Rudolf Stahl (industrialist)

Carl Rudolf Stahl (born April 20, 1884 in Barmen ; † May 14, 1946 in special camp No. 2 Buchenwald ) was a German lawyer and industrialist. Steel was initially active in mechanical engineering (until 1929), then in the cartelized raw materials industry (copper, lignite, hard coal, potash). I.a. He joined the NSDAP in May 1933 out of business interests . From 1930 to 1945 Stahl was involved in the leadership of the respective German Reich Industrial Association ( RDI , RGI ). From 1940 onwards, steel was involved in the exploitation of mineral raw materials in German-occupied Europe. In 1943 he opposed a continuation of the Second World War, which was recognized as hopeless .

Education, military service and industrial career

As the son of Carl Theodor Stahl and Hilda Preuß, he studied law in Bonn. In 1902 he joined the Alemannia Bonn fraternity . From 1911 he then took up a position as assessor for the city administrations of Cologne and Krefeld . In the war years from 1914 to 1919 he came to the city council of Herne , where he also held the post of mayor. As an officer he had on military service in World War I attend.

At that time, his uncle Wolfgang Reuter was general director at Deutsche Maschinenbau-Aktiengesellschaft (Demag). After the war, Stahl went to Demag in Duisburg and was a member of the board from 1923 to 1929. When the previous general director of Mansfeld AG for mining and smelting operations, Max Heinhold, resigned on November 7, 1929, the Leipziger Neuesten Nachrichten reported on November 11 that names of the Westphalian coal and steel industry were known as successors.

General director at Mansfeld AG

Ernst Schoen von Wildenegg , member of the board of the Allgemeine Deutsche Creditanstalt (ADCA), negotiated with the industrialist Otto Wolff und Stahl in Cologne in November 1929 about appointing Stahl as general director at Mansfeld AG , based in Eisleben . The resigned Heinhold had received an annual remuneration of 50,000 Reichsmarks (RM) plus an allowance of 10,000 RM. Stahl, on the other hand, demanded an annual salary of 180,000 to 220,000 RM and a five-year contract with continuation if the contract was not terminated. Furthermore, he wanted to have reimbursed the moving costs as well as the living expenses for the duration of the family's separate household. He also asked for a car that could be used for private purposes and an annual holiday of six weeks. He wanted to keep the previously held positions on the board of directors as far as possible and take over those of Heinhold, insofar as they concerned Mansfeld AG.

Eventually he moved into a new villa at Zeppelinstrasse 37 in Halle , which Mansfeld AG built for him for 210,000 RM. The Lord Mayor of Leipzig, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler , objected to this as a member of the supervisory board , but Schoen pointed out that Stahl could receive such an offer elsewhere as a very first person . He was accepted as a member of the Halle Chamber of Commerce on August 28, 1930. At the Reichsverband der Deutschen Industrie (RDI) he was appointed as an assessor in the cartel court. On January 26, 1930, Stahl was elected as a member of the board of the RDI. Before May 1932 he was a member of the German Industry Club in Düsseldorf .

Great Depression and Mansfeld Strike

The emerging global economic crisis after 1929 not only led to falling copper prices at Mansfeld AG, sales also began to decline. Berg and Friedensburg showed that the price of one ton of copper developed as follows from 1926 to 1930:

• 1926: 1278 RM
• 1927: 1227 RM
• 1928: 1356 RM
• 1929: 1605 RM
• 1930: 1195 RM

On April 15, 1930, the international copper cartel reduced the price of copper by 22 percent. On April 19, Stahl therefore started negotiations with the representatives of the workers' unions and made five demands

• the wages of the employed should be reduced by 15 percent.
• at Wettelrode , work in the Röhrig shaft was to be stopped, and the 110 employees involved were to be dismissed
• Both at the Paul shaft and other shafts, work was to be stopped and the associated 800 employees dismissed
• Just as the supplies of the extracted copper developed, workers in the smelters were to be laid off

After these measures were announced, the workers went on strike from June 2 to July 25, 1930. After varied disputes with the workforce, a written protocol agreement was finally reached on July 15, 1930 with the Reich Ministry of Labor, the trade union representatives and the representatives of Mansfeld AG the collective wages were lowered by 9.5 percent and an application was to be made to the Reich government and the state government of Prussia for subsidies for copper mining. In fact, however, this regulation corresponded to a 12 percent reduction in above-standard wages.

As a result of the lack of production, the imperial government and the government of Prussia each had to pay half of the sum of 450,000 to 500,000 RM per month to Mansfeld AG by the end of 1930. Stahl could not see this support as sufficient for 1931 and beyond to maintain copper production.

Use around subsidy payments

On September 29, 1930, he informed Kurt Wenkel, who, with his press office, had organized public relations for both the Otto Wolff Group and Mansfeld AG. In the meantime he had contacted Werner Kehl from Deutsche Bank , who had close relationships with Reich Minister Adam Stegerwald and Reich Chancellor Heinrich Brüning . He also referred to the contact with the Reichstag member Carl Cremer of the German People's Party , whom Mansfeld AG had supported in the election campaign. Both Stahl and Wenkel turned to the district president in Merseburg , Ernst von Harnack . On October 20 and 21, a meeting with the ministerial directors Friedrich Ernst and Johannes Heintze ( Reich Ministry of Economics ) (RWM) took place in Eisleben. Heintze promised Stahl that he would talk to State Secretary Hans Schäffer about necessary subsidies, as he was reluctant to receive financial support.

At the beginning of October 1930, Stahl also turned to the head of the Army Weapons Office , Lieutenant General Alfred von Vollard-Bockelberg , pointing out the importance of the company for armaments, as had already been shown in the First World War . As early as October 18, 1930, Stahl received an answer from him that the minister would speak out in favor of supporting the company if the funds were available. A letter dated October 4th to the privy councilor Ludwig Kastl , member of the presidium of the Reichsverband der Deutschen Industrie , found a positive answer for subsidies from Mansfeld AG. After numerous other actions, Stahl achieved that from January 1, 1931 for the years 1931 and 1932 grants for investments amounting to 1.4 million RM per year and freight and tax rebates of up to 5.64 million RM per year would be paid to the budget of the imperial government and by Prussia.

Contacts to the NSDAP

On November 1, 1932, Stahl made direct contact with the National Socialists when he spoke to the district leader of the NSDAP in Mansfeld , Ludolf-Hermann von Alvensleben, about the future development of mining at Mansfeld AG. He recommended Stahl to seek a conversation with Walther Funk , which took place on January 13, 1933 in Cologne. On May 1, 1933, Stahl joined the NSDAP. Just one month later, on April 10, 1933 , Max von der Porten announced in a letter that he would give up the position of chairman of the general committee of the metal industry, whereupon Stahl took over this post. Steel was thus placed in an important position for the management of the German metal industry. In Halle he had been a member of the leadership group of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry since February 1933 .

Accordingly, Richard Merton , the chairman of the supervisory board of the metal company , wrote to Stahl on April 12, 1934, in which he expressed the hope that steel would soon be the "final leader of the German metal industry" . For him, membership of the supervisory board of the state-owned Prussian Hütten- und Bergwerksgesellschaft AG ( PHBAG ) on June 23, 1933, was an important step in this direction .

Expansion of the Salzdetfurth potash works

In 1933, Stahl belonged to a consortium that held preference shares in Mansfeld AG, with the City of Leipzig and Otto Wolff also involved. The preference shares were soon converted into common shares . On February 15, 1935, Dr. Karl Kimmich to Eduard Mosler , both members of the Board of Management of Deutsche Bank, to discuss important points with Stahl regarding the United Potash Works Salzdetfurth (VKS). The intention of Deutsche Bank was to find joint management for Mansfeld AG and Salzdetfurth AG. The chairman of the supervisory board of the VKS and later head of the potash mining specialist group in the mining industry group Heinrich Zirkler was also involved in these discussions .

On July 20, 1933, the Berlin stock exchange courier brought excerpts from Stahl's speech in its evening edition of the general assembly of Mansfeld AG on the same day, referring to the Nazi change of power and to “the firm trust in the national government and their leader " built:

“The year 1933 brought about a political and intellectual upheaval of elementary, barely comprehensible proportions. Nobody can evade it, least of all the economy, whose main task is to create work and bread for all German nationals so that the new political spirit can live and work ... "

Steel was thus precisely in the campaign of the NSDAP at the time to set up a job creation program, whereby the companies should also contribute their share.

On May 15, 1935, Stahl was appointed managing director of the Salzdetfurth Group GmbH as the future parent company of the VKS. As a further step in the merger, the city of Leipzig and the Otto Wolff company sold their shares in Mansfeld AG to the Salzdetfurth Group GmbH, where Stahl was also the managing director of this GmbH. By May 1940, the Salzdetfurth Group GmbH had acquired 98 percent of the shares in Mansfeld AG. Stahl had contacted the RWM on October 23, 1935, asking whether the subsidies of the Reich government would continue to be paid after this merger, which he was assured in writing on October 28. In 1936 Stahl was appointed to the board of directors of Deutsche Bank, and he remained in that position until 1945.

