Walther Dauch

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Walther Dauch

Hugo Walther Dauch (born June 7, 1874 in Dresden ; † November 13, 1943 in Kenedy in Texas , USA ) was a German businessman and politician ( DVP ).

Life and work

As a child, Walther Dauch and his family moved to Trieste , where his father ran an import business with America and India . He attended the Allgemeine Deutsche Bildungsanstalt in Keilhau and completed a commercial apprenticeship. He then served as a one-year volunteer and acquired further commercial and legal knowledge as a volunteer in large trading houses in France , England and Hamburg before returning to his father's company in Trieste. However, this was dissolved soon after the early death of the father (1894).

In 1902 he went to Guatemala and founded with Heinrich August Schlubach, who owned coffee plantations there, the company Schlubach, Dauch & Co. as a subsidiary of the Hamburg trading company Schlubach, Thiemer & Co and became its partner. Business areas were banking, import, export and plantation ownership. From 1909 to 1915 he was also president of the Verapaz railway in Guatemala, a member of the board of directors of several public companies in Central America and traveled extensively in North, Central and South America. After the outbreak of World War I and the death of Heinrich August Schlubach in 1914, he returned to Hamburg and became managing director of the Schlubach, Thiemer & Co parent company in Hamburg.

In March 1918 he worked with Eric Schlubach and a group of other Hamburg foreign merchants in the publication of the " Hamburg Proposals for the Restructuring of the German Foreign Service " in order to improve the conditions for Hamburg's foreign trade , which had been badly damaged by the war. Since, in the opinion of the authors, the German military, trade and industry cannot be responsible for the hostile attitudes of a large part of the world towards Germany, the fault lies in the flawed policy of the Foreign Office . In view of the traditionally good trade relations with Latin America , demands were made to bring about a renewed upswing in foreign trade through improved German cultural propaganda, such as that carried out by the Ibero-American Institute in Hamburg for the Iberian Peninsula and South America. Therefore, the government and a reorganized foreign office should attach more importance to such cultural propaganda.

On June 11, 1931, the company Schlubach, Thiemer & Co., which he was carrying, became insolvent and declared bankruptcy.

politics

On March 12, 1919, Dauch gave a speech in favor of free trade at a rally in the Circus Busch in Hamburg. In the Reichstag election in 1920 he was elected to the Reichstag as a member of Hamburg's DVP, to which he was a member for five terms. A year later he was also elected to the Hamburg parliament. He belonged to the citizenry until 1927.

After the first round of the presidential election in 1932 , he resigned from the Reichstag on March 31, 1932 - before the end of the electoral term. After that he was mainly active in an advisory capacity. Among other things, he became a member of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science .

In 1937 he sat down in close cooperation with the President of the Upper Council of the Reich Representation of the Jews, Dr. Otto Hirsch , the Hamburg banker Max Warburg and the Berlin liberal Julius Seligson in a memorandum for the interests of German Jews sent to the Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick on June 18, 1937 .

Before the outbreak of war, he returned to his second home in Guatemala in 1939 to avoid persecution by the Nazi regime. In early 1943 he was arrested there at the instigation of the USA and deported together with his son-in-law Carlos Hegel to the Kenedy internment camp (Karnes County, Texas) . There he died of a heart attack after ten months.

Works

  • Speech at the rally for free trade on March 12, 1919. Hermann Otto Persiehl Verlag, Hamburg 1920.
  • Speech to the 1st Congress of Germans Abroad. In: Heinrich Siemer: World Federation of Germans Abroad, program for a world organization of all Reich Germans, Germans abroad and people of German origin. Weltbund-Verlag, Hamburg 1921.
  • Quousque tandem, politici? State Political Publishing House, Berlin 1922.
  • Germany's position in world trade. In: Economic issues of the time. Volume 6, Reimar Hobbing Verlag, Berlin 1926.
  • Thoughts on the world economic conference. In: German Voices. Vol. 39, No. 2.
  • Kriegsschädenschlußgesetz [law on the final regulation of liquidation and violent damage of March 30, 1928 (RGBl. I p. 120)] and hardship fund guidelines. Carl Heymann Verlag, Berlin 1928.
  • What is the economy demanding from the new Reichstag? Edited by the Hansa Association for Trade, Commerce and Industry. Berlin 1928.

literature

  • Fritz Kieffer: Persecution of the Jews in Germany - an internal matter? International reactions to the refugee problem 1933–1939. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-515-08025-2 .
  • Dieter Hertz-Eichenrode : Economic crisis and job creation. Economic policy 1925/26 and the foundations of Brüning's crisis policy. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 1982, ISBN 3-593-33027-X .
  • Reichstag handbooks. Volumes 1–5, electoral period (with addendum), Berlin 1920–1930.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Announcement in the Hamburger Fremdblatt. 20./21. January 1944.
personal data
SURNAME There, Walther
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dauch, Hugo Walther (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German businessman and politician (DVP), MdHB, MdR
DATE OF BIRTH June 7, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH November 13, 1943
Place of death Kenedy , Texas, USA