Max Winkler (politician, 1875)

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

15:43, May 14, 2017 Miraculamundi

Max Winkler (born September 7, 1875 in Karrasch in the Rosenberg district in West Prussia ; † October 12, 1961 in Düsseldorf ) was mayor of Graudenz , Reich trustee and economic advisor for the eastern provinces to be relinquished as well as for the border press and Reich commissioner for the German film industry.

School, job and public office

As the son of the teacher Julius Winkler, he attended elementary school and then a technical school. In 1891 he joined the middle service of the Reichspost . In Graudenz he went through the intended career and was appointed postal assistant. As a city councilor without party affiliation, as he later stated, he had been a member of the Graudenz city council since 1907. In 1913 he was promoted to Telegraph Secretary. A year later, he was appointed to the paid city council in Graudenz.

From the beginning of the First World War until 1918 he was responsible in Graudenz for the tasks of finance and the food industry. He was elected mayor of the city in November 1918 (second mayor of Krekeler; deputy mayor of Rosenkötter and Hale; Fritz Schmidt only referred to him as honorary mayor). As a member of the German Democratic Party (DDP), he joined the Prussian state assembly in January 1919 .

There he took part in discussions on the Versailles Peace Treaty and for a new constitution. In the spring of 1919, members of the Prussian state assembly and the Weimar national assembly , who came from the German provinces of Upper Silesia , West Prussia and Posen , formed a parliamentary committee on Eastern Europe to coordinate the actions of the various German groups, to achieve a unified decision-making process and to push back the Polish insurgents. Above all, after a clarification process in the German parties, the aim was to prevent German civil servants and officers from forming a so-called Eastern State in 1919 , which was to be independent and allied with the German Reich.

The North Action Committee was formed for Poznan and West Prussia, and the South Action Committee for Upper Silesia . Paul Fleischer took over the chairmanship of the northern committee , his deputy was Winkler. The government councilor in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, Erich Krahmer-Möllenberg , established the connection between the Eastern Committee and the Prussian government. In the middle of 1919, Hugo von Lerchenfeld-Köfering (1871–1944), head of the Eastern Department in the Foreign Office , led consultations in the Prussian Ministry of Education on support for German schools, German newspapers and the parishes in the German eastern provinces.

To this end, Winkler wrote the memorandum on the future protection of Germans in the eastern territories to be ceded from September 8, 1919 and the memorandum The German Press in the ceded area of West Prussia - Poland . In order to support the Germanness in the eastern provinces to be ceded, the German Foundation was founded on September 28, 1920 by Winkler, Krahmer-Möllenberg and four other politicians, with Krahmer-Möllenberg taking over the management.

personality

In her memoirs, Margret Boveri first mentions Winkler as what he was called in the Third Reich: the Gray Eminence of the newspaper industry (in Lerg Gray Eminence of the Press ). At Lerg, under the impression of his measures to bring the press into line under the Nazi regime, he was referred to as the gravedigger of the German press with the golden shovel . Boveri saw in him a personality whose character was determined by several formative traits. He had a modest demeanor, a cordial commitment in conversation and was able to win other people over with his plans. On the other hand, he always used the correct salutation of the title of the respective person in order to show a certain amount of respect and honor. Accordingly, he always insisted on being addressed as Mr. Mayor .

Even if his appearance was interpreted as modesty, he was always aware of the power of his position and tasks. Boveri gives a statement by Winkler about the Gauleiter Josef Bürckel , where he characterized him as a little man who did not know that he owned thirteen newspapers in the Saar area. His cautious demeanor was connected with a tendency to be sensitive and vulnerable, which he sometimes showed in public. When Prime Minister Otto Braun spoke of a loss of trust during a hearing on a press matter, Winkler stood up without a word and left the room. A factual questioning soon followed, which Winkler accepted. Winkler later showed this behavior towards Joseph Goebbels and Max Amann . But since Amann was shaped by rough character traits, the two became increasingly alienated when dealing with Winkler. According to Boveri, Winkler is said to have harbored a deep dislike for the Reich Press Chief of the NSDAP, Otto Dietrich .

His political thinking was not limited to one direction, which was also expressed by the fact that he had served no fewer than nineteen Reich governments before the Nazi seizure of power in 1933. The fate of the German eastern provinces strengthened his attitude towards Germanness. For his contributions to the financing of scholarships at the Technical University of Danzig , he was awarded the title of Dr. hc awarded. When the journalist Hans Sikorski was imprisoned in the concentration camp (KZ) in 1942, he resolutely campaigned for Goebbels. Boveri stated that Sikorski was released from the concentration camp the very next day.

Winkler brought special qualities to his work, whereby his excellent memory for numbers, events and contexts stood out. Furthermore, he showed great ability to combine skillful negotiation with tactics. In addition, there was his tireless diligence, his strict discretion and - as Wermuth put it - his financial policy genius , which ultimately escaped the control of the audit office in Potsdam . The journalist Paul Scheffer characterized it as an emotionless computer that served the government machine like the Sphinx in Faust .

Boveri also reported that Winkler stood by opponents of the Nazi regime. He employed Michael von Matuschka , Peter York von Wartenburg and the former finance minister Hermann Höpker-Aschoff in the main trust center East (HTO) . A few days before the end of the Nazi regime, on April 17, 1945, he gave a testimony before the People's Court in Berlin in favor of Hans Lukaschek , whom Winkler had known well since his tenure in Upper Silesia from the 1920s.

Political support: the ZAG

To coordinate the political groups, the Central Working Group of the German Parties (ZAG) was formed on September 22, 1919 , which was headed by Winkler, had its seat in Bromberg and in which mainly the trade unions, the DDP and the SPD participated. However, as a result of overlapping objectives with the Deutschtumsbund to protect minority rights , the ZAG had to disband in April 1921. On October 20 and 21, at a conference in Berlin under the direction of Lerchenfeld-Köfering, the political objectives for the German eastern provinces to be ceded were discussed, in particular their support from the German press. The plans of Winkler and von Krahmer-Möllenberg were approved by the Reich government and the government of Prussia in November 1919 . From 1920 to 1933 Winkler served as Reich trustee and economic advisor for the ceded provinces.

Trust companies

The most important task for the preservation of Germanness in the separated areas consisted in the financing of German companies and institutions. This was done by the company Vereinigte Finanzkontore mbH, which was assigned to the Reich Ministry of Finance and made unofficial funds available to the Reich government for these purposes. Only indirect sources can be used to show that Winkler handled significant financing with this company. According to this model, Winkler founded a number of trust companies , which worked in the background and partly also served as catch- up companies in order to continue to run businesses. These companies transferred funds for financing to banks, which in turn worked with trustees appointed by Winkler.

Winkler thus achieved two goals at the same time. On the one hand, he was able to completely shield the financing that came from the coffers of the Reich government from investigations abroad. Over the years, of course, the newspaper publishing industry could not hide the fact that Winkler was the actor in the financing. But the actual transactions of the transfer remained hidden. The other goal was extensive control by Winkler of the financial situation of the companies and institutions to be supported, but also a certain influence, e.g. B. on the content of the editorial work and the personnel management of the editorial offices.

Concordia

In January 1920 the Konkordia Literary Society was formed as a limited liability company (GmbH) in Berlin with a capital of 10 million Reichsmarks (RM), fifty percent each of which was provided by the Reich Ministry of Finance and the Prussian Ministry of Finance. The legal form of this company ensured that no public account had to be given for the financing transactions. The actual financial activity lay with the supervisory board, which was made up of civil servants to represent the state shareholders. The chairman of the supervisory board was the Geheime Oberfinanzrat Ernst Springer, while the management was in the hands of Winkler (after Fricke, Hjalmar Schacht initially led the Konkordia for a short time), who has since moved to Berlin. Officially, the company should enable the supply of material for German newspapers and magazines as well as participation in companies that were active in the same or a similar sector.

