Lohmann affair (Weimar Republic)

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The Lohmann affair or Phoebus scandal was the uncovering of a secret rearmament program in the course of the bankruptcy of the film production company Phoebus-Film AG in the Weimar Republic in 1927 . In addition to the dismissal of Walter Lohmann, it led to the resignation of the Reichswehr Minister Otto Geßler on January 19, 1928 and to the dismissal of the head of the Reichsmarine , Hans Zenker , on September 30, 1928.

Secret armament

At the beginning of 1923, Captain Walter Lohmann (1878-1930), who had gained experience in international business and the full confidence of Naval Chief Admiral Paul Behncke since 1920 as head of the maritime transport department of the Navy, was entrusted with the management of the “black funds” of the Navy. Initially, this involved proceeds of around 100 million gold marks from the illegal sale of ships that should have been scrapped according to the Versailles Treaty . In addition, there was a “Ruhrfonds” (marine share: 12 million gold marks) set up by the cabinet without the knowledge of Parliament to prepare for military resistance in the Ruhr crisis . Reichswehr Minister Geßler writes about this in his memoirs:

“[Lohmann] had to ensure confidentiality primarily and under all circumstances. In the event of a breakdown, he was responsible for what had been done; That is, to take everything on your own, to represent as a pure private action. For this he received the assurance of personal protection of honor. "

Most of the money from the Ruhr Fund was used, as intended, for the secret purchase of weapons, especially in Italy, and to build up a tanker steam fleet. But the activities went far beyond that:

Economic activities

Lohmann also began to invest in commercial projects:

  • Property speculation
  • Acquisition of Berlin Bacon AG , with which he wanted to compete with the Danes for the British bacon market
  • Purchase of a block of shares in the private bank Berliner Bankverein (the bank through which Lohmann financed all activities)
  • Development of an ice retrieval process
  • Participation in and guarantees for Phoebus-Film AG (see below)

There were several explanations for these non-maritime activities:

  • they were supposed to be indirectly in the interests of the navy , because one could, for example, have used the Berlin Bacon AG refrigerated ships as troop transports in the event of war
  • they should serve the inconspicuous establishment of an agent network
  • they were supposed to cover up the funding of the secret projects
  • they should replace missing cash inflows through economic success

Phoebus movie

From 1924 Lohmann invested heavily in Phoebus-Film AG, which had published its first film in 1922 and was the third largest film production company in Germany in 1927. In addition to yields, he also had the goal of being able to place agents inconspicuously in the Phoebus foreign offices.

When the Phoebus got into financial difficulties, he got her a loan from the Girozentrale. He only received the signature for the required imperial guarantee because he submitted another guarantee from the parent company Lignose AG , which had priority. In fact, on the other hand, he had assured the lignosis in the name of the Reich that it would not be used for this guarantee. He later signed further guarantees on his own initiative.

From mid-July 1927, Kurd Wenkel , a business journalist for the Berliner Tageblatt , was amazed at the inflows that had allowed society to delay its collapse for so long. After a former Phoebus employee had informed him about the Lohmann investments, Wenkel made the scandal public in articles on August 8th and 9th. He was probably not clear about the real background, but rather suspected that the state had wanted to exert influence on the Phoebus program and lending policy "in the national sense", which was not entirely unjustified, because the Phoebus in the shallow program ( You do not play of love ) individual nautical sprinkles were noticeable ( northbound voyage of German warships ). When bankruptcy could no longer be averted in August, the financing structure collapsed.

After the reveal

Lohmann received declarations of honor from all sides that he had not personally enriched himself. But it was also reported that he was friends with the Phoebus director Ernst Hugo Correll and that he had given his girlfriend Else Ektimov (or Elke Ekimoff) a 12-room apartment and a well-paid job at Phoebus.

The government under Chancellor Marx tried to limit the damage. The Wenkel articles were stopped under threat of being charged with treason . The distant economic activities were portrayed as the arbitrariness of a subordinate official, and the Phoebus scandal became the Lohmann affair . The secret rearmament activities and thus the breach of the Versailles Treaty could be covered up. The KPD MP Ernst Schneller asked very precisely in the Reichstag for details of the rearmament program, but was ignored.

The Reichstag approved the costs for the handling of the affair in the amount of 26 million RM only after the resignation of Reichswehr Minister Otto Gessler on January 19, 1928. His successor Wilhelm Groener also dismissed the head of the Reichsmarine, Admiral Zenker , on September 30th Lohmann's superior. Lohmann himself was retired with a reduced pension, but never prosecuted, because the risk of discovering the truth would have been too great. Lohmann died completely impoverished of a heart attack three years later.

The secret armament was not stopped, but expanded, but subjected to an independent and secret control by the Court of Auditors. The naval intelligence service was added to the defense of the army in 1928 . The Severa was taken over by Lufthansa as a coastal flight department , although it already had a sea ​​flight department . (see history of Lufthansa )

More revelations

When funding for the construction of an officers' school in Friedrichsort was requested in the supplementary budget of the Republic in 1926 , the parliamentary debate revealed that the school had already been built and inaugurated by the head of the naval management, Zenker. The SPD suspected black coffers and demanded that the power of disposal of the army and navy over their budget funds be limited and their use monitored more closely.

In 1929 the article Windiges aus der Deutschen Luftfahrt appeared in the Weltbühne , which revealed individual details of the continued secret armament. The author Walter Kreiser (pseudonym: Heinz Jäger) and the editor Carl von Ossietzky were sentenced to 18 months in prison in the Weltbühne trial for betraying military secrets.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ CIA report: The Lohmann Affair. Studies in Intelligence 4, Issue 2 (Spring 1960), p. A32 (PDF; 426 kB)
  2. Otto Geßler: Reichswehrpolitik in the Weimar period. P. 446.
  3. ^ Williamson Murray , Allan R. Millett 1998: Military innovation in the interwar period, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521637600 , ISBN 9780521637602 , p. 232. ( online )
  4. ^ CIA report: The Lohmann Affair. Studies in Intelligence 4, Issue 2 (Spring 1960), p. A33.
  5. ^ Francis L. Carsten: Reichswehr and Politics, 1918-1933 , Cologne 1964, p. 314.
  6. ^ DHH association brochure 1931
  7. ^ CIA report: The Lohmann Affair. Studies in Intelligence 4, Issue 2 (Spring 1960), p. A36.
  8. ^ CIA report: The Lohmann Affair. Studies in Intelligence 4, Issue 2 (Spring 1960), p. A34.
  9. Otto Geßler: Reichswehrpolitik in the Weimar period. P. 448.
  10. Phoebus-Film AG at www.filmportal.de, accessed on May 21, 2019
  11. ^ CIA report: The Lohmann Affair. Studies in Intelligence 4, Issue 2 (Spring 1960), p. A35 (PDF; 426 kB)
  12. Article “Kurd Wenkel” at CIA
  13. ^ CIA report: The Lohmann Affair. Studies in Intelligence 4, Issue 2 (Spring 1960), p. A35.
  14. Berlin Monthly 6/2000
  15. ^ A b CIA report: The Lohmann Affair. Studies in Intelligence 4, Issue 2 (Spring 1960), p. A37.
  16. Gert Buchheit: The German Secret Service . Munich; List Verlag 1966
  17. Heinz Jäger: Windy things from German aviation . In: Die Weltbühne 11, 1929.
  18. Caspar, Gustav Adolf: The Social Democratic Party and the German Defense Problem in the Years of the Weimar Republic , in: Supplement 11 of the Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau, Stuttgart 1959, p. 72.