Aryanization of the Petschek Group

As part of the linearization of Ignaz Petschek Group and Julius Petschek group turned out that the owners of the shares of the Anhalt coal plants (NPP) and the Werschen-Weißenfelser lignite AG on the US company United Continental Corporation had transferred . Sufficient foreign currency had to be provided so that Friedrich Flick could adopt these values. Here, as a prospective customer, Stahl was able to help out, in which the Salzdetfurth Group provided two million US dollars.

At the beginning of 1939 there were negotiations about an exchange of hard coal fields and lignite fields with their mining facilities between Mansfeld AG and Reichswerke AG , which was carried out from January 1, 1940. In the negotiations, Friedrich Flick acted as a mediator who was on friendly terms with Stahl, as Paul Pleiger pointed out in a letter to Flick dated August 23, 1939. The Mansfeld concern separated from the coal union of Saxony, consisting of the unions of Saxony IIIa and IV and handed them over to the Reichswerke AG. In exchange, Mansfeld AG received the lignite deposits from the plants near Borna and the Bleichert plants (Bleichertsche Braunkohlenwerke AG), Kraft I, II and III in the Lower Lusatia area from Reichswerke AG . With these new lignite deposits, the previous Salzdetfurth Group GmbH became one of the most important energy suppliers in the German Reich on the basis of lignite. Stahl now combined these deposits and founded the Braunkohlenwerke Salzdetfurth AG in 1939 . After the financial takeover of the Julius Petschek Group's works had been completed, Stahl wrote to Flick on June 17, 1938, expecting that Flick Stahl would have an opportunity to participate further in the event that the Ignaz Petschek complex would also pass through their hands would give .

The follow-up regulations, which also affected lignite fields that had not yet been developed, were complicated and dragged on until the beginning of 1945, as the written documents revealed.

Frustration of Friedrich Flick

For Flick, however, these negotiations also caused anger. Because with the participation or tolerance of steel, Salzdetfurth AG concluded a separate agreement with Reichswerke AG on November 15, 1940 without Flick's participation, in which Salzdetfurth AG had a right of first refusal for Phönix AG for brown coal utilization (Berlin) and brown coal works Leonhardt AG ( Zipsendorf ) was assured by the Reichswerke AG, in connection with the exchange of the lignite works Borna AG (Borna) and Bleichert with the Saxony mine. Flick had wanted to conclude exactly this trade in steel, but had failed because of steel. The course of these exchanges showed that the position of steel in the German mining industry became more and more important. When details of this Aryanization of the Petschek works were still being negotiated towards the end of the war, Stahl no longer wanted to be involved. He was urged to do it and did not want it himself. On March 23, 1945 he wrote the meaningful text to Flick in anticipation of the post-war period: But these things are only of historical interest and who knows in whose favor they will ultimately turn out .

Connections with Wilhelm Zangen

Stahl became a member of the advisory board of the Deutsche Reichsbank in July 1939 . This advisory board also included: Wilhelm Zangen (Chairman of the Management Board of Mannesmannröhren-Werke AG ), Heinrich Wisselmann (Director General of PBHAG), Eduard Mosler (Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Bank), Karl Kimmich (Member of the Management Board of Deutsche Bank) and Ernst Schoen von Wildenegg ( Member of the board of directors of ADCA and chairman of the supervisory board of Mansfeld AG). Stahl knew Zangen from Demag when Zangen was director there. In the years that followed Stahl's departure, their paths had crossed again and again. When Zangen was appointed Vice President of the Reich Chamber of Commerce in 1936 , Stahl presented him with a document in which the expectations regarding the Salzdetfurth Group were addressed to Zangen. When Zangen became chairman of the Reichsgruppe Industrie (RGI) in 1938 , Stahl succeeded him as his deputy in the RGI on September 12, 1939. The Völkischer Beobachter mentioned this close connection between Zangen and Stahl in 1944 (quoted in May / June number 1944 Our company magazine Mansfelder Kupfer- und Messingwerke , p. 1):

“In trusting, harmonious cooperation with Wilhelm Zangen, he played a pioneering role in shaping the numerous war tasks, especially in the areas of economic progress, market organization, community aid and tax law” .