Newspaper supplies

The newspaper needs GmbH was founded on 17 March 1923 as a subsidiary of Concordia, headquartered in Berlin. Winkler wanted to relieve the meanwhile widely active Konkordia, but also simply set up a new front company in other areas. The main focus of this company was in the occupied western areas of the empire, where the German newspapers had got into great difficulties with the paper supply due to customs restrictions. Winkler was able to deliver subsidized printing paper to the newspapers through the newspaper requirement. Other ways of support were support financing and participation in company assets, as Winkler had done with the Konkordia. Winkler also used the newspaper requirements to provide bridging financing for the German Foundation, which then transferred the corresponding funds to the newspaper requirements.

Hollandsche Buitenland Bank NV

In June 1925 the Hollandsche Buitenland Bank (HBB) was founded, which was based in The Hague . She used Winkler Krahmer-Möllenberg as a trustee to provide German minorities with funds from the Reich. The German companies in Poland, the Baltic States and Yugoslavia were financed by granting loans. The expansion of the use of financing did not only affect the preservation of German companies, but also their expansion. The background to these efforts was the effects of the Locarno treaties by Gustav Stresemann, in which a revision of certain parts of the German eastern borders, as outlined in the Crown Prince's letter of September 7, 1925.

Cura

The Konkordia audit department was detached from the Konkordia on April 20, 1926 and made independent as Cura Revisionsgesellschaft mbH . The main task of this new company was to prepare reports on the financial situation of the businesses to be supported and supported. Furthermore, investigations should be carried out by the Cura if companies were in difficulty and a concept for redevelopment was required. In January 1932 the company was renamed Cura Revisions- und Treuhand Gesellschaft mbH. At the beginning of 1934 Winkler gave up his positions in society in the Cura.

Ossa

In April 1926, Winkler and Krahmer-Möllenberg founded Ossa Vermittlungs- und Handelsgesellschaft mbH as an umbrella company for the provision of loans from the Reich government for German companies and institutions in various areas of Eastern Europe. The core issue of lending was to strengthen the German cooperative system. Winkler took over the management of the finance department, while Krahmer-Möllenberg dealt with the administrative activities. There was a close personal relationship with the Konkordia regarding the supervision of the company. Winkler chose the name Ossa based on the river Ossa in his homeland. In 1937, the company was renamed Excelsior AG after Gentzen , and then in 1939 it was renamed United Financial Offices, obviously referring to the establishment of the same name after the First World War .

Cautio

On January 14, 1929, Winkler founded another company in Berlin, Cautio Treuhand GmbH , which was mainly active as a trust company. The company was to be regarded as the holding company for companies in which the German Reich (DR) was the owner of the company's assets. These companies were located exclusively in the DR or in Austria. Winkler did not become managing director at Cautio until December 1933.

Rheinische Verlagsanstalt

In March 1924, Winkler completed the purchase of Rheinische Verlagsanstalt GmbH. Winkler took possession of this company with funds from the Reich government in order to handle purely financial transactions through loans and subsidies for ailing newspaper companies in the Rhineland.

Different societies

To this day, researchers are still not aware of the full scope of Winkler's financial policy actions. This is why it was not yet possible to identify all of the companies with which Winkler had transacted its financial transactions. There are some subsidiaries that also worked for Winkler outside of the German Reich. The Chiron GmbH financed transactions for Volga German area of the Volga German Republic . The Nostra was a society to finance school buildings in Upper Silesia in order for the German Foundation . As a subsidiary of Ossa, Eden Hausverwaltungs GmBH had a subsidiary Domy in Upper Silesia . In Poland, the companies Credit and Revision also worked for Winkler, which were active in the field of property purchases.

Winkler processed financial transfers for the Kreditanstalt der Deutschen in Czechoslovakia through Terminus Vermögensverwaltung AG , based in Zurich. As director of the Deutsche Vermögensverwaltungs-Gesellschaft , Winkler carried out financing for Ossa .

Support actions for German newspapers

The actual task of the Konkordia, however, consisted of the objectives that Winkler had set out in his memorandum on the German press in West Prussia. According to this, this society should support the preservation and protection of Germanness, which should be secured by a strong press. For this purpose, the press companies were supposed to enter into mergers and connections between companies that could be financially secured by the Konkordia. Winkler usually only appeared in the background when it came to financing. For the direct financing actions he used trustees who were familiar with the local conditions of the newspapers. Winkler controlled the actions from his private apartment in Berlin at 3 Brückenallee, where his staff of a few people also worked.

Subsidies in West, East Prussia, Pomerania and Poznan

In the Neustadt district in West Prussia, Winkler supported the Putzinger Zeitung in Putzig and the Konitzer Tagblatt in Konitz , which had only a small circulation, but were important for social cohesion for the German minority. In Dirschau he chose an equity stake from Konkordia for the Pommoreller Tageblatt and for the Allgemeine Nachrichten für Pommern , which was published in Briesen, in order to support the newspapers. About sixty percent of the equity was taken over by Winkler's trustees at the Deutsche Rundschau newspaper , which was published in Bromberg and was of supraregional importance for the Germans resident there.

The Ermländische Zeitung appeared in Braunsberg , which Winkler supported with 60,000 RM, transferring the Nova Zeitungsverlag GmbH publishing house and its shares to Konkordia. In Posen , Winkler replaced a mortgage with the Posener Tageblatt , with which the Konkordia acquired a stake. In Lissa the Lissaer Tageblatt received a loan and in Rawitsch the Konkordia acquired more than ninety percent of the capital of the Rawitscher Zeitung and made another loan to the publisher.

The newspaper market in Lodz was particularly competitive , so that German money was paid even before the Konkordia was founded. The Łódź Free Press , founded by German entrepreneurs in November 1918, was supported here. After the Łódź People's Newspaper was founded from the ranks of social democratic circles on October 23, 1923 , it ran into difficulties at the turn of 1925/1926. From several sources of the Reich government as well as the Konkordia, money flowed to the maintenance of the newspaper until 1933.

Subsidies in Upper Silesia, Memel Region, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia

As early as May 1920, Winkler had submitted a concept to the responsible ministries on how the small newspapers in Upper Silesia should be supported. A closer consultation therefore took place with the German Committee in Katowice . In the final consultations with the Reich authorities on October 7, 1921, it was not just about financing, but also about establishing companies that were needed for printing newspapers in order to become independent of other companies.

On October 15, 1921, three million Reichsmarks were transferred to the Konkordia by order of Chancellor Joseph Wirth . In Rybnik the Rybniker Stadtblatt , in Loslau the Loslauer Zeitung and in Sohrau the Sohrauer Tagblatt received financial means to continue sales. A new company was founded for Pless with the Plesser Anzeiger and the associated district, as well as for the city of Nikolai . Further money went to newspapers in Lublinitz , Myslowitz and Tarnowitz .

The newspapers in Kattowitz and Koenigshütte had great difficulty keeping their operations going. Here Winkler saw his task of rehabilitating these newspapers, the Kattowitzer Zeitung and the Upper Silesian Courier . For this reason, new printing companies were also created here in order to guarantee solid operational management. Winkler strictly ensured that the actual sources of money remained secret via the trustees. Winkler also succeeded in ensuring that the newspaper Volkswille , which was published by the Social Democrats, could continue to run despite considerable losses. However, the necessary financial resources to support this newspaper grew so rapidly that from April 1928 the press department of the Reich government made monthly payments directly, which were made until it was discontinued on July 1, 1933. In Gleiwitz , the editor Friedrich Feldhuss wanted to sell the newspaper Volksstimme , which was close to the German Center Party . Here Winkler brokered the sale to the union secretary of the Christian construction workers in Gleiwitz, Franz Ehrhardt , for 2.5 million Reichsmarks.

