Walther Funk

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Walther Funk (1942)

Walther Immanuel Funk (born August 18, 1890 in Trakehnen , East Prussia , † May 31, 1960 in Düsseldorf ) was a German journalist , war criminal and politician ( NSDAP ). During the time of National Socialism he was Reich Economics Minister and Reichsbank President .

Funk was one of the 24 accused in the Nuremberg trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Tribunal and was convicted on October 1, 1946 on three of four counts and sentenced to life imprisonment, from which he was released in 1957.

Life

Youth, apprenticeship and career start (1890 to 1931)

Funk was born in Trakehnen in 1890 as the son of an entrepreneur . The pianist Alfred Reisenauer was his uncle. From 1908 he studied law , economics , literature and music in Leipzig and Berlin . In 1912 he completed his law degree with a doctorate . He then received journalistic training at the “Berliner National-Zeitung” and “Leipziger Neuesten Nachrichten”, among others. Drafted for military service in 1915, he was released in 1916 because of a bladder problem.

In 1919 he married Luise Schmidt-Sieben, daughter of a Remscheid entrepreneur. From 1916 Funk was the editor of the trading section of the Berliner Börsen-Zeitung and was its editor-in-chief from 1921 to 1930. He has also published articles in numerous specialist journals, was an expert on economic issues and gave lectures at international congresses and business conferences.

Funk attracted attention in financial circles for the first time with a paper published in 1920 that analyzed the role of banks in group formation . After the publication of a brochure on currency reform , Funk accepted an invitation from the “ Reich Association of German Industry ” in 1923 to present his work to Finance Minister Hans Luther and Hjalmar Schacht . Although Funk resolutely rejected the Dawes Plan in 1924 , he was not considered a staunch opponent of the Weimar Republic .

In 1927 he became chairman of the "Expert Committee for Press Matters" of the Berlin Stock Exchange Board and the Berlin Chamber of Commerce and Industry . From 1928 to 1930 he was a managing board member of the "Society for German Economic and Social Policy". He maintained close connections to large industrialists in the Ruhr area, the so-called Ruhrlade . From 1931, money flowed from there to him for the NSDAP .

Career under National Socialism (1931 to 1945)

In the spring of 1931, Funk met Adolf Hitler , whose personality he said deeply impressed him. Hitler assured Funk, which was initially skeptical, that the economic policy program of the National Socialists at the time, which was based primarily on ideas from Gottfried Feder , would no longer be relevant in the event of a government takeover. Hitler invited him to help shape Nazi economic policy. Funk joined the NSDAP on June 1, 1931, where he quickly rose to important positions because of his good contacts with capital and industry. From May 1931 he was the editor of the NSK's "Economic Policy Service" , which was largely financed by German corporations.

Funk brokered secret donations from German corporations in the millions for the NSDAP. He acted as a contact person to major industrialists such as Emil Kirdorf , Fritz Thyssen , Albert Vögler and Friedrich Flick .

On Hjalmar Schacht's recommendation , Hitler appointed him his personal economic advisor in July 1931. In 1932, Funk took over the second chairmanship of the Reich Economic Council in the Reich leadership of the NSDAP and was head of the Economic Policy Commission in the Central Political Commission of the NSDAP until 1933.

In March 1933 he was appointed State Secretary in the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (RMVP), although Joseph Goebbels was by no means enthusiastic about this decision. The bourgeois radio was apparently intended to serve as a compensatory factor for the old President Paul von Hindenburg for Goebbels' hot spur, who was little appreciated by Hindenburg. As State Secretary, Funk was responsible for Divisions IV (press) and I (administration) of the RMVP. Funk therefore operated under the official title of "Press Chief of the Reich Government". On November 15, 1933 he was appointed Deputy President of the Reