprengstoff AG : Member of the Supervisory Board
• Rheinisch-Westfälisches Kohlen-Syndikat : Member of the Supervisory Board
• Saar-Mosel : Supervisory Board 1900–1919, Chairman of the Supervisory Board 1916–1919
• Rheinische Bank : Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board 1902–1915
• GBAG : Member of the Supervisory Board 1904–1924
• Phoenix : Member of the Supervisory Board 1907/1908
• Süddeutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (SEG) : Chairman of the Supervisory Board 1909–1924
• Bochumer Verein : Chairman of the Supervisory Board 1920–1924

as well as a large number of memberships in mine boards , for example the collieries Friedlicher Nachbar and Baaker Mulde as well as in the family-owned mines Victoria Mathias , Mathias Stinnes , Carolus Magnus , Graf Beust and Friedrich Ernestine .

First World War and expansion in the Weimar Republic

During the First World War , Stinnes became one of the most important war suppliers for the German army , also due to the extensive ammunition production of the Dortmund Union. In cooperation with German military agencies such as the War Resource Department , he expanded in the energy and metal production as well as the chemical and metal processing industry, for example by founding the Erftwerk and by developing raw material deposits of the friendly Central Powers Romania and Turkey , but also through the aggressive "Germanization" of Belgian raw material deposits. Together with other German industrialists such as Walther Rathenau and Carl Duisberg , he finally called on the German government not only to forcibly procure raw materials and machines from Belgium, but also the urgently needed labor. This led to the deportation of tens of thousands of Belgian civilians who were taken to Germany for forced labor in industry and mining.

In return, he lost a large part of the property of Hugo Stinnes GmbH at the beginning of the war , in particular the merchant fleet, and due to the German defeat in the war, the property of his mining companies in the Entente powers and the parts of the empire separated by the Versailles Treaty , which in particular the French ore and touched the Lorraine coal deposits of German-Luxembourg . In addition, the occupation of the Ruhr affected most of his corporate conglomerate.

Despite these losses, Stinnes controlled a considerable part of the German economy in the Weimar Republic after the initial turmoil through his private companies and especially through his various holdings and interest groups, especially the Rhine-Elbe Union. Mainly financed in Reichsmark , Stinnes invested in the processing industry, machine and vehicle construction , shipping companies, pulp mills and the newspaper industry . He benefited in particular from the shortage of raw materials in the German Reich caused by the consequences of the First World War, which on the one hand increased the relative value of the coal and steel industry compared to the processing industry and on the other hand unified the subsequent production stages, which were constantly fighting for the supply of necessary preliminary products in an economically unstable environment Merger with raw material suppliers seemed desirable. He himself judged in a letter to Eberhard Gothein in 1923 : “The vertical trusts that are attributed to me as preferred children were naturally products of their time: the consequences of insufficient production and insufficient working capital” .

In 1924 - the year of his death - Hugo Stinnes was involved in 4,554 companies with almost 3,000 production facilities.

See also : German Economic History in World War I  and German Inflation 1914 to 1923

Stinnes as a politician

Political restraint until the First World War

Before the First World War, Stinnes remained politically cautious and was less traditionally shaped than comparable Ruhr industrialists. Both the positions he represented in the coal syndicate on working conditions and protectionism , as well as the international relations and branches of Hugo Stinnes GmbH, created the impression of a cosmopolitan entrepreneur who did not have much in common with the positions of the economic aristocracy. This changed with the start of the First World War, which Stinnes received with consternation and which deprived Hugo Stinnes GmbH of its business base in international trade. Shortly after the start of the war, Stinnes began to support extensive annexation plans , especially with regard to Belgium, and, contrary to earlier convictions, showed sympathy for the Pan-German Association under Krupp manager Alfred Hugenberg . The change is essentially due to an economic cost-benefit approach, also with regard to his own entrepreneurial situation: If war has already been waged, then the “victims” should also receive a corresponding consideration. In 1915 he said to Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg : “The whole people [...] are willing to sacrifice to the utmost. But it expects that the price of victory […] will then also correspond to the bloody sacrifices that have been made and the economic damage that has been endured […]. In the event of a peace agreement, under all circumstances [...] efforts must be made to ensure that the extraordinary tax burden to be expected, with many billions in annual interest, is also offset by achievements that secure the future of our fatherland militarily, politically and economically. "

He said to Ludwig Quidde : “Before August 1914 I was the most sincere supporter of a peaceful understanding without any desire for conquest [...], but today I would [...] find myself guilty of criminal carelessness unless I wanted to expand the borders, if possible to the extent of the limits marked by the economic associations ” .