War economy and armaments

In May 1940 Stahl became chairman of the subgroup for special infantry ammunition for the company Theodor Bergmann & Co. in Berlin, Kleiststr. 21, appointed. The head of the ammunition advisory board of the Reichsgruppe Industrie announced this appointment in a circular dated May 25, 1940. This special committee also presided over companies that manufactured aircraft and airborne ammunition for aircraft.

Affiliation of Belgian plants

With the outbreak of World War II , Stahl also dealt with the incorporation of factories from the conquered countries into Salzdetfurth AG. On September 18, 1940, for example, he wrote a note in which, through a conversation with Ernst Schoen von Wildenegg, he stated that it was intended to acquire the majority Belgian-owned Deutsche Solvay-Werke (DSW), the Alsatian potash works and the Mines de Bor from Salzdetfurth AG.

In October 1940, Stahl learned that the Otavi Mining Society and the Metallgesellschaft as well as Preussag wanted to participate in the Mines de Bor . Stahl countered the metal company in a letter to the RWM dated October 6, 1940, stating that the metal company would already act as trustee for the Hoboken copper refinery . In the same month, the Copper Circle met, where the head of the metal industry business group , Otto Fitzer from the mining company Georg von Giesches Erben , pointed out that Mansfeld AG had to receive pre-authorized access to Mines de Bor. The metal company already has a right to the distribution of the Belgian copper mines in Katanga with the Hoboken refinery .

Right to potash works in Alsace

On October 22, 1940, Stahl wrote to State Secretary Friedrich Landfried in the RWM and expressly reported again the claims of Salzdetfurth AG for the Mines de Bor, the Solvay works in Belgium and the potash works in Alsace. In it, he expressed concern that the agreements within the Reichsgruppe Industrie and the Wirtschaftsgruppe Metallindustrie regarding the takeover of companies in the conquered countries in the future Greater Germany area would not be kept. He therefore asked that both the chairman of the supervisory board of the Kupfergesellschaft AG in Mansfeld, privy councilor Curt Pasel , regarding the Mines de Bor and ministerial director Dr. Botho Mulert could audition at RWM regarding the DSW. Stahl himself announced that he intended to explain the matter with regard to the potash works to Oskar Gabel , the ministerial director, in October 1940 .

Battle for copper mines in Yugoslavia

By November 23, 1940, the decision was made that Mansfeld AG received the privileges for the Mines de Bor. So that copper ores from the mines of the Mines de Bor could be supplied to the Norddeutsche Affinerie by Mansfeld AG, the latter offered a share of the shares worth 300,000 RM and membership in the affinery's supervisory board. On October 16, 1940, Stahl informed the metal company that, based on previous agreements, he insisted on taking over the English share of 22 percent in Norddeutsche Affinerie.

On February 4, 1941, a contract between the German consortium Bor , the Compagnie Francaise de Mines de Bor , the banking house Mirabaud & Cie and the Prussian State Bank was signed, stating that the largest copper deposits in Europe and the French subsidiary of Mines de Bor in Yugoslavia , worth 66 million Reichsmark, was to be taken over by Jugo-Montan , Prussian Hütten- und Bergwerks AG and Mansfeld AG, as Walter Klingspor informed Stahl on February 19, 1941. There was also an implementation agreement for the contract, which provided in Article X that the seller of the shares in Mines de Bor would be able to acquire shares in French Jews. The purchase price of 1.26 billion francs was transferred from the Prussian State Bank to Bank Mirabaud. In a note dated March 14, 1941, the origin of the money was disclosed:

Since the French francs presented by the Reichskreditkasse in Paris come from contribution funds (top secret), it should be possible ... to negotiate a much cheaper price for the ultimate buyer of the Boron shares in Germany, which would have to be negotiated from a private sector perspective .

On April 3, 1941, three days before the Wehrmacht invasion of Yugoslavia , Stahl had informed State Secretary Friedrich Landfried that he had discussed with the Reich Commissioner for Metals, SS Oberführer Paul Zimmermann , and the NSFK Obergruppenführer Franz Neuhausen that experts from the Mansfeld AG were immediately ready to take over the management of the Bor mines in Yugoslavia.

Promotion of war production

Towards the end of 1941 and beginning of 1942 there were efforts in the Reich government to further restrict civilian production in favor of war production. In this context, the so-called peace planning after the end of the war should also be restricted. This provided for a decree of January 25, 1942. Funk announced, however, that depending on the war situation, such planning could be resumed. However, Stahl observed that such planning was continued in state institutions.

