Johann Ludwig Graf Schwerin von Krosigk

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Johann Ludwig Graf Schwerin von Krosigk (1932)

Johann Ludwig "Lutz" Graf Schwerin von Krosigk , born as Johann Ludwig von Krosigk , (born  August 22, 1887 in Rathmannsdorf / Anhalt ; † March 4, 1977 in Essen ) was a German lawyer and politician . From June 2, 1932 to May 23, 1945 he was Reich Minister of Finance . He was non-party until he was accepted into the NSDAP in 1937 by accepting a party ceremony .

After his rise as a civil servant within the ministry, he was appointed finance minister in the Papen cabinet in 1932 . In the takeover of the Nazis he kept in the cabinet Hitler his post and remained until the end of the Third Reich in office. After Hitler's death , Schwerin von Krosigk was appointed by Karl Dönitz, who was appointed by Hitler as his successor, on May 2, 1945, in addition to the leading minister and Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs in the executive government of Dönitz , which after a few days only covered small areas of the German Reich bid.

Count Schwerin von Krosigk was arrested by the Allies for war crimes . It was 1949 in the the Nuremberg trials belonging Wilhelmstrasse trial condemned as a war criminal to ten years imprisonment. In 1951 Krosigk was released from prison on the basis of an amnesty . Then he worked as a publicist .

Life

Lutz von Krosigk was the seventh child of Erich von Krosigk (1829-1917) and the second child of his second wife Luise Countess von Schwerin (1853-1920). After graduating from the Roßleben monastery school , Krosigk began studying law and political science in Halle (Saale) , Lausanne and Oxford in 1905 , which he completed in 1909 with the legal traineeship. At the First World War, von Krosigk took part as a reserve officer. He was awarded the Iron Cross and at the end of the war had the rank of first lieutenant . In 1918 he married Ehrengard Freiin von Plettenberg (1895–1979). Their marriage resulted in four sons and five daughters.

In 1920 von Krosigk worked as an assessor at the district administration in Hindenburg / Upper Silesia . He then moved as a Councilor in the Ministry of Finance to Berlin . In 1922 he was appointed senior government councilor and in 1924 ministerial councilor . From 1929 he headed the budget department of the Reich Ministry of Finance as a ministerial director . In 1931 he also took over the management of the reparations department. In 1932 he was appointed to the cabinet by Chancellor Franz von Papen as Reich Minister of Finance . In this capacity he took part in the Lausanne Conference, which de facto ended Germany's reparation obligations. He kept the post of Reich Finance Minister under Papen's successors Kurt von Schleicher and Adolf Hitler until 1945.

Schwerin von Krosigk talking to Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen on the day of national mourning in 1934

As a cabinet member, Schwerin von Krosigk signed the Enabling Act on March 24, 1933, along with other ministers and the Reich President . In April 1933, on Hitler's orders, he dismissed his previous State Secretary Arthur Zarden in favor of the staunch National Socialist Fritz Reinhardt , with whom he worked smoothly.

During a cabinet meeting on January 30, 1937, on the occasion of the 4th anniversary of the “seizure of power”, Hitler awarded several high-ranking officers, civil servants and the hitherto independent cabinet members Hjalmar Schacht , Konstantin von Neurath , Franz Gürtner , Paul von Eltz-Rübenach and Johann Ludwig Graf Schwerin von Krosigk the Golden Party Badge . While Paul von Eltz-Rübenach refused acceptance, the remainder became members of the NSDAP through this award act . Joseph Goebbels wrote about Krosigk in his diary:

Schwerin von Krosigk to the left of Goebbels at a session of the Reichstag in 1941

“ It is a bit cautious before the start of each escalation, but then it proves itself reliably. In terms of type, he is one of those civil servants we can use in our state. "

- Joseph Goebbels

In traditional financial policy, the Reich Ministry of Finance lost its importance because in many areas, ministries and special commissiariats no more budget plans had to be drawn up that the finance minister could have controlled. In any case, Nazi organizations were not under the control of Schwerin von Krosigk. In addition, the armament policy of the Third Reich, over which Schwerin von Krosigk had no influence, went far beyond the financial policy possibilities of the Hitler state, so that the Third Reich became increasingly indebted. During the war, Germany received a lot of income from the occupied countries. After the last cabinet meeting in 1938, Schwerin von Krosigk concentrated on the administration of his office and made little political public appearance. At the beginning of the war, he said he had "hardly any more direct access to Hitler" and allegedly had never been able to "give a lecture" on departmental matters during the entire war.