In 1919 Stinnes secured the support of the coal syndicate for the German Fatherland Party, which was opposed to the peace negotiations .

Through the proposed by him on January 10, 1919 a meeting of top representatives of the German economy in revolutionary Berlin and founded Antibolschewistenfonds with a nominal value of 500 million marks and a Sofortkreditierung the Fund in the amount of 50 million the military defeat of the was Spartacus uprising by Freikorps promoted and anti-Bolshevik propaganda, essentially nationalist propaganda and parties funded. Captain Waldemar Pabst , who organized the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht , the leaders of the leaders of the Spartacus uprising, is said to have been financed through his confidante Minoux . Already at the end of 1918 he had contributed around RM 4.4 million to the financing of the Hugenberg media group of the business association for the promotion of intellectual reconstruction forces, which was to carry nationalist propaganda into the population and later became the Germany-wide propaganda machine for Hitler's NSDAP .

Even after the First World War, Stinnes remained a supporter of German expansion to the east, as noted in his diary on November 19, 1922, after a conversation with Stinnes, the head of the Western European Department of the US Department of State:

“Stinnes' vision goes far. He sees the way to the east reopen, the disappearance of Poland, the German economic exploitation of Russia and Italy. Its intention is peaceful and directed towards reconstruction. "

Political ascent after the November Revolution

Stinnes' rise to an important and influential politician finally took place in the period of upheaval between the end of the war and the emergence of the Weimar Republic. As a person who was significantly affected by the demobilization and an economic key figure for maintaining civil services, he was significantly involved in the negotiations and reconciliation with the labor movement after the November Revolution, among other things as a member of the Central Working Group . As the employer’s negotiator, he was instrumental in the 1918 Stinnes-Legien Agreement . With the agreement, in order to fend off further demands for socialization , the unions were recognized and the eight-hour day was introduced in Germany. He also represented the interests of German business as a member of the Presidium of the Reich Association of German Industry and as an expert in reparation negotiations at the Spa Conference in 1920. There he made a "bad impression" ( Peter Krüger ) on the victorious powers with a triumphant speech the more binding Reich Foreign Minister Walter Simons was able to moderate.

During the Ruhrkampf , the French occupation of the Ruhr area in 1923/24, he was one of the negotiators for the Ruhr industrialists ( MICUM agreement ). Since the early 1920s, Stinnes has been widely regarded as the mouthpiece of the German economy. In 1923, Time magazine even referred to him as the new Emperor of Germany .

Stinnes as a member of the Reichstag

In 1920 Stinnes joined the national liberal German People's Party and, like his close confidante Albert Vögler, entered the Weimar Republic with its mandate as a member of the Reichstag . Within the DVP, Stinnes was considered to be on the right wing of the party , primarily because of his diverse contacts with the conservative national camp and leading DNVP exponents. For internal party opponents like Gustav Stresemann , Stinnes represented a mortgage not only in public perception, but also in daily politics, since Stinnes could hardly be permanently assigned to a political group. Instead, Stinnes' political views were always shaped by German (and personal) economic interests. This often led to Stinnes advocating a more realistic, more pragmatic policy, for example on the question of working conditions, but also often taking radical and unenforceable views, for example in the resolute rejection of reparation claims and in his ideas for refinancing the German state budget.