On March 27, 1942, Stahl wrote to the President of the Reich Chamber of Commerce , Albert Pietzsch , that industry had withdrawn its representatives from the committees of the Academy for German Law , but under these conditions he feared that the planning would be carried out without the representatives of the Reichsgruppe Industrie (RGI ) would continue to run. He also pointed out that Heinrich Himmler, as Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of the German Volkstum , had the planning work continued at the RGI in order to have documents for the planned demobilization and settlement of the incorporated eastern areas available in good time.

Commitment to the benefits of corporate taxation

With the expansion of the group companies, Stahl wanted to achieve a new taxation of group profits vis-à-vis the Reich Ministry of Finance (RFM) in 1942. On March 27, 1942, he wrote to the Reich Finance Minister Ludwig Schwerin von Krogsik that a tax adjustment to the opaque corporate structures was necessary in order to give tax-favored adjusted clear and transparent constructions . He had the idea that a tax on the principle of affiliation should be done in such a way where the group company as a unitary enterprises should be considered.

In his opinion, taxation should only take place after the losses have been offset against the profits of the individual companies in the group company as a whole. In the communication from the responsible department in the RFM of December 31, 1942, Stahl's proposals were rejected. However, with the approval of the RFM on January 19, 1943, he was able to obtain a so-called individual beneficiary.

Further dispute over potash mines in Alsace

On January 26, 1943, representatives of the German potash industry met with the Reich Minister of Economics Walther Funk about the question of how the ownership of the conquered potash plants in Alsace should be regulated. In addition to Stahl, State Secretary Friedrich Landfried, Heinrich Wisselmann (General Director at Preussag AG ), Erich Neumann (General Director in the Potash Office ), Ministerialrat Otto Klewitz at RWM, August Rostberg (General Director of Wintershall AG ) and Heinrich Schmidt from Wintershall AG part. This led to disputes between the representatives of the Kali works present. Stahl's proposal that the three plants should negotiate the shares among themselves did not meet with general approval either. At the end of the meeting, Funk decided that the question of ownership interests in the Alsatian potash mines should be decided later.

Contacts to the resistance

When the German 6th Army with over 200,000 men went down in the Battle of Stalingrad in early 1943 , it became clear to many people that the war could no longer be won. It became even clearer in the Kursk battle in the summer of 1943, when the last major advance by the Wehrmacht no longer resulted in regaining the initiative on the Eastern Front.

General Georg Thomas and Carl Friedrich Goerdeler then wrote a memorandum of warning call from the German economy . It stated that it was hopeless to continue the war because of the difficulties in the economy. Thomas tried twice to win the Army Chief of Staff, Franz Halder, for this memorandum, but he refused because this criminal clique could not be controlled in its madness. Stahl was the only major industrialist to sign the memorandum, while others opposed or revised their intentions. Only Goerdeler, a banker and two farmers dared to sign.

Support association of German industry

The Fördergemeinschaft der Deutschen Industrie was founded on November 18, 1942 on the basis of a proposal by the Siemens group to avert dangers to the German economy in the event of a decline. The community was chaired by Hermann von Siemens . When the board of trustees of the community met in Berlin on May 20, 1943 , Stahl applied for funding for several projects and the establishment of an institute for industrial research , which was then headed by Ludwig Erhard and which was to be supported organizationally by the RGI. Stahl founded this institute with future economic issues and the possibility of influencing and participating in economic development.

The institute was initially located in Nuremberg before moving to Bayreuth later . An annual grant of RM 150,000 was approved for the next three years . For the years 1944/1945 the annual amount was increased to 180,000 RM at a meeting of the Board of Trustees on October 25, 1944.

Working group for foreign trade issues

As a result of the initiative of the head of the foreign trade department of the RGI, Karl Albrecht , the working group for foreign trade issues was founded on March 23, 1944 in the hall of the Deutsche Industriebank . The first president was Hans Croon , the managing director was Friedrich von Poll . The permanent members of the working group were Max Ilgner , Philipp Alois von Schoeller , Hans Boden and Karl Blessing . Stahl represented the potash division in the sub-committee for assessing global economic developments for important groups of goods, which was set up at the end of September 1944.