After the Memelland fell to Lithuania in 1921 , the German newspapers suffered considerable losses. Winkler took over 55 percent of the share capital of the most important newspaper, Memeler Dampfboot , on September 26, 1922, amounting to 5.5 million Reichsmarks. The whole amount was transferred to different accounts in three installments. The remainder of the newspaper's capital was taken over by Winkler in July 1928. He also supported an expansion of the company with a loan in the spring of 1924. Winkler was directly involved in this takeover by being chairman of the supervisory board. Another newspaper project was funded by the German-Lithuanian Heimatbund , which was primarily intended to address Germans in rural areas.

However, the question of the production of the operation of this new newspaper initially prevented the publication. The first edition of the Memelländische Rundschau appeared on October 19, 1922 in Heydekrug . After detailed deliberations, the Konkordia on December 13, 1922 promised financial aid of 10 million Reichsmarks. The newspaper ceased operations in 1935 because it was too much in competition with the Memel steamboat . When the newspaper took a political stance against the German rural population in 1928 and increasingly turned to the German-language newspaper Memeler Allgemeine Zeitung , which was published by Lithuanians, Winkler intervened and wrote to the Foreign Office in November 1928, which then changed its stance the editorial team.

In Estonia the Konkordia supported the Revalsche Zeitung and the Dorpater Nachrichten with monthly payments . As a camouflage, the payments were made through the German embassy through payment clearing. This support ended in 1933. The purpose of the support here was to propagate the politics of the German Empire and to preserve Germanness. The Litauische Rundschau , supported by Konkordia , which first appeared on July 17, 1922 in Kaunas , ceased publication on July 23, 1922 and resumed distribution in 1924, finally ceased operations in 1929. The editorial staff of the newspaper had put a considerable strain on German-Lithuanian relations with their stance against the government of Lithuania, so that support was discontinued. In addition, the Foreign Office took the view that the German minority in Lithuania could rely on other German newspapers.

The press department of the Reich government had already stated in a letter dated January 19, 1922 to the Reich Ministry of Economics that the Rigasche Rundschau was the most important German newspaper in the territory of the former Russia and that it also exerted an influence on the other Baltic states. Editor-in-chief was Paul Schiemann , with whom Winkler developed a close relationship of trust and a lively exchange of experiences. In 1922 the Konkordia took a forty percent share in the running of the newspaper. As a result of further negotiations, Konkordia took over one hundred percent of the company in 1924, with Winkler again appointing trustees from Riga . The Reich government attached so much importance to this newspaper that in 1922 the Konkordia was able to deliver three railway wagons of newspaper to the newspaper every month. The newspaper was discontinued on December 14, 1939 after the Baltic Germans were resettled in the German Reich.

Subsidies in Gdansk and Schleswig

On the territory of the Free City of Danzig there was fierce competition in 1924 among the 69 newspapers and magazines published there (as of October 10, 1924). The representatives of the Danziger Landeszeitung from the environment of the Center Party of the Free City of Danzig therefore received financial support from the Konkordia in the form of a loan from 1925, since the distribution was no longer economically viable. When the newspaper wanted to expand its printing plant and administration, Konkordia took over the majority of the company. When the political situation in Danzig came to a head, the newspaper ceased to appear on October 1, 1934.

However, the complicated situation in Danzig also showed that Winkler did not support every subsidy from a German newspaper that had run into financial difficulties. After extensive deliberations, he refused to promote the Danziger Zeitung , which was then discontinued on January 31, 1930. A decisive factor in this decision was that the newspaper, Der Danziger Vorposten , published by the National Socialists , developed into too much competition. However, Winkler managed to save the newspaper Danziger Latest News, published by the same company, from its abandonment through a participation by the Konkordia.

In the opinion of the imperial government, Winkler had solved the previous tasks in the eastern provinces to be ceded very satisfactorily. However, since the Treaty of Versailles also called for the assignment of territory in western areas of the empire, the area of ​​the northern part of Schleswig should also be looked after. Winkler also took on this task. Furthermore, from October 1921, the competent authorities of the Reich government agreed that the organization of press organs would be handled by a central authority via the Konkordia. In April 1923, a sum of 35 million Reichsmarks was made available for support activities in the Schleswig area.

For special reasons the Neue Tondersche Zeitung from Tondern was supported with a direct payment of a loan on July 9, 1921 in the amount of 700,000 Reichsmarks. Later the entire company, which was newly equipped, was transferred to a trustee. Further support actions concerned the Apenrader Tageblatt in Aabenraa and the Sonderburger Zeitung in Sonderburg . But here too, every payment was checked for its purpose, so that the requirements for support from the Hadersleben newspaper from Hadersleben were not met. By the mid-thirties, however, it became apparent that the newspapers supported could not hold up financially. An operational and editorial summary for the Nordschleswigschen Zeitung did not solve these problems either. The newspaper Flensburger Nachrichten , based in the southern part of Schleswig , was also supported, but in 1937 Winkler finally arranged for the newspaper to be transferred to the subsidiary Nordmarkverlag GmbH of Zeitungsbedarf GmbH. Finally, there were support measures for smaller publications such as the Nordfriesische Rundschau from Niebüll and the Flensburger Volkszeitung .

Saar area

French troops began to occupy the Saar area on November 22, 1918 . Although the Saar area was placed under the League of Nations on January 30, 1920 , French influence grew steadily and also impaired the economic situation of the newspapers. Under the charge of having interfered with the political objectives of the Saar government, German newspapers were banned, people were expelled and newspaper printing was hampered by a lack of paper. After the imperial government was asked for help, the Konkordia was expanded to include a Western Advisory Board, which was supposed to coordinate the aid there.

Winkler turned first to the largest newspaper in the Saar area, the Saarbrücker Zeitung . By founding the Buchgewerbehaus AG , which was also supported by Saarland industrialists, the property shares of the newspaper could be transferred, whereby the Konkordia in turn took over shares of the AG. Thus the French plans to take over the newspaper into French ownership had failed. In 1925 the newspaper was also supported by a loan of 90,000 Reichsmarks. The Saarbrücker Landeszeitung , which was close to the German Center Party, also got into financial difficulties. Here Winkler chose a two-stage process to clean up the newspaper.

In negotiations with the Reich government, he managed to get the company to agree to a commitment agreement, which gave Winkler sufficient control over the operation of the newspaper. As a first financial measure, Winkler carried out an increase in the company's capital. The newspaper was redeveloped by building a new business, which the Konkordia financed by subsidizing a mortgage at Raiffeisen AG in the Saar area. This ensured that this transaction would not become known as the Reich's own financing.

In Saarlouis the Saarzeitung appeared , which was also close to the Center Party and violently opposed French politics. Here, too, Winkler chose to increase the company's capital to support the newspaper. The transaction of the funds took place via the purchase of the newly issued shares, which were transferred to trustees. In the years 1925 to 1932 there were further subsidies because the financial losses at the newspaper increased. The Social Democrats gave the Saarbruecken people voice out. Support by transferring the majority of the company's shares was rejected. After consultations with the Reich Government in May 1922, Winkler was able to offer the newspaper an interest-free loan of 500,000 Reichsmarks. Another loan in 1926 was secured through a mortgage and the company's machinery.

The Bavarian People's Party , which published the Saarpfalz newspaper , based in Homburg , received several subsidies until 1925, including a loan on the stock of the machines in 1925. When the newspaper asked for further financial support, Winkler refused further transfers. Cura audits had shown that the company had lost funds through dubious investments for which certain persons at the publisher were responsible. Furthermore, Winkler gave loans to smaller newspapers such as the Homburger Zeitung , the Neunkirchner Volkszeitung , the Neunkirchner Zeitung , the Saar- and Blieszeitung , the Völklinger Volksfreund , the Dudweiler Zeitung , the Völklinger Nachrichten , the Merziger Zeitung and the Saarbrücker Abendblatt . Winkler insisted on an agreement that had to be signed by the editors in 1925 and 1926. This existed in a price agreement so that the newspapers should not undercut each other in order to enable a financial recovery.

Ruhr area and Rhineland

With the beginning of the occupation of the Ruhr in 1921 and the occupation of the Rhineland from 1918 to 1930, the economic situation of the local press deteriorated considerably, with the consequences of inflation added in the 1920s . Here, too, the Rhineland Commission issued temporary or complete bans on newspapers and expulsions or arrests of people in the newspaper industry. As a result of blocked supply routes for newspapers and a lack of printing paper, printing had to be interrupted. Winkler therefore organized large-scale aid payments that affected a total of 294 newspapers in the occupied territories. Winkler chose a new form of transaction , as the old form of the loan was no longer sufficiently suitable under these circumstances. Winkler chose the form of the bill of exchange as a debt obligation in order to react much more flexibly to the constantly changing financial conditions.

The support services of the Konkordia were expanded from 1923 onwards under these political conditions, since the applications for financial support also related to the publication of replacement newspapers, expenses for printing jobs at other printing companies and compensation for shutdowns. As this processing of the services exceeded the organizational possibilities of the Konkordia, the Association of German Newspaper Publishers and the Reich Association of the German Press were included in the organization. Zeitungsbedarf GmbH was also able to contribute to the organizational process. It soon became apparent, however, that due to inflation, millions, billions and trillions of Reichsmarks had to be transferred. In 1923 and 1924, services were even provided in gold marks. But then Winkler had to stop the transfers at the Konkordia because the previous funds could no longer be raised. But Winkler at least managed to ensure that the amounts of unemployment benefits to workers and employees could still be paid. Because of the special situation of the newspapers in the Palatinate , services for these needy newspapers were continued.

In the second half of 1924, the political and financial situation eased, so that the Konkordia could resume support. After the gradual abolition of the occupation, the question of repayment of the given loan arose. The benefits from the inflationary period were deleted because these subsidies were viewed as foreign policy actions. Another problem related to certain payments that were made as loans by the Reich government to the Konkordia. Here Winkler achieved a rescheduling with changed interest rates and repayment times. A large amount as a loan was left with the Konkordia as a trust deposit by the Reich government. However, the Reich Ministry of Finance, on the other hand, insisted that the Ministry and the press department of the Reich Government receive a report every six months on the Konkordia, in which the use of the deposits was proven.

On May 9, 1930, the Reich Finance Minister Schwerin von Krosigk agreed, in coordination with the press department of the Reich government, that further funds proposed by Winkler could be used. The main reason for this solution was the continued poor economic situation of many newspaper companies. Some of the companies were able to recover by foregoing repayment of the loan, other companies could not overcome the losses incurred. Thus Winkler had to continue to grant subsidies to these newspapers through the Konkordia up to 1932.

Press company from Hugo Stinnes sen.

After Hugo Stinnes' death on April 10, 1924, the Norddeutsche Buchdruckerei- und Verlagsanstalt company, which was part of his inheritance, suffered heavy economic losses, which were deepened by the ongoing currency changeover. From the finance minister of Prussia , Hermann Höpker-Aschoff , Winkler received the order to prepare an expert opinion on the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (DAZ) and the Frankfurter Nachrichten , which belonged to the inheritance of Stinnes. The background to this action was that the Prussian government was considering acquiring the publishing company, the Norddeutsche Buchdruckerei- und Verlagsanstalt . This should open up the possibility of using the DAZ as a political instrument and of making the printing of the government's own German Reich and Prussian State Gazette cheaper.

Winkler was authorized to negotiate with the representative of the creditors of the Stinnes property, the Darmstädter und Nationalbank . After a negotiation period of a few weeks, after a payment of three million Reichsmarks, on August 21, 1925, Winkler was able to obtain the shares in the North German Book Printing and Publishing Company to the Prussian government. The chairman of the Advisory Board of Konkordia, Hermann Dietrich , von Winkler was appointed as trustee . Furthermore, Winkler took over the reorganization of the taken over newspapers and the printing company, from which the Preußische Druckerei- und Verlags AG emerged.

Since the DAZ could no longer be operated economically after the takeover by the Prussian government, the Reich government took over the majority of the company's assets in the newspaper and printing company in April 1926, whereby Winkler again led the negotiations with Gustav Stresemann . By the end of 1930, the press company, which had been taken over by the Reich government, was again in private hands, for which a consortium had first been formed.

Wolff's Telegraphic Bureau

From mid-1931, authorities of the Reich government under Heinrich Brüning commissioned Winkler to start negotiations with the owner of the S. Bleichröder bank , Paul von Schwabach . The subject of the negotiations was that the Reich government wanted to gain significant influence over the Wolffs Telegraphic Bureau (WTB). By the end of October 1931, Winkler had managed to acquire 51 percent of the company shares for 1,440,000 Reichsmarks, which the Cautio took over in trust.

This transaction was strictly confidential and could not be disclosed to the public. For this purpose, a contract was signed with the S. Bleichröder bank, so that it appears that the bank ran the majority of the company's shares in trust. However, every important business decision had to be made by mutual agreement with the Cautio.

Foreign assignments

In 1925 representatives of Austrian political and economic circles approached the Reich government with a request to found a bourgeois newspaper in Vienna. As part of the Konkordia, Winkler was commissioned to support such a foundation financially. The newspaper Wiener Latest Nachrichten , which then appeared , was partially subsidized with German money, but from 1927 onwards the grants flowed solely from the German source. In 1938 the newspaper became the property of the Franz-Eher-Verlag .

In Romania, Winkler supported the "Siebenbürgisch-Deutsche Verlagsanstalt AG" from 1923 by handing over technical means. The newspaper Siebenbürger Tageblatt was taken over in 1925 with the majority of the share capital, with trustees again taking over the local administration. In the south of Hungary, Winkler subsidized two newspapers, with a majority stake in Schwäbische Verlags AG . In Turkey, Winkler supported the publication of the Turkish Post newspaper in Ankara at the request of German circles . The Züricher Post newspaper in Switzerland also received financial aid from Winkler.

Activities in the Reich government

In 1931 there was a banking crisis in the German Reich . The then Reich Finance Minister Hermann Dietrich, with whom Winkler had already worked closely before, called in Winkler as a consultant in this time of crisis. During the Reich President's election campaign for Paul von Hindenburg in 1932, Winkler, at the request of Reich Chancellor Heinrich Brüning, organized a collection of donations from the banks and industry, which, according to Boveri, amounted to 8.3 million Reichsmarks.

Nazi takeover

After the National Socialists came to power at the end of January 1933, Winkler was also threatened. Winkler had not previously sought direct contact with the Berlin NSDAP and only became a member in 1937. However, the head of the newspaper Pfälzer Merkur , Gerhard Kuhn , had established a relationship with the Gauleiter Josef Bürckel for him before the Nazi takeover . Thanks to his support for the Hindenburg election campaign and his membership in the German State Party until its dissolution in mid-1933, Winkler was considered an opponent of the National Socialists. His apartment on Brückenallee was searched twice in February 1933, and files were also confiscated. With this, Winkler could lose the status of his secret business. Therefore, he turned to the head of the Reich Chancellery , Hans Heinrich Lammers , to protect himself from further pursuits.

At the beginning of March 1933 Lammers, Walter Funk and the press spokesman for the Foreign Office (AA), Gottfried Aschmann , took part in a meeting with Winkler. Winkler reported in detail on his previous activities and also agreed to provide file information. After the Reichstag election in 1933 , Funk was appointed State Secretary . At a meeting with Funk, Winkler agreed to work under the new government if his job opportunities were not restricted. Funk informed him that he would still be interrogated by the Gestapo .

The key figures in the organization of the Nazi press, Max Amann and his staff leader Rolf Rienhardt , agreed with Winkler on his new powers.

SPD and KPD newspapers

In the first half of 1933 the newspapers of the SPD and KPD were either banned or confiscated. Rosenkötter states that the SPD 135 and the KPD 49 published newspapers. In addition, there were also the printing works and company buildings. With the law on the confiscation of communist property of May 26, 1933 and the law on the confiscation of property hostile to the people and the state of July 14, 1933, the transfer of this property of these newspapers and their properties to Winkler's companies was legalized . The individual assets were then transferred to the local NSDAP publishing houses, with the proceeds being accounted for via Winkler companies to the Reich Treasury. This enabled the NSDAP to reorganize and expand its over-indebted party newspapers .

Foreign press, DNB and Ala GmbH

In 1933 Winkler made some changes to the Konkordia and its subsidiaries with regard to the foreign press, which appeared mainly in the Baltic States, Hungary, Poland and Romania. These newspapers were affiliated with the Auslandsspressebüro GmbH , which belonged to the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (RMVP).

As early as 1931, Winkler had transferred the majority of the Wolffs Telegraphisches Bureau (WTB) into the possession of the German Reich. Goebbels gave Winkler the order to separate the Telegraphen-Union from the Hugenberg group and to merge it with the WTB, with which Goebbels wanted to achieve a monopoly in the distribution of news. Winkler completed this merger on December 5, 1933 via Konkordia , so that the Deutsche Nachrichtenbüro GmbH (DNB) could start operations on January 1, 1934 .

In the course of the break-up of the Hugenberg concern, the company shares in Ala GmbH were transferred to Cautio and Cura in 1934 , which then transferred the company shares to the National Socialist Advertisement Center (NAZ). With this, Winkler had given the NSDAP a monopoly in the distribution of newspaper advertisements.

Mosse publishing house

As early as autumn 1932, the Mosse publishing house, which was run by Hans Lachmann-Mosse , had to file for bankruptcy. The auditor Walter Haupt was appointed insolvency administrator on September 13, 1932 and continued to run the various parts of the publishing house in rescue companies. In February 1933, Haupt turned to Winkler to offer him parts of the Mosse publishing house for sale. Winkler, however, saw no possibility of continuing the publishing house economically. In the autumn of 1933, Haupt approached Winkler again. At the same time Goebbels asked Winkler whether it would be possible to take over the Mosse publishing house. Winkler also rejects this proposal for the time being, but then, following repeated insistence by Goebbels, approves it. The publishing house was taken over by Cautio for four million RM.

For this purpose, Winkler founded the Berliner Druck- und Zeitungsbetriebe AG in 1934 , which then took over the entire property, the printing plant and the publishing rights. This also brought the Berliner Tageblatt (BT) into the possession of Winkler's company. Winkler had reassured himself about the advertising income from Hitler, since most of the income consisted of Jewish obituaries. Boveri reports that Hitler commented: “Dead Jews don't bother me”.

Ullstein publishing house

Shortly after they came to power, the National Socialists took targeted steps to damage Ullstein Verlag to such an extent that it could no longer exist economically. This was also served by a temporary ban on the magazine Die Grüne Post . When Amann informed Winkler of the next steps against Ullstein in January 1934, Winkler proposed to buy the publisher instead of breaking it up. Goebbels agreed to this proposal. Franz Ullstein, who had received advice from Hermann Dietrich to contact Winkler, received from Winkler the promise to find a buyer for the publisher within a short period of time. As a basis for assessing the publisher's financial position, Winkler had an expert report by Max Wiessner .

The further negotiations were continued from May 17, 1934 by the authorized attorney Ludwig Ruge and his advisors Tinner and Fritz E. Kock. Fritz Ross and Ferdinand Bausback from the publisher's supervisory board took part in the negotiations. As early as June 7, 1934, it was possible to agree on a negotiation result that was not signed as a contract. Six million RM were offered for the shares of the publisher. The shares that were not entitled to vote ( profit participation certificates ) achieved a sales price of four million RM, whereby these were exchanged for bonds . The pension fund of employees of the publishing house were four hundred thousand RM credited.

The rights of the publisher and its published titles, such as magazines and newspapers, were valued at two million RM. A debt of the publisher in the form of a liability of 1.5 million RM was deducted from the sales price. The Ullstein family was finally deducted 25 percent of the Reich flight tax from the purchase price . The publisher's shares were transferred to the Deutsche Bank for the Cautio.

Huck concern and publisher Girardet

Amann intended to take over most of the advertising press for the NSDAP. With the editors' act and the following three implementing regulations for the Reich Chamber of Culture Act , Amann and Rienhardt were able to instruct Winkler to gradually buy up their newspapers from various corporations. Winkler advised Amann to have Hitler give him a Reich loan of 30 million RM for this. Vera Verlagsanstalt GmbH, which was separated from the Hugenberg Group, served Winkler as the rescue company .

From the end of 1935 Winkler began to negotiate with representatives of the Huck Group. The newspaper company was built by August Huck (1849–1911) and, after his death, was run by his son Wolfgang Huck . This commissioned the lawyer and son of General Colmar von der Goltz , Rüdiger von der Goltz , to lead the negotiations. Winkler suggested a contract so that the Huck family could initially continue to run part of the newspapers. In addition, the Huck family had to sell their shares in three newspapers in Stuttgart. The Breslauer Latest News , the Kasseler Latest News , the Stettiner Generalanzeiger and the Neue Mannheimer Zeitung brought Winkler into the possession of Vera. In 1943 Amann took over all other Huck newspapers except for the Hallische Nachrichten .

Wilhelm Girardet and his family's publishing companies were based in Hamburg, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Wuppertal and Essen. On Amann's initiative, Winkler initiated the purchase of the Essener Allgemeine Zeitung and the Hamburger Anzeiger , with the Hamburger Zeitung running a large advertising business and having a high circulation.

Individual publishers

Winkler took over the Danzig Latest News from the publisher Hans Fuchs . The director of the Stuttgarter Neue Tagblatt , Carl Esser, also had to transfer ownership of the newspaper and the printing companies to Winkler and his Vera. After the Saar area was annexed to the Reich again after 1935, the Saarbrücker Zeitung and the Saarbrücker Landeszeitung became the property of Vera. Majority interests in the newspapers of the publishers Richter in Würzburg ( Würzburger Generalanzeiger ), Schünemann in Bremen ( Weserzeitung and Bremer Nachrichten ), Faber in Magdeburg ( Magdeburger General-Anzeiger and Magdeburgische Zeitung ), Boldt in Rostock ( Rostocker Anzeiger ), Herfurth in Leipzig ( Leipziger Latest news ), Colemann in Lübeck ( Lübeck Generalanzeiger ) and Madsack in Hanover ( Hannoverscher Anbzeiger ) also acquired Winkler, which were taken over by Vera.

In Frankfurt am Main, Winkler bought the Generalanzeiger of the city of Frankfurth aM , which was considered the economically strongest German advertising newspaper. The Badische Presse in Karlsruhe and the Freiburger Zeitung followed . In Hamburg, the publisher Kurt Broschek had to hand over his publishing property to a board of directors after negotiations with Winkler, so that the Hamburger Fremdblatt and Broschek & Co., Buchdruckerei und Tiefdruckanstalt KG ultimately came under the control of Amann. By taking over the Munich-based publisher Knorr & Hirth with its major newspapers, Münchner Neuesten Nachrichten , Süddeutsche Sonntagspost, as well as Münchner Illustrierte and the satirical newspaper Simplicissimus , Winkler set a decisive course in the southern German press landscape.

Vienna and the film industry

After the annexation of Austria to the German Reich, Winkler and Rienhardt organized the takeover of the Viennese newspapers in the first days shortly after the Wehrmacht invaded Vienna. Thus the Wiener Neuesten Nachrichten , Die Kleine Volkszeitung , Das Kleine Blatt and the Illustrierte Kronen-Zeitung , to name just the largest, came under the control of the NSDAP.

For the film industry, the then State Secretary Walther Funk had drafted a concept for a central organization of the entire German film industry , about which he informed the Ministerial Director Alfred Olscher in the Reich Ministry of Finance (RFM) on December 14, 1936 . He had coordinated this concept with Winkler in several meetings for months. This centralization provided for a concentration of technical means and facilities, a unified distribution, financial control over the facilities of the performances, the concentration of the obligations of all performers in their assignments and a guarantee of a certain volume of production. If this concept is implemented, a pre-tax profit of 12.75 million RM should be expected.

From June 1937 Winkler officially took on the duties of a Reich Commissioner for the German film industry . The actions undertaken by Winkler and his Cautio in the area of ​​the German film industry were so complex and opaque that they could never be completely clarified, even because of the lack of files. Little information was also given to the press by the ministries involved.

Tobis Group

The Tobis Tonbild Syndicate AG was among the largest companies in the German film industry with foreign investments. In addition to business with licenses, the company also operated the production of films through subsidiaries. The important role of Tobis was that it was owned by three banks in the Netherlands through the parent company of International Tobis-Maatschappij NV (Intertobis) based in Antwerp . Winkler now bought up Intertobis piece by piece through his Dutch bank HBB, so that by 1939 he had taken over almost all of Intertobis. With this, however, not only Intertobis came into trust via Cautio Winkler, but also via the German Tobis. An accompanying reorganization led to the founding of Tobis-Filmkunst GmbH on November 29, 1937 , so that not only were the losses of the existing Tobis AG avoided, but profits could also be made. Becker states that before taxes there was a profit of around RM 25 million in the business year 1942/1943.

UFA Group

In the course of the takeover of Tobis, there were discussions about merging the UFA AG film group with Tobis. In a letter dated February 15, 1938, Winkler addressed the RMVP strictly against such intentions and described it as a bureaucratic treadmill of a mammoth organization . Winkler did describe how he wanted to proceed on this matter. After intensive negotiations at the beginning of 1937 between Winkler and the general director of UFA, Ludwig Klitzsch , and the Scherl-Verlag on the sale of UFA AG, the purchase agreement was concluded on March 18, 1937, and Winkler was able to purchase the cautio at a price of 21,250 '000 RM take over UFA AG. Since there were still free shareholders, the entire purchase dragged on until 1939. The RFM spent a total of RM 37 million on the complete share purchase of UFA AG. A special feature of the purchase agreement provided that Winkler was given full power of disposal over personnel issues for UFA AG.

Terra concern

As early as the mid-thirties, the Terra Film AG concern could no longer be economically maintained and had to receive subsidies. Winkler wanted to avoid bankruptcy of this AG in any case and bought the Terra-Filmverleih GmbH including its rights to the film stocks for 4 million RM through the Cautio. He merged these with Tobis-Rota Filmverleih GmbH , which had been separated from the Tobis Group , and founded Terra-Filmkunst GmbH on June 26, 1937 . The first profit was already made in the following financial year 1938/1939, which grew to 14.4 million RM by 1941/1942.

Bavaria Group

In the spring of 1937, Bavaria Film AG had to determine that it was insolvent. Winkler had the group's systems checked and came to the conclusion that it would no longer be possible to continue operations for economic reasons due to the run-down systems and technology. So he refused to give financial aid to avoid bankruptcy. Winkler only saw the possibility of running a company in Munich as an establishment of Tobis AG. In doing so, however, he encountered resistance from Gauleiter Adolf Wagner , who insisted on an independent film company in Munich.

After Hitler's intervention, Winkler gave in after a year of negotiations and agreed to found Bavaria Filmkunst GmbH . During the negotiations, Winkler had secured the naming rights. Cautio and Allgemeine Filmtreuhand GmbH , which belonged to the Reichsfilmkammer , acted as shareholders in the new Bavaria . It soon turned out that the new Bavaria could not survive financially because of the low film productions. In this situation, Winkler turned against any financing of individual films from funds from the Reich budget. A consortium of banks provided the funds to raise equity and provide loans for construction work.

In the meantime, Winkler had also bought up the old Bavaria's systems and the Group's employees were taken over. Numerous projects to renovate the old facilities were initiated, but not all of them were implemented by the end of the war. The RFM made these new resources available. It took several years before Bavaria was able to work economically again and was able to realize a profit of 8.7 million RM in the 1941/1942 financial year.

Vienna film

With the annexation of Austria in 1938, the German laws of the film industry were also transferred to Austria. As early as June 8, 1938, Winkler was able to establish in a report that the Jewish influence at Tobis Sascha Filmindustrie AG had been eliminated. With the purchase of Tobis, the Cautio had acquired around half of the company's shares since 1937. The rest of the capital, which was in the hands of Oskar Pilzer, was transferred to Österreichische Kreditanstalt as trustee. It was not until November 1938 that Cautio was able to take over all of the company's shares, with Winkler appointing August Schenk from Vienna as trustee. Just one month later, Winkler converted the AG into a Wien Film GmbH . The new company could now produce films that could also be distributed in the DR without restrictions. The distribution itself was organized in the DR. The outdated and too small production had to be modernized and expanded so that an economical production of up to 25 films per year was possible. Already at the end of 1940 the balance sheet showed a surplus , which grew to 9.5 million RM in the 1942/1943 financial year.

Prague movie

After the occupation of Czechoslovakia , Winkler developed the plan to use the production capacities in Prague for the production of German films, since the production facilities in the DR were not yet expanded. To this end, Winkler wanted to buy AB AktienFilmfabriken AG , but the negotiations failed due to the excessive demands of the Czech negotiator. As a result, the management of the AG was withdrawn by the NS authorities and the pressure from the NS leadership that now set in led to a sale of 1,377,000 RM. By means of further capital increases, the Cautio came into possession of 96 percent of the shares in AB in 1942. As early as November 19, 1941, Winkler had the AG converted into Prag Film AG . With the coercive measures and restrictions that had been introduced in the meantime, Prag-Film remained the only production company in the so-called Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia that could produce films unhindered. Control of the film industry in the Protectorate area was thus effectively passed into the hands of Winkler.

UFA-Film GmbH (UFI)

In 1939 Winkler presented a concept for an umbrella company for the entire film industry. The key points of this conception were the rational use of personnel, the production facilities and the formation of joint research. In addition, sales with export and marketing should be centrally regulated. The accounting and distribution of profits should also be based on the proportions of the share capital of the sub-companies. While the RMVP agreed, taking into account small changes, there were negative views from the film companies. The overwhelming influence of the UFA was feared. The decisive contradiction, however, was made in the RFM by Ministerialrat Hermann Burmeister . Above all, this attacked the tax regulations in the conception as being unrealistic. Becker judges Burmeister's attitude to the effect that Burmeister feared that Winkler, in his position as general director of this umbrella company, could have switched off the RFM in the financial statements.

In addition to Winkler, his specialist in the film industry, Friedrich Merten , from the RMVP Karl Ott and Otto Getzlaff and from the RFM Burmeister and Joachim von Manteuffel took part in a conference on July 4, 1939 . Manteuffel argued that the RFM demanded that the UFA should bring the film production into an independent company with this concept. Winkler did not want to agree to this condition, so that these negotiations failed. Winkler pursued his project with determination and in 1940 expressed the intention that the financing of film production should be removed from the Reich budget in order to no longer subject the financing of many individual items in film production to the bureaucratic regulations of the RFM. With this, too, he encountered violent opposition in the RFM, since the RFM claimed supervision of the capital shares of film companies in the hands of the Reich for legal reasons. However, Winkler was able to refute this objection. Goebbels determined that the holding company's shares should be transferred to Cautio. However, Winkler was not allowed to take on the position of general director of the holding company for legal reasons. Nevertheless, Winkler controlled the film industry twice. Once as the sole shareholder of the Cautio via the shareholders' meeting and as the Reich Commissioner.

In two further steps, Winkler removed the last obstacles to the formation of an umbrella company. With the establishment of Berlin-Film GmbH on September 2, 1941, the last small private companies were taken over by Cautio. When the Deutsche Filmtheater GmbH was founded on November 14, 1941, the UFA projection houses were converted into a new corporate form via lease agreements. Hitler determined the new name of the umbrella company: UFA-Film GmbH . Winkler suggested Fritz Hippler as the so-called film general manager . The other two decisive posts in the management should be taken by his deputy lawyer Bruno Pfennig and Merten from the Cautio. The company was founded on January 10, 1942.

Organization of film distribution and production

With regard to film distribution, too, Winkler had ideas of eliminating the uneconomical competition in this sector. Not only should a central facility be set up. The rental costs should also be reduced to a minimum. Winkler had to act quickly, however, because Baldur von Schirach was planning his own film distribution for Austria. Deutsche Filmvertriebs GmbH (DFV) was founded on January 2, 1942 , organizing film distribution for four district offices with 20 branches. With this centralization, the expenses fell from 26 to five percent.

As a further task, Winkler wanted to concentrate the film production of the UFA Group in an independent company. For this purpose, the film production including the technical film preparations such as the work on the scripts, the film operations, the personnel composition, the legal issues of film rights were transferred to this new company. Within a week of the founding of the UFA umbrella company, UFA-Filmkunst GmbH was entrusted with these tasks on January 17, 1942.

Main trust center east

Rienhardt had repeatedly sought advice from Winkler since 1934, so that over the years he was able to apply Winkler's methods in the same way. In 1939, Rienhardt von Winkler took over the shares in Vera Verlagsanstalt and transferred them to Franz-Eher-Verlag . Then, step by step, the shares of the assets were transferred from Vera to Herold Verlagsanstalt GmbH .

Around October 12, 1939, Winkler had a meeting with Hermann Göring , where he was commissioned to manage a trust company for the assets he had conquered in Poland. On October 19, Winkler received the decree for the establishment of the main trust center East (HTO) with his appointment as head , which on October 31/1. November 1939. Shortly afterwards, Winkler discussed the personnel requirements of the HTO with Heinrich Müller from the Reich Audit Office.

Coordination problems

As head of the HTO, Winkler was faced with the task of agreeing with other DR institutions on the competencies for access to Polish property. The basis of these intentions was laid on 5./6. February the head of the industrial department of the HTO, Jacob Herle , who presented a concept of a cooperation with the organizations of the commercial economy at a working conference. Winkler then met with Wilhelm Zangen , the head of the Reichsgruppe Industrie , to agree on a collaboration. The agreement provided that experts from the industry groups, the technical groups of the HTO and representatives of the management of companies would be available to discuss upcoming tasks together.

Since the access of companies and individuals to Polish companies developed rapidly due to various motives, Winkler resorted to the method of setting up a special company for individual fields of activity. On February 20, 1940, the Handels Aufbau Ost GmbH (HAO) was founded as a subsidiary of the HTO, with Winkler and Otto Ohlendorf serving as shareholders in equal shares. With this, Winkler succeeded in submitting the activities of appropriating and / or closing down Polish businesses on the part of local economic institutions to the approval of the HAO.

Another problem for Winkler was that in the areas of the Generalgouvernement access to land was not regulated and far-reaching urban development plans were also taken up in the cities. For this purpose he founded the property company of HTO mbH (GHTO) on May 27th, which was run as a subsidiary of HTO by him and Willy Imhof as shareholders. The HTO Winkler thus regulated the administration's access to all developed and undeveloped real estate and residential property. Winkler handed over the details of the handling to an administrative board of the GHTO.

For the German resettlers from the Baltic states, the HTO agreed with the Umsiedlungs-Treuhand GmbH (DUT) the purchase price for businesses or residential properties located in Poland. In a letter dated March 19, 1940, Winkler instructed all regional HTO trustee offices to work closely with the DUT in every respect. Winkler assured the settlers that when it came to pricing the properties and businesses to be purchased, they would agree with the Reich Commissioner for pricing rules so that the settlers could purchase the property as cheaply as possible .

Hostility

In Poland there were numerous companies in the textile and mining industries in which foreign capital owners owned shares. Here Winkler had to agree on a joint administration with the Reich Commissioner for the Treatment of Enemy Property , Ministerial Director Friedrich Ernst . On February 7, 1940, at a meeting at HTO Winkler, his deputy and legal advisor Bruno Pfennig and Ernst came to an agreement. Only if the foreign capital share was less than half of the capital of the respective company did the HTO manage the company together with the institution of the Reich Commissioner. In all other cases the Reich Commissioner was solely responsible.

Resistance to the HTO

On February 28, 1940, State Secretary Paul Körner raised an objection to the HTO's jurisdiction over certain coal mining operations in Poland. Körner wanted to get Winkler to hand over the administration of these companies in favor of the Reich Commissioner Ernst, so that the Reichswerke Hermann Göring could access these companies directly. An agreement between Ernst and the State Secretary on April 3, 1940 stipulated that Ernst, in coordination with the Foreign Office, renounced an independent administration for these special companies.

In a letter dated March 11, 1940, Erich Neumann, the ministerial director of the Reich Ministry of Economics , advocated that owners of Polish companies who were in hostile countries should also be treated like foreigners with regard to enemy property. Subsequent consultations led to Winkler being able to assert himself through his deputy Pfennig regarding access to the assets of Poles living abroad. In the so-called Ordinance on the Treatment of Property of Members of the Former Polish State ( Poland Property Ordinance-PolVermVO) of September 17, 1940 (RGBl. I, p. 1270), it was stipulated that such foreign assets are treated like all other enemy assets.

Embezzlement and expropriation

While in 1940 the HTO was still busy with the development of its organization and the first mapping of the land, real estate and companies, Winkler discovered that the movable goods were embezzling and illegal appropriation of Polish goods on a large scale. In a letter to Goering dated February 5, 1941, Winkler accused:

By the beginning of 1940, measures against Poland had been taken against Poland in tens of thousands of cases by all sorts of incompetent and unskilled agencies and the party, about which no record is available.

In a very large part of these cases the assets are embezzled, in other cases the assets are deposited somewhere with district administrators, mayors, police departments, military departments without the origin of these values ​​being apparent. Furniture, clothing and other everyday items have also largely disappeared back then .

Winkler also sharply criticized the HTO's bad reputation. The HTO as a trustee had come into disrepute . It is better to replace the term “trustee” with the title of provisional administrator . The background to this criticism was a failure and the corruption of many trustees appointed by the HTO, which Otto Bräutigam described in his memoirs. Bridegroom reported that the HTO was only named as Hermann's saddest organization at times .

Winkler had more or less informed Göring that German civil administration and armed forces had plundered Polish property on a large scale in Poland during the first months of the occupation.

