Joseph Koeth

Joseph Koeth (born July 7, 1870 in Lohr am Main , † May 22, 1936 in Berlin ) was a German officer and politician .

Life

Joseph Koeth was born the son of a lawyer and judiciary.

After attending a humanistic grammar school , he joined the 2nd field artillery regiment "Horn" of the Bavarian Army in 1888 as a three-year-old volunteer . In 1890 Koeth became a second lieutenant and as such he worked as a department adjutant from 1893. From 1895 to 1898 Koeth graduated from the war academy , which pronounced him qualification for the higher adjutantage and the subject and, secondarily, for the general staff. When he was refused admission to the General Staff Service, he transferred to the Prussian Army as Prime Lieutenant in 1900 . Here he first came into the4. Badische Feldartillerie-Regiment Nr. 66 , rose there to captain and battery chief and in 1904 was transferred to the teaching regiment of the artillery shooting school in Jüterbog . In 1909 he was appointed to the field artillery department (A 4) of the Prussian War Ministry and in March 1912 he was promoted to major .

After the outbreak of World War I, Koeth took part in the fighting in France as a department commander in the Trier Field Artillery Regiment No. 44 and returned to the War Ministry in October 1914. There he followed Walther Rathenau in 1915 as head of the War Resource Department (KRA). In November 1918 he resigned from active military service as a colonel .

Koeth had been active in the Reich Association of German Industry since 1919 , and in 1920 took over the honorary chairmanship of the office for industrial disarmament (Gefia). From 1920 to 1930 he was also chairman of the German World Economic Society and member of the supervisory board of various companies.

Public offices

Koeth did not belong to any party and after the November Revolution 1918/19 was State Secretary in the short-lived " Reich Office for Economic Demobilization " (conversion of industry to peace economy ) on behalf of the Council of People's Representatives . In the Scheidemann cabinet he was Reich Minister for Economic Demobilization until the department was dissolved at the end of April 1919. From October 6 to November 30, 1923, he served as Reich Minister of Economics in the Stresemann II cabinet .

From 1919 to 1923 Koeth was the first president of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge in Berlin.

Honors

• Honorary doctorate (Dr.-Ing.hc), Dresden University of Technology

literature

• Georg Meyer:  Koeth, Joseph. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 409 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Othmar Hackl : The Bavarian War Academy (1867-1914). CH Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. Munich 1989. ISBN 3-406-10490-8 . Pp. 498-499.
• Friedrich-Carl Wachs: The regulation work of the Reichsdemobilmachungsamt . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1991.

Web links

• Literature by and about Joseph Koeth in the catalog of the German National Library
• Ulrike Triebs: Joseph Koeth. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )
• Short biography in the files of the Reich Chancellery
• Decree of appointment of State Secretary
• Newspaper article about Joseph Koeth in the press kit of the 20th century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Othmar Hackl: The Bavarian War Academy (1867-1914). CH Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. Munich 1989. ISBN 3-406-10490-8 . P. 498.
2. ↑ Honorary doctoral students of the TH / TU Dresden. Technical University of Dresden, accessed on February 7, 2015 .