This contradicting attitude was also evident in his personal relationships with politicians of various stripes. For example, he was hostile to the Kapp Putsch , which he viewed as an "inexcusable" and "perishable enterprise" , but did not condemn it publicly and offered Wolfgang Kapp in his Swedish holiday home, Gut Asa (Asa gård) (Lammhult municipality) , Exile. Stinnes also remained an enthusiastic supporter of Erich Ludendorff throughout his life . His shipping company ships were named after Ludendorff and Hindenburg as well as after the union leader Carl Legien . Although Stinnes' economic expertise was in demand by all governments of the time and he was repeatedly traded as a candidate for ministerial offices, his mostly radical rejection of compliance policy (he himself said that he was "always in favor of compliance policy, but only within the limits of reason and within the limits of what is tolerable for our national economy ” ), his primacy of economic policy over all other issues and against all politically opportune practical constraints, as well as his private diplomacy with French, British and Russian politicians, which bypassed the government , ultimately ensured that Stinnes as Politician was unsuccessful.

public perception

All in all, Stinnes, like his highly respected entrepreneurial and political counterpart Walther Rathenau, belonged to the enemy images of both the extreme political left and the extreme right, whose anti-Semitism and ethnic economic concepts were also incompatible with Stinnes' primacy of economic policy. Especially for communist and socialist contemporaries, however, turned Stinnes by its apparent fusion of political and economic power and because of the "Verstinnesierung" and "vertical socialization" perceived expansion of its corporations in the inflation period the classic capitalist enemy is that until today strongly the image of Stinnes influenced (see for example the cartoon by George Grosz in the web links ) .

In the public perception, the Stinnes, described as emphatically economical and deliberately simply dressed, was mostly considered unpredictable and power-hungry. Both trade unions and conservative politicians complained that his political views were driven exclusively by economics and accused him of conspiracy theories and opportunism. TIME judged:

"His aim is the control of the European steel industries, and, like all mysterious figures who move in the no-man's-land of international politics, he stands to win whichever side comes out on top." (German: His goal is the Dominion over the European steel industries, and like all those mysterious figures who move in the no man's land of international politics, he will arrange it in such a way that he wins whichever side prevails) (translation from Feldman 1998).

The New York Times ran the headline of Stinnes:

"Some say he owns Germany. Some call him a bloated capitalist, intent on converting Germany into a gigantic trust. Others see in him a pioneer of Socialism, one whose actions are destined to pave the way for the socialization of the German State. ” (German: Some say that Germany belongs to him. Some call him an inflated capitalist who has put Germany into a gigantic trust Still others consider him a socialist pioneer whose actions pave the way for the socialization of the German state.)

Stinnes' acquisition of the government-affiliated Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung in May 1920 solidified this critical image. In the same month the satirical magazine Ulk of the Berliner Tageblatt showed a caricature of Stinnes as a capitalist with a cylinder and a cigar and the signature “Stinnes buys everything” on the cover picture - in addition to hotels, ships, a newspaper printer and factories, there were also politicians, ballot papers and one Ballot box (see web links ).

In the novella "Kobes" , written in 1923 and published in 1925, Heinrich Mann took a critical look at Hugo Stinnes. The industrialist was also seen by contemporaries as a hero figure, for example in the novel 'Kaufmann from Mülheim'. A Hugo Stinnes novel by Nathanael Jünger (1925).

Death and corporate collapse

Funeral service for Stinnes (1924)

Grave of the Hermann Hugo Stinnes family (center), to the right of the Hugo Stinnes family

Because of chronic upper abdominal problems, he consulted August Bier in Berlin. Well informed about the status of visceral surgery , he explicitly asked him to remove the gallbladder as a cholecystectomy ; Beer left it with the opening and drainage that were still common at the time . Stinnes succumbed to the complications when he was only 54 years old. He was buried in Mülheim's old cemetery in the family grave of his father Hermann Hugo Stinnes .

Just one year after his death, his empire fell apart because his heirs underestimated the challenges of the end of hyperinflation in 1925 and could no longer service the outstanding loans. His widow Clare Stinnes , with whom he had been married since 1895, and his seven children, above all the second eldest son Hugo Hermann Stinnes , could only manage a small part of the property, especially the maritime trade of Hugo Stinnes Corp. , save; however, he was lost in World War II . The downfall of Hugo Stinnes' life's work was also blamed by his opponents on the clumsy behavior of the heirs.