Count Schwerin von Krosigk was one of four Reich ministers who came into office during the Weimar Republic and who were taken over as ministers by Hitler in his cabinet. He remained a minister without interruption until the end of the Third Reich.

At the time of his death he was the last surviving minister of a cabinet in the Weimar Republic.

End of war

During the Battle of Berlin , immediately after Hitler's last birthday, on April 20, 1945, the evacuation measures prepared by the Reich government, Reich ministries and the security apparatus were carried out. All Reich ministers were supposed to gather in Eutin , since the Eutin- Plön area was still free of combat at that time. At the end of April 1945, von Krosigk lived with District Administrator Mohl in Bad Segeberg . Every day from Krosigk to Eutin and Plön on the (today's) federal highway 432 , to take part in talks with the remaining Reich government . In Hitler's political will , Schwerin was confirmed as finance minister by Krosigk. Beginning in May 1945 appointed him Karl Doenitz in Schwerin von Krosigk cabinet for Chief Minister and Foreign Minister .

As "leading minister" of the executive government ( Schwerin von Krosigk cabinet ) in Flensburg - Mürwik , he announced the news of the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht on May 7th, 1945 at 11:01 pm on the Reichsender Flensburg should come into force. That ended the war in Europe.

Count Schwerin von Krosigk in the dock in Nuremberg

post war period

On May 23, 1945, he and his cabinet were arrested in the Mürwik special area , and on June 5, 1945 the victorious powers with the Allied Control Council also formally assumed supreme governmental power in Germany as a whole . First he was interned in the flak barracks in Ludwigsburg and then in POW camp No. 32 ( Camp Ashcan ) in Bad Mondorf , Luxembourg . He was later taken to the Nuremberg cell prison and in the Wilhelmstrasse trial on April 14, 1949 a. a. Sentenced by the tax authorities to ten years imprisonment as a war criminal for looting the property of deported Jews . He himself called this judgment “just atonement for a guilt lying on a completely different level, precisely for the guilt of the dulled and put to sleep”. On January 31, 1951, he was released from the Landsberg War Crimes Prison on account of an amnesty .

Count Schwerin von Krosigk then lived in Essen and worked as a writer and journalist. In 1975 he published a biography based on letters, diaries and other documents of Jenny Marx , a half-sister of his grandmother Louise (called Lisette) von Krosigk, nee. von Westphalen (1800–1863).

Family name and descendants

Born as Johann Ludwig von Krosigk, he was adopted in 1925 by his uncle Alfred Graf von Schwerin , the brother of his mother Luise Countess von Schwerin, who died in 1920, and from then on bore the hereditary titular name Graf Schwerin von Krosigk .

Krosigk married Ehrengard von Plettenberg (1895–1979), daughter of Friedrich von Plettenberg and Ehrengard von Krosigk, the daughter of Johann Ludwig von Krosigk's father in his first marriage in 1918 . The couple had four sons and five daughters. The known descendants include:

and the grandchildren

Publications

  • National Socialist Financial Policy (= Kiel Lectures , Volume 41). Fischer, Jena 1936.
  • Economy and Public Finance - Lecture. Aachen 1935.
  • Germany's war financing. Speech to the Hungarian-German Society in Budapest. German Information Center, Berlin 1941.
  • It happened in Germany. Human images of our century. Wunderlich, Tübingen 1951.
  • The Great Age of Fire - The Path of German Industry. Wunderlich, Tübingen 1959.
  • Everything at risk - the merchant yesterday, today and tomorrow. Wunderlich, Tübingen 1963.
  • Personal memories. Three volumes. Self-published, Essen 1973–74.
  • National bankruptcy. The history of the financial policy of the German Reich from 1920 to 1945, written by the last Reich Finance Minister. Musterschmidt, Göttingen 1975, ISBN 3-7881-1679-X .
  • Jenny Marx . Love and suffering in the shadow of Karl Marx . A biography based on letters, diaries and other documents. Staats-Verlag, Wuppertal 1975 (second edition, 1976), ISBN 3-87770-015-2 .
  • Memoirs. Seewald, Stuttgart 1977, ISBN 3-512-00468-7 (short version of personal memories ).
  • The great show trials. Political Justice. Universitas, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-8004-1011-7 .

