Imperial Treasury

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Reichsschatzamt seal mark

The Reichsschatzamt was a Reichsamt from 1879 to 1919 with its headquarters in Berlin, Wilhelmstrasse 61. It dealt with the budget, customs and accounting of the German Empire . The highest employer was the Chancellor .

introduction

Due to the complex administrative structures in the German Reich , the Reich Treasury is often referred to as "head without members" in recent literature. However, at no time was the Reichsschatzamt the highest tax and financial authority of the empire. It had no judicial or executive powers. A central financial administration did not exist until the end of the empire. In addition to the Reich Treasury passed with the National Debt Office and the Reich Court six other financial authorities of the empire, but they were all not concerned with the administration of taxes.

As in other federal states, such as the USA or Switzerland, the empire adhered to the maxim of a strong position for the federal states. That is, until the establishment of the Weimar Republic , finances were their affair. Each of the 25 German member states administered itself - and had its own financial administration. This was, for example, the Prussian Ministry of Finance in Prussia , the Royal Bavarian Ministry of Finance in Bavaria or the Grand Ducal Hessian Ministry of Finance in Hessen-Darmstadt . The Prussian Finance Minister in particular is said to have treated "the State Secretary of the Reich Treasury like a subordinate who was obliged to obey".

In fact, the staffing alone was a reflection of the low financial significance of the office, which for a long time only consisted of department I (budget), department II (customs) and department III (imperial taxes). From 1914 Department IV (war economy) was added. A total of 15 Reich Commissioners and 45 station controllers were initially assigned to the Reich Treasury . By 1918 the number had increased to 145 employees.

Development, structure and responsibilities

For a long time after the establishment of the German Reich , Bismarck created the budget for the new state as a whole. In 1877 he had his own finance department set up in the Reich Chancellery and on July 14, 1879 the Reich Treasury. The Reich Chancellor remained the highest employer. Its main representative in office was initially an undersecretary of state; from 1880 a state secretary who was authorized to bear the title of excellence for the duration of his term of office .

The task of the Reich Treasury was to estimate budget income and expenditure in budget plans for the entire state ( cameralistics ). Six sources flowed into the state budget that the Reich Treasury could count on:

  1. duties
  2. Imperial taxes
  3. Bonds on the capital market, brokered by consortia of the major banks
  4. Income from imperial companies, such as the imperial post
  5. Matriculation contributions of the member states, which leveled off at around 3%
  6. Financial assets from the Reich War Treasure

Taxes on exchange, stock exchange and playing card stamps as well as consumption taxes on brandy, beer, tobacco, beet sugar and salt were considered as imperial taxes. Almost 80% of the income came from customs duties until the outbreak of the First World War. In the examination and determination of the income and expenditure, a mutual control took place between the states and the Reich. The station controllers of the Reich Treasury were assigned to the local authorities of the individual member states on site. In addition, the empire had its own main customs offices in the Hanseatic cities .

The authorized representatives of the Reich Treasury were not entitled to intervene directly in the administration of the member states. They were not allowed to issue orders or issue orders to the tax and customs officials of the federal states. In order to determine the basis for their calculation, however, they had the right to inspect all “files, books, correspondence, registers and litigation files relating to the common customs and tax administration” with the state officials. An instruction from 1888 read:

"The station controllers should not have a direct influence on the management itself, rather they should be required to take the knowledge of management that they need to fulfill their duties."

However, it soon became the practice to appoint state secretaries of the Reich offices in addition to state ministers without portfolio , especially in Prussia. It was not uncommon for the State Secretary at the Reich Treasury to be a leading official of a Reich authority; on the other hand, as a minister, he had a seat and full voting rights in the powerful Prussian state government , but no department of his own there. This enabled the empire, with its limited administrative structure, to fall back on the Prussian administration, which was by far stronger in terms of personnel. Conversely, Prussia gained leading influence on imperial authorities in this way.

In fact, the Reich Treasury developed into an important and influential institution by 1914 at the latest. After the outbreak of the First World War , imports and exports almost completely came to a standstill. With the sea ​​blockade in the North Sea , Great Britain imposed an embargo on the German Reich right at the beginning of the war . In addition to considerable economic restrictions, this led to a drying up of the main sources of tax income. The German Reich, like all belligerent countries, saw the issue of war bonds as a means of raising the enormous sums of money for the unexpectedly ongoing war .

Right from the start, the Reich Treasury was largely responsible for calculating the amount of money needed and for processing war loans; however, the bonds were issued by the Reichsbank . Because the Reich government assumed a brief conflict, the Reichsschatzamt also initially believed that the Reichsbank could bear the war costs with loans without any problems. The tax officials at the Reichsschatzschatzamt had to constantly prepare short-term financial plans and adapt the budget to the constantly changing developments in the war. Sometimes absurd calculations were made, and a. the Reich Treasury was supposed to examine whether the German Empire could grant the Republic of Georgia a loan against pledging of the Caucasus Railway.

Initially, the German war bonds were a very successful means of absorbing the costs of the war. Initially, the Reichsschatzamt only needed to advertise the bonds with small text posters; later, full-page newspaper advertisements, large posters, advertising events and regular propaganda campaigns were added. With the first four loans, the Reich Treasury was able to almost consolidate the state budget until 1916, but from the fifth onwards this proved to be impossible. Only now did the Reich Treasury Office decide, due to the growing deficits, to recommend the introduction of a war tax for companies. Despite resistance from the federal states, this was then implemented moderately. Overall, however, all types of taxes only made up to 6% of total income in the German Reich during the entire war period.

As a result, the Reich Treasury continued to rely on loans. In view of the military situation, however, doubts grew among the Germans as to whether it was still worthwhile to subscribe to bonds. From 1917, the officials of the Reich Treasury were the first to recognize the gravity of the situation from the budget balance . Even the state secretaries went from big event to big event and advertised the war bonds. For example, Karl Helfferich , State Secretary in the Reich Treasury from 1915 to 1916, publicly stated several times:

“If you want peace to come, sign a war loan. And if you want the peace to be a good one if possible, you should really subscribe to the war loan. "

Siegfried Graf von Roedern , the last State Secretary of the Reich Treasury, provided the crowning glory by having mass posters published about the "security of war bonds" shortly before the end of the war. It said:

“Be dutiful! Help our country! Remember the soldiers and their families! If you have money, draw! It is not a sacrifice to invest your money with five percent security. "

In the end, none of the advertising measures helped. During the peace negotiations in November 1918, the balance of payments theorists at the Reich Treasury had to present a non-consolidated debt surplus of 51.2 billion marks.

resolution

With the establishment of the Weimar Republic , a centralization of the Reich finance administration was sought. This ended the federal financial self-government of the states and municipalities. The Reich Treasury was officially dissolved on March 21, 1919 by the decree of Reich President Friedrich Ebert regarding the establishment and designation of the highest Reich authorities. The Berlin offices at Wilhelmstrasse 61 were taken over by the Reich Ministry of Finance , which was newly founded in February , which contributed to the legend that the Reich Ministry of Finance was the successor to the Imperial Treasury. In fact, some of the employees of the Reichsschatzamt went to the newly established Reichsschatzministerium , the majority preferred to work in the customs offices of the federal states and only six officials constantly moved to the Reich Ministry of Finance.

Shortly before the gates closed, the Reich Treasury calculated that the reparations claims of the victorious powers would be a maximum of 30 billion gold marks for Germany ; everything that went about it would, in the opinion of the imperial experts, have catastrophic economic and political consequences. They predicted inflation as early as 1917. However, the effects of the hyperinflation of 1922/23 and the actual amount and duration of the reparations went far beyond the imagination of the financial experts of the Reich Treasury.

Trunk

State Secretaries of the Reich Treasury
No. Surname Taking office Term expires
1 Adolf Scholz 1880 1882
2 Franz Emil Emanuel von Burchard 1882 1886
3 Karl Rudolf Jacobi 1886 1888
4th Helmuth Freiherr von Maltzahn 1888 1893
5 Arthur Graf von Posadowsky-Wehner 1893 1897
6th Max Franz Guido Freiherr von Thielmann 1897 1903
7th Hermann Freiherr von Stengel 1903 1908
8th Reinhold Sydow 1908 1909
9 Adolf Wermuth 1909 1912
10 Hermann Kühn 1912 1915
11 Karl Helfferich 1915 1916
12 Siegfried Count von Roedern 1916 1918
13 Eugene Schiffer 1918 1919

See also

literature

  • Alfons Pausch: From the Reich Treasury to the Federal Ministry of Finance. History, achievements and tasks of a central state body. With a foreword by Franz Josef Strauss . Published by the Federal Ministry of Finance. O. Schmidt, Cologne-Marienburg 1969.
  • Herbert Leidel: The justification of the Reich finance administration. Stollfuss, Bonn 1964 ( series of publications by the Federal Ministry of Finance 1, ISSN  0433-7204 ), (Münster, diss.).

Web links

Commons : Reichsschatzamt  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Supreme ordinance concerning the establishment of the Reich Treasury. 14 July 1879.  - Sources and full texts
Wikisource: Supreme ordinance regarding the establishment of the Imperial Technical Examination Office  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jakob Hort: Architecture of Diplomacy: Representation in European Embassy Buildings, 1800-1920. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2014; P. 392
  2. ↑ Julia Cholet: The budget of the German Empire in the Bismarckian era. BWV Verlag 2012; P. 227
  3. ^ Franz Menges: Reich reform and financial policy. Duncker & Humblot 1971; P. 220 and Joe Weingarten: Income tax and income tax administration in Germany: A historical and administrative overview. Springer-Verlag 2013; P. 121
  4. ^ Rainer F. Schmidt: Otto von Bismarck, Realpolitik and Revolution. Kohlhammer Verlag 2004; P. 249
  5. ^ Max von Heckel: Textbook of Public Finance, Volume 2. CL Hirschfeld 1898; P. 174
  6. ^ Peter-Christian Witt : The financial policy of the German Empire from 1905 to 1915. Matthiesen Lübeck; P. 23
  7. ↑ Reich Office of the Interior: Handbook for the German Empire. Carl Hermanns Verlag 1918, p. 245
  8. ↑ Joe Weingarten: Income tax and income tax administration in Germany: A historical and administrative overview. Springer-Verlag 2013; P. 121
  9. ^ Robert Achille Friedrich Hermann Hue de Grais: Handbook of the constitution and administration in Prussia and the German Empire. Springer-Verlag 1901; P. 21.
  10. ^ Hans-Ulrich Wehler: German history of society. From the "German double revolution" to the beginning of the First World War, 1849-1914. CH Beck 1995; P. 885.
  11. ^ Robert Achille Friedrich Hermann Hue de Grais: Handbook of the constitution and administration in Prussia and the German Empire. Springer-Verlag 1901; P. 179.
  12. ↑ Joe Weingarten: Income tax and income tax administration in Germany: A historical and administrative overview. Springer-Verlag 2013; P. 121.
  13. ^ Siegfried Schöne: From the Reich Chancellery to the Federal Chancellery: an investigation into the problem of leadership and coordination in recent German history. Duncker & Humblot 1968; P. 28
  14. ↑ a b c Christian Koch: Advertisement for the Great War: Image propaganda for German war bonds in the First World War. Bachelor + Master Publishing 2015; P. 9.
  15. ↑ Wolfdieter Bihl: The Caucasus Policy of the Central Powers, Part 1. Böhlau Verlag 1975; P. 45
  16. ↑ Bernd Ulrich: Death as a machinist: the industrialized war 1914-1918. Verlag Rasch 1998; P. 169
  17. ↑ Harald Winkel: Financial and economic policy issues of the interwar period. Duncker & Humblot 1973; Pp. 17-18.
  18. ↑ Arnd Bauerkämper, Elise Julien: Persevere !: War and society in comparison 1914-1918. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2010; P. 96.
  19. ↑ ibid.
  20. ↑ Gerhard Schulz: Between Democracy and Dictatorship: The Period of Consolidation and the Revision of Bismarck's Reich Construction, 1919-1920. Walter de Gruyter 1963; P. 491 ff.
  21. ↑ http://alex.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/alex?aid=dra&daten=1919&page=529&size=45
  22. ^ Peter-Christian Witt: Reich Finance Minister and Reich Finance Administration 1918–1924. in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, issue January 1975; P. 21 ff. ( PDF )
  23. ^ Wilhelm Gerloff, Fritz Neumark: Handbuch der Finanzwissenschaft, Volume 1. Mohr-Siebeck 1952; P. 295
  24. ^ Karl Helfferich: The money. Verlag Hirschfeld 1923; P. 644 ff.