Ruhrlade

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Ruhrlade was an association of the twelve most influential Ruhr industrialists. It existed from 1928 to 1939.

history

Foundation and activities

This informal and highly exclusive circle was founded in January 1928 by Paul Reusch , who sat on many boards and supervisory boards of heavy industry in the Rhineland . All large companies in the Ruhr area were represented by one or two members. The mouthpiece was the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung , which was financed by the Ruhrlade. Martin Blank acted as a middleman to the political parties .

The existence of the Ruhrlade was kept secret. They met once a month to exchange economic and political views in a convivial group and organized donations of up to 1.5 million Reichsmarks annually, which went to the bourgeois parties ( DDP , Center Party , DVP and DNVP ). The Ruhrlade tried several times to unite these parties in a bourgeois gathering movement, but this failed.

Attitude towards the NSDAP

The attitude towards the NSDAP was controversial in the Ruhrlade. Fritz Thyssen had been supporting the National Socialists since 1923, while Paul Reusch and Paul Silverberg , who was of Jewish descent, were critical of the National Socialists. During the election campaign before the Reichstag elections in September 1930 , some members of the Ruhrlade agitated against the supposedly “socialist” slogans of the NSDAP. They even feared that the NSDAP would enter into a coalition with the SPD and KPD, and therefore asked for their financial support for Alfred Hugenberg's DNVP to promise not to work with the National Socialists.

From 1931 onwards, donations from the Ruhrlade flowed to individual National Socialists, namely Hermann Göring , Walther Funk and Gregor Strasser . These personal donations to supposedly “more sensible” and “more moderate” party members were intended to represent a reassurance against the continuing social revolutionary and radical anti-Semitic currents in the party, such as those in the SA and NSBO . There was great sympathy for Franz von Papen , whom Reich President Paul von Hindenburg surprisingly appointed Reich Chancellor in July 1932 and whom the Ruhrlade had already subsidized. Above all, Papen's putsch against the Prussian state government ( Prussian strike ) pleased the industrialists. Up until January 1933, it was hoped that Papen would succeed in “taming” the National Socialists and forcing them into a coalition under his leadership. However, the Ruhrlade was no longer able to exert any great influence in the decisive months before the transfer of power , as it had not met regularly since the summer of 1932 due to the internal conflicts caused by the Gelsenkirchen affair.

resolution

In mid-1939, the representatives of the Ruhrlade finally surrendered to the influence of the Nazi regime on the economy ( Reichswerke Hermann Göring , 2nd four-year plan ) and dissolved their association out of distrust of the NSDAP and the Gestapo . Fritz Thyssen was initially the strongest supporter of a dictatorship in the Ruhr, but in August 1939 he turned against Hitler's war course, especially the looming war against France and England , and therefore had to emigrate. He was arrested in France at the end of 1940 and interned in several concentration camps. Albert Vögler committed suicide in April 1945 in front of the approaching American troops.

Members (alphabetical order)

See also

literature

  • Gustav Luntowski: Hitler and the gentlemen on the Ruhr. Economic power and state power in the Third Reich. Dissertation. Lang, Frankfurt 2000 ISBN 3-631-36825-9
    → review
  • Gerhard Th. Mollin: Mining corporations and “Third Reich” 1936–1944. The contrast between monopoly industry and command economy in German armaments and expansion 1936–1944. Dissertation. V&R, Göttingen 1988, with 51 tabs. ISBN 3-525-35740-0
  • Reinhard Neebe: Big Industry, State and NSDAP 1930–1933. Paul Silverberg and the Reichsverband der Deutschen Industrie in the crisis of the Weimar Republic. Dissertation. V&R Göttingen 1981 ISBN 3-525-35703-6
  • Dirk Stegmann: On the relationship between large-scale industry and National Socialism 1930–1933. A contribution to the history of the so-called seizure of power . in Archives for Social History XIII (1973), 399–482.
  • Henry A. Turner : The Big Entrepreneurs and the Rise of Hitler. Siedler, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-88680-143-8 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sven Felix Kellerhoff : The NSDAP. A party and its members. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2017, p. 193.