See also

literature

  • Götz Aly : Hitler's People's State . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-10-000420-5 .
  • Klaus Goehrke: In the shackles of duty. The way of the Reich Finance Minister Lutz Graf Schwerin v. Krosigk. Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne 1995, ISBN 3-8046-8825-X .
  • Martin Friedenberger: The realm finance administration in National Socialism. Presentation and documents. (= Publications of the House of the Wannsee Conference Memorial and Education Center. Volume 1). Ed. Temmen, Bremen 2002, ISBN 3-86108-377-9 .
  • Johannes Hürter:  Schwerin von Krosigk, Johann Ludwig Graf. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , p. 79 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Eric A. Johnson: Terror: Gestapo, Jews and Ordinary Germans. Siedler, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-88680-619-7 .
  • Tim Mason: Social Policy in the Third Reich: Working Class and National Community. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1977, ISBN 3-531-11364-X .
  • Christian Andreas von Biel and his foundation ; for the descendants of the founder, ed. from the family council; Printing: SCHOTTdruck, Kiel (information about the ancestors).

Web links

Commons : Johann Ludwig Graf Schwerin von Krosigk  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. 2., actual. Edition, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 , p. 574.
  2. ↑ Johannes Hürter:  Schwerin von Krosigk, Johann Ludwig Graf. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , p. 79 f. ( Digitized version ).
  3. ^ Alfred Gottwaldt : Dorpmüller's Reichsbahn - The era of the Reich Minister of Transport Julius Dorpmüller 1920-1945 . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-88255-726-8 , p. 115.
  4. ↑ Götz Aly : Hitler's People's State: Robbery, Race War and National Socialism. S. Fischer Verlag, 2013, p. 30.
  5. ↑ Götz Aly: Hitler's People's State: Robbery, Race War and National Socialism. S. Fischer Verlag, 2013, p. 31.
  6. ^ Rüdiger Hachtmann , Winfried Süß : Hitler's commissioners: special powers in the National Socialist dictatorship. (= Contributions to the history of National Socialism . No. 22). Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-8353-0086-5 , p. 66.
  7. ↑ Stephan Link: "Rattenlinie Nord". War criminals in Flensburg and the surrounding area in May 1945. In: Gerhard Paul, Broder Schwensen (Hrsg.): Mai '45. End of the war in Flensburg. Flensburg 2015, p. 20 f.
  8. ^ Ernst Piper: Alfred Rosenberg. Hitler's chief ideologist. Munich 2005, p. 620.
  9. ↑ LN is looking for contemporary witnesses - 70 years ago the Second World War came to an end. In: Lübecker Nachrichten . February 14, 2015, accessed July 7, 2017.
  10. ↑ Jörg Wollenberg : Search for traces behind the walls of oblivion. In: Heinrun Herzberg, Eva Kammler (Hrsg.): Biography and society: reflections on a theory of the modern self. Frankfurt am Main / New York 2011, p. 202.
  11. ^ Gerhard Paul (historian) : The Last Spook. Three weeks between megalomania and terror: In Flensburg, Hitler's successor, Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, tried to maintain the German Reich until May 23, 1945. In: The time . May 4, 2005.
  12. ^ Announcement of the German surrender on the radio. In: Austrian Media Library . Retrieved June 29, 2017.
  13. ↑ Gerhard Paul: "Since midnight the guns have been silent on all fronts." The "Reichssender Flensburg" in May 1945. In: Gerhard Paul, Broder Schwensen (Ed.): Mai '45. End of the war in Flensburg (=  series of publications by the Society for Flensburg City History. Volume 80). 1st edition, Society for Flensburg City History, Flensburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-925856-75-4 , pp. 71, 75.
  14. ^ Died: Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk. In: Der Spiegel. No. 12/1977, March 14, 1977.
  15. ^ Johann Ludwig, Count Schwerin von Krosigk. on: geneall.net
  16. ↑ Everything about Aunt Jenny. Review. In: Der Spiegel. No. 48/1975, November 24, 1975.
  17. ↑ Jenny's life. In: time online. April 9, 1976.
personal data
SURNAME Schwerin von Krosigk, Johann Ludwig Graf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schwerin von Krosigk, Lutz Graf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, conservative politician, Reich finance minister
DATE OF BIRTH August 22, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Rathmannsdorf , Anhalt
DATE OF DEATH March 4th 1977
Place of death eat