For the period April / May 1940, according to Winkler in a statement on February 2, 1948, the General Director of the Reichswerke Hermann Göring, Paul Pleiger , had called for the transfer of at least 17 coal mines in Poland. The contract with HTO was signed on January 17, 1941, and the purchase price was quoted at 44.3 million RM. It could not be proven that this amount was transferred to the HTO. Röhr mentions an inspection trip by a group of German industrialists from July 1 to 3, 1940, who u. a. Wilhelm Zangen from the Reichsgruppe Industrie, Wilhelm Bötzkes from the Deutsche Industriebank and Jacob Wilhelm Reichert from the Ironworking Industry Group, as well as a Lieutenant Colonel Hüther from the Kattowitz Arms Inspection .

The accompanying companion from the Reich Ministry of Economics noted in a note on the report on this inspection that there were statements during the inspection that the removal of the coal mines could endanger the associated rolling and smelting works in Upper Silesia . This type of appropriation was intended by Göring so that other corporations could not anticipate his intentions.

Expert opinion from Ludwig Erhard

The banker Friedrich Merten, who had already worked for Winkler in the Cautio and then switched to HTO in 1939, informed Winkler on October 21, 1941 that the Institute for Economic Monitoring of German Finished Goods in Nuremberg had taken on the task of providing an expert opinion on the possibilities the development of the new German eastern dream . The institute's employee, Ludwig Erhard , delivered a preliminary report to the HTO in July 1941, as he announced on September 15, 1941 to the managing director August Heinrichsbauer of the Southeast European Society.

Winkler expressed himself very appreciatively to Erhard about his proposals for the development of the East German economy and distributed a short version of the report to the ministries involved and to personalities and offices of the state and the party . Only this short version has been preserved and published by Gerlach in 1997. The actual report by Erhard can no longer be found today.

Soviet Union

As early as April 4, 1941, Winkler received the order from Göring to design a concept for the trust management of the Soviet assets that would be conquered in the future. Winkler drafted an ordinance that he submitted on August 9, 1941. In it he proposed the position of a general agent for trust administrations , who should head all trust institutions of the captured assets. However, this draft met with fierce opposition from Alfred Rosenberg's East Ministry . In the end, Winkler was unable to prevail after tough arguments. On April 16, 1942, Winkler sent a letter to Goering, in which he asked to be released from the job that Goering had given him.

Göring finally reached an agreement with the East Ministry that Winkler's representative, Bruno Pfennig, was appointed general adviser for trusteeships in the East Ministry to Rosenberg's deputy in the summer of 1942 . In October 1943 Heinrich Himmler told Winkler in a conversation that he intended to dissolve the HTO and integrate it into his Reich Commissioner. At a conference on November 23, Winkler announced that from January 1, 1944, the HTO would be incorporated into the Reich Commissioner of Himmler. By clever tactics, Winkler succeeded in delaying an actual dissolution of the HTO until the end of the war.

Film industry in the conquered eastern regions

In addition to his responsibility for the HTO, Winkler retained the area of ​​responsibility for the film industry in the conquered eastern regions. At first all film theaters were subordinated to the trustee of the HTO in the Generalgouvernement (GG). Then, from January 1942, Winkler received the monopoly in the GG through the Film- und Propagandamittel-Vertriebsgesellschaft mbH based in Krakow . In order to control the activities of the film industry in the eastern regions, Winkler founded Zentralfilmgesellschaft Ost mbh on November 10, 1941 in Berlin . In the area of the Reich Ostland were in on 28 November 1941 Riga formed Ostland film mbH and the Ukraine , founded on December 10, 1941 Ukraine-film mbH , both subsidiaries of the central film company responsible for these purposes.

When Goebbels appointed SS-Gruppenführer Hans Hinkel as Reichsfilmintendanten in March 1944 , disputes with Winkler about the competences in the film industry followed very quickly. It was not until October 2, 1944 that an agreement was reached on an organizational plan for the film industry, which did not affect Winkler's core competencies.

post war period

After the surrender of the Nazi regime, Winkler was arrested and spent several years in internment camps and prisons. As a witness he testified in the Nuremberg trial against the main war criminals and in the Wilhelmstrasse trial . On August 11, 1949, he was classified as a non-incriminated person in the denazification process by the court in Lüneburg . In the unbundling of the UFA, he participated in deliberations of the Bundestag for the federal government. In the second half of the 1950s he worked in Düsseldorf , where he processed financial transactions for industry. The journalist Eugen Mündler reported in a transcript dated July 17, 1963 that Winkler had worked for the entrepreneur Essen in Hamburg in the last years of his life.

literature

• (Fritz Schmidt): Press in shackles. Berlin 1947.
• Felix-Heinrich Gentzen : The legend of the " Bromberger Blutsonntag " and the German Fifth Column in Poland. In: Basil Spiru (Ed.): September 1939. Berlin 1959, p. 61.
• Winfried B. Lerg: Max Winkler, the financial technician of the synchronization. Zeitungsverlag and Zeitschriftenverlag, 1961, pp. 610–612.
• Margret Boveri: Obituary in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of October 16, 1961.
• Margret Boveri: We all lie - a capital newspaper under Hitler. Olten and Freiburg im Breisgau, 1965.
• Oron J. Hale : Press in the Straitjacket 1933-1945. Düsseldorf 1965.
• Otto Bräutigam: That's how it happened. A life as a soldier and a diplomat. Wuerzburg 1968.
• Hagen Schulze: The Eastern State Plan 1919. In: Quarterly books for contemporary history. Issue 2, 1970, pp. 123-163, ifz-muenchen.de (PDF).
• Norbert Krekeler: Right to revision and secret Ostpolitik of the Weimar Republic - Subsidizing the German minority in Poland. Stuttgart 1973.
• Wolfgang Becker: Film and rule - organizational principles and organizational structures of the National Socialist film propaganda. Berlin 1973.
• Roswitha Czollek: Fascism and Occupation. Berlin 1974.
• Helga Wermuth: Max Winkler - an assistant to state press policy in the Weimar Republic. Dissertation. Munich 1975.
• Peter de Mendelssohn: Newspaper City Berlin - People and Powers in the History of the German Press. Berlin 1982.
• German foundation. In: Dieter Fricke et al .: Lexicon on the history of parties. Volume 2. Leipzig 1984.
• HD Heilmann: From the war diary of the diplomat Otto Bräutigam. In: Contributions to National Socialist health and social policy 4: Biedermann and desk offenders. Berlin 1987, p. 186.
• Werner Röhr. The fascist occupation policy in Poland (1939–1945). Series Europe under the Swastika - The Occupation Policy of German Fascism (1938–1945) . Volume 2, Berlin 1989, pp. 175-177.
• Stephan H. Lindner: The Reich Commissioner for the Treatment of Enemy Property in the Second World War - A study of the administrative, legal and economic history of National Socialist Germany. Stuttgart 1991.
• Andreas Halen, Uwe Greve: From the Mosse publishing house to the Mosse center. Berlin 1995.
• Christian Gerlach : Ludwig Erhard and the “Economy of the New German Eastern Region” - An expert opinion from 1941 and Erhard's advisory work on the German annexation policy 1938–1943. In: Contributions to National Socialist health and social policy. Volume 13. Berlin 1997, pp. 214-276.
• Bernhard Rosenkötter: Treuhandpolitik - The "Main Trusteeship East" and the robbery of Polish assets 1939-1945. Essen 2003.

Remarks

1. ↑ Hollandsche Buitenland-Bank: Founded by Frank van Gheel-Gildemeester and Dirk van Houten Source: Eser, Egon, “Volk, Staat, Gott”, Wiesbaden 2010 ISBN 978-3-447-06233-6 p. 496

Web links

• Literature by and about Max Winkler in the catalog of the German National Library
• Newspaper article about Max Winkler in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Publication date of the Litauische Rundschau, in: Alfred Bohmann, Menschen und Grenzen, 1969 p. 263
• Reference to the formation of the German news office with Max Winkler
• Reference to Winkler as Reich Commissioner for the German film industry