Main Committee for Ammunition in the Speer Ministry

In June 1944 Stahl was appointed chairman of the main ammunition committee in the Reich Ministry of Armament and Ammunition , which was previously headed by Edmund Geilenberg . Because he did not feel he was being noticed by Albert Speer , Stahl wrote to Speer in a letter dated July 13, 1944 as follows:

Either I'm your husband - then you have to tell me this at least once at the start - or I'm not, then you shouldn't compromise ... in any case, I'm not used to being ignored .

The reason for this complaint was that he had not even received an appointment letter for this new position. Speer informed him in writing on July 17, 1944 that he would like to apologize for this. When Geilenberg was adopted on August 11, 1944 in Bernau near Berlin , he expressly thanked Stahl during the meeting of the Main Munitions Committee. Already in the period before May / June 1944, the Völkischer Beobachter had highlighted Stahl's important role for the war economy in an article:

It is thanks to Stahl's initiative that the only significant copper mining in Germany was continued and maintained for the German war economy through an agreement with the Reich that is still valid today (quoted in: Our works magazine, Mansfelder Kupfer- und Messingwerke, vol. 7, 3. Episode, May / June 1944, p. 1)

Chrome pits in Albania

On June 27, 1944, Stahl represented in a letter to the commissioner for metal ore mining in Albania , War Administrator Krone, who was mainly supposed to organize chrome ore mining for the German Reich, a considerably more consistent connection of the countries in the Balkans to the German war economy:

It's just a shame that the Albanians and the other fraternities in the Balkans are always reliant on solemn state negotiations instead of simply giving orders .

It was not a good advice at the beginning of the war, all kinds of small states down there with sham sovereignty equip and such institutions as protectorate and General Government to create. From the point of view of the current development, these institutions would only result in the opposition and the spirit of resistance in the Balkans being fed again ,

Steel circle in the RGI

On August 1, 1944, Stahl took the initiative with a letter to start post-war planning within the framework of the RGI. He turned to nine key members of the RGI Advisory Board and the Board of Trustees of the German Industry Association. In it he announced that the head of the Institute for Industrial Research Ludwig Erhard had prepared a memorandum entitled War Financing and Debt Consolidation on behalf of the RGI, which was to be discussed in a small group. The font was sent to Hermann Schmitz ( IG Farben ), Fritz Jessen ( Siemens ), Friedrich Flick, Philipp F. Reemtsma , Heinrich Dinkelbach ( Vereinigte Stahlwerke ), Karl Goetz ( Dresdner Bank ), Oswald Rösler ( Deutsche Bank ) and Alfred Olscher ( Reichs-Kredit-Gesellschaft AG ). Stahl invited the people to a meeting in late August / early September 1944. No written documents are known about this meeting.

Stahl took over the management of the small group. The coordination of the working points of the circle lay with Ludwig Erhard and Karl Albrecht. The RGI consulted:

• Paul Binder , head of the tax, credit and finance department
• Max Metzner , head of the department for market organization and business administration
• Bernhard Skrodzki , Head of the Department of Economics and Transport
• Günter Keizer , head of the statistical department of the private banking sector / banking institute
• Ferdinand Grünig , Head of the Central Economic Monitoring Department at the Reich Chamber of Commerce

Contacts to Otto Ohlendorf

On November 14, 1944, Stahl wrote to SS-Obergruppenführer Otto Ohlendorf and Ministerialdirektor in the RMW and sent him Erhard's study as an exposé . Ohlendorf held the position of deputy state secretary in the RMW and was also head of Amt III (SD-Inland) in the Reich Security Main Office . With this, Stahl wanted to ensure that this work on post-war planning could be politically secured with regard to both the RMW and the SD .

On December 13, 1944, Stahl sent Ohlendorf a letter containing a program for dealing with post-war economic problems from an industrial standpoint . In the accompanying explanation of the program, Stahl pointed out that further details were necessary. The program must show the wealth of problems . Above all, the problems such as the goods and the money side and, ultimately, the economic objective must be touched. However, he pointed out that this writing was only a program sketch as a first attempt . Stahl asked Ohlendorf whether he would agree to the distinction between the transition phase and the peace economy and whether the working group in the RGI could continue to work with Ohlendorf's authorization. Steel referred to Ohlendorf's approval of Ludwig Erhard's paper on debt consolidation.