"That walte Hugo"

The proverb “Das walte Hugo” has survived to this day (especially in the Ruhr area), with which one roughly expresses: God decides on this / That is certain.

literature

• Bernhard-Michael Domberg, Klaus Rathje: The Stinnes. From the Rhine into the world. History of an entrepreneurial family. Signum, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-85436-399-6 .
• Thomas Emons: Hugo Stinnes - A merchant from Mülheim. In: Horst A. Wessel (Ed.): Mülheim entrepreneurs and pioneers in the 19th and 20th centuries. Flexible - creative - innovative. Klartext, Essen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8375-0735-5 , pp. 236–245.
• Gerald D. Feldman : Hugo Stinnes. Biography of an industrialist. 1870-1924. CH Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-43582-3 .
• Peter Raap : A Swede as an administrator at Gut Nückel. The estate of the Stinnes company under the management of Gösta Hansson . In: Men from Morgenstern , Heimatbund an Elbe and Weser estuary e. V. (Ed.): Niederdeutsches Heimatblatt . No. 800 . Nordsee-Zeitung GmbH, Bremerhaven August 2016, p. 2–3 ( digitized version [PDF; 7.2 MB ; accessed on July 24, 2019]).
• Manfred Rasch , Gerald D. Feldman (Eds.): August Thyssen and Hugo Stinnes. An exchange of letters 1898–1922 (= series of publications on the journal for corporate history. Vol. 10). Edited and annotated by Vera Schmidt. CH Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-49637-7 .
• Wolfgang Ribbe , Wolfgang Schächen : The Siemensstadt. History and architecture of an industrial site. Ernst, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-433-01023-4 .
• Paul Ufermann, Carl Hüglin: Stinnes and his corporations. Verlag für Sozialwissenschaft, Berlin 1924. _{Location: Library of the Ruhr University Bochum}
• Peter Wulf: Hugo Stinnes. Economy and politics 1918–1924 , Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1979 (= Kiel Historical Studies , Volume 28), ISBN 3-12-912080-7 .
• Peter Wulf: Hugo Stinnes (1870-1924). In: Wilhelm Janssen (Ed.): Rheinische Lebensbilder. Volume 9. Edited by Wilhelm Janssen. Rheinland-Verlag et al., Cologne 1982, ISBN 3-7927-0668-7 , pp. 247-260.

Web links

Commons : Hugo Stinnes  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Hugo Stinnes in the catalog of the German National Library
• Newspaper article about Hugo Stinnes in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Hugo Stinnes in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Hugo Stinnes in the online version of the Reich Chancellery Edition Files. Weimar Republic
• Andreas Michaelis: Hugo Stinnes. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )
• Company history on stinnes.com
• The rise and fall of the Stinnes family , RuhrRevue, November 11, 2008.
• Industry / Stinnes Group: The shares of Delaware , Der Spiegel , 24/1957.
• ZeitZeichen : 04/10/1924 - anniversary of the death of Hugo Stinnes

Caricatures and pictures

• Caricature by George Grosz (1920): The secret emperor
• Time magazine cover , March 17, 1923: Coal and My Right

Individual evidence

1. ^ Rainer Karlsch , Raymond G. Stokes: "Factor Oil". The mineral oil industry in Germany. 1859-1974. CH Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-50276-8 , p. 139.
2. ↑ See Jens Thiel: “Menschenbassin Belgium”. Recruitment, deportation and forced labor in the First World War (= writings of the library for contemporary history. NF vol. 20). Klartext, Essen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89861-563-1 , pp. 113–118.
3. ↑ Feldman 1998, p. 950.
4. ↑ Feldman 1998, p. 394.
5. ↑ Feldman 1998, p. 389.
6. ↑ George WF Hallgarten : Hitler, Reichswehr and Industry. On the history of the years 1918–1933. Europäische Verlags-Anstalt, Frankfurt am Main 1955, p. 60.
7. ^ Peter Krüger: The foreign policy of the republic of Weimar. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1985, p. 111.
8. ↑ Feldman 1998, p. 606.
9. ↑ Feldman 1998, p. 953.
10. ^ The Ruhr. In: TIME Magazine . Vol. 1, No. 3, from March 17, 1923, ( online ).
11. ↑ The New York Times , October 2, 1921, p. 44.
12. ^ Communication from Helmut Wolff (2012).
13. ↑ Coordinates of the tomb: 51 ° 25 ′ 21.7 ″  N , 6 ° 53 ′ 12 ″  E
14. ↑ Feldman 1998, p. 949.
15. ↑ That's what Hugo does! ( Memento of the original from January 31, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF) on Merkur.tv at WDR. 

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on October 7, 2005 .