In a letter to Ohlendorf on Wednesday, November 14, 1944, Stahl mentioned that a meeting between Ludwig Erhard and Ohlendorf was to take place on Friday, i.e. November 16, 1944. In the subsequent deliveries, Erhard remembered this meeting in the course of coordinating the program with the RWM. In his memory, the positive impressions of Ohlendorf predominated: although Erhard had different ideas about the world, he found “so many points of contact that not only cooperation seemed possible, but a whole series of fundamental, economic policy positions in the one agreed with the Ohlendorf department Planning program of the Reichsgruppe Industrie. "

Post-war planning program

The program that was sent was introduced with a preliminary remark about the preparatory work and related areas of work. Post-war tasks were methodically described for industry in three points, which placed the demands and effects on industry with regard to general economic policy, finance, price, wage, credit and currency policy . The basic economic policy work and the administrators were listed in nine points:

• the ranking of the need groups for public and private investment and consumption needs. Editor: Dr. Günter Keizer and Dr. Bernhard Skrodzki
• the prerequisites and requirements for a new wage order. Editor: Werner Mansfeld
• the prerequisites and requirements of a new pricing structure. Editor: Dr. Max Metzner, Heinrich Rittershausen and Paul Binder
• the organization of the forms, channels and costs of distribution. Editor: Dr, Max Metzner and Dr. Ludwig Erhard
• the organization of the market. Editor: Dr. Max Metzner
• debt consolidation and financial policy. Editor: Dr. Ludwig Erhard and Dr. Günter Keizer
• the foreign trade as a supplementary economy (of the domestic market). Editor: Dr. Karl Albrecht
• the principles of market organization. Editor: Dr. Herbert Puttkammer from the Reich Office for Regional Planning

Last months of the war

On February 14, 1945, Stahl issued guidelines to members of the board of directors and plant directors in the event of a further deterioration in the military and economic situation . The secret decree of January 28, 1945 applies to employment in the armaments industry. In any case, he will remain in Berlin as the deputy head of the RGI. The general ledger and finance department in Aschersleben should provide enough funds to pay employees . Should an outsourcing from Berlin become necessary, the directors would have to stay near their factories. At the end, he gave a serious warning to the operations directors:

Those who switch themselves off in the event of danger shouldn't be surprised if they stay switched off later. The German people must and will continue to live and for this they need an economy capable of action .

End of war, post-war period and execution

After the temporary occupation of Eisleben by the US Army on April 13, 1945, Stahl tried, although he was on an American war criminals list, to continue the Mansfeld copper company with American support and later to transfer company funds from the now Soviet-occupied zone to Deutsche Bank in Hanover . Initially picked up only for interrogation, he was arrested on August 23, 1945. In the Nuremberg trial against the main war criminals , Albert Speer was interrogated on June 20, 1946, where he announced that he wanted to carry out an assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler with poison gas in February / March 1945 . Because he trusted Stahl personally, he asked him to get him the gas. For this purpose, as he confirmed in a written statement, Stahl turned to Lieutenant Colonel Soika from the Army Weapons Office . However, the plan could not be implemented for technical reasons. After being interrogated for the Nuremberg trial, Stahl was taken to an internment camp at an unknown location. On March 9, 1946, he was for war crimes by a Soviet military tribunal to death by firing squad condemned and on May 14, 1946 executed .

Member of the Supervisory Board (AR)

• Schieß-Defries AG, Düsseldorf
• Carl Flohr AG, Berlin
• Carlshütte AG , Waldenburg-Altwasser in Silesia
• Chairman of the supervisory board of the AG for mining, lead and zinc production in Stolberg and Westphalia, Aachen
• Westfälisch-Anhaltische Sprengstoff AG
• Deutsche Bank

Member of associations, societies and institutions

• Committee of the Association of German Employers' Associations
• Representative in Section IV of the mechanical engineering and small iron industry trade association
• General Committee for the Metal Industry
• Central Association of the German Metal Rolling Industry
• Metalworks Association
• Kaiser Wilhelm Society
• Knappschaftsberufsgenossenschaft
• Mining Association
• Goods tariff
• Central German lignite syndicate
• Board member of the German Brown Coal Industry Association
• Chairman of the Board of Management: Mansfeldische Kupferschieferbergbau AG
• Representative of the Saxony trade union, Heesen near Hamm
• Board member of Warentransit AG, Berlin
• Board of Directors of Rybnitzer Maschinenbau GmbH, Rybnitz
• Head of the Reich Industry Group in the Reich Chamber of Commerce
• Presidium of the Reich Coal Association (RVK)

literature

• Georg Wenzel: German business leader . Life courses of German business personalities. A reference book on 13,000 business figures of our time. Hanseatic Publishing House , Hamburg / Berlin / Leipzig 1929, DNB 948663294 .
• Georg Berg, Ferdinand Friedensburg: Die Metallischen Rohstoffe , Issue 4, Stuttgart 1941, p. 57.
• Fabian von Schlabrendorff : Officers against Hitler , Zurich 1946, p. 55.
• Gerhard Ritter : Carl Goerdeler and the German Resistance Movement , Stuttgart 1954.
• Hans Radandt : Mansfeld war criminal group - The role of the Mansfeld group in preparation for and during the Second World War , Berlin 1957.
• Werner Imig : Strike near Mansfeld 1930 - The strike of the Mansfeld workers in 1930 and its suppression with the help of the state apparatus of the Weimar Republic , Berlin 1958.
• Karl-Heinz Thieleke (Ed.): Case 5 - Prosecution, selected documents, judgments of the Flick trial with a study on the "Aryanization" of the Flick Group , Berlin 1965.
• Gregor Janssen: The Speer Ministry - Germany's Armaments in War , Berlin 1968.
• Dietrich Eichholtz , Wolfgang Schumann (Hrsg.): Anatomie des Krieges , Berlin 1969.
• Wolfgang Schumann : Post-war planning of the Reichsgruppe Industrie in autumn 1944 - A documentation, in: Yearbook for Economic History , Part III , pp. 259–296, Berlin 1972.
• Wolfgang Schumann, Ludwig Nestler , Willibald Gutsche , Wolfgang Ruge (eds.): Weltherrschaft im Visier , Berlin 1975.
• Reinhard Opitz (ed.): European strategies of German capital, 1900–1945, Cologne 1977.
• Wolfgang Schumann: Concept for the “new order” of the world, Berlin 1977, p. 121.
• Ludolf Herbst: Overcoming the Crisis and the Economic Order - Ludwig Erhard's involvement in post-war planning at the end of the Second World War. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 25. Jg., 1977, pp. 305-340 ( online ).
• Rainer Eckert: The heads and managing directors of the Reichsgruppe Industrie, its main and economic groups. In: Yearbook for Economic History, Part IV, Berlin 1979, pp. 243–275.
• Lothar Menne (Ed.): In good German - Ein Bernt Engelmann -Lesebuch, Munich 1981.
• Ludolf Herbst : The total war and the order of the economy - the war economy in the field of tension between politics, ideology and propaganda 1939–1945 , Stuttgart 1982.
• Wolfgang Schumann, Ludwig Nestler: The fascist occupation policy in France (1940–1944) , Berlin 1990.
• Dietrich Eichholtz: History of the German War Economy 1939-1945 , Munich 1999.
• Dietrich Eichholtz: War and Economy: Studies on German Economic History 1939-1945 , Berlin 1999.
• Harold James : Association Policy in National Socialism - From Representation of Interest to Economic Group: The Central Association of German Banks and Bankers 1932–1945 , Munich 2001, p. 261.
• Hans Pohl: Economy, business, credit system, social problems - selected essays, part 1 , Stuttgart 2005.
• Johannes Bähr, Axel Drecoll, Bernhard Gotto, Kim C. Priemel, Harald Wixforth: The Flick Group in the Third Reich , Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-486-58683-1 .
• Klaus-Dieter Müller, Thomas Schaarschmidt, Mike Schmeitzner, Andreas Weigelt: Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944–1947). A historical-biographical study . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-525-36968-5 , short biographies on the accompanying CD, there pp. 677–679.

Web links

• End of the war and arrest of Rudolf Stahl
• A picture by Rudolf Stahl
• Speer interrogated on June 20, 1946 at the Nuremberg Trial
• Newspaper article about Rudolf Stahl in the press kit of the 20th century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Detmar Philippi: Alemanni album 1969 for the 125 foundation festival of the Alemannia student fraternity in Bonn , 1969, p. 54.
2. ↑ Detmar Philippi: Alemanni album 1969 for the 125 foundation festival of the Alemannia student fraternity in Bonn , 1969, p. 54.
3. ↑ The Bleichertschen Braunkohlenwerke AG were founded in 1906 by the Bleichert heirs, who owned the trading company Adolf Bleichert. see: Walter Herrmann, Das Kapital im Mitteldeutschen Braunkohlenbergbau, Grossenhain 1933, p. 35 (dissertation).
4. ^ ^{A b} Andreas Weigelt, Klaus-Dieter Müller, Thomas Schaarschmidt, Mike Schmeitzner (eds.): Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944–1947). A historical-biographical study. , Göttingen 2015, pp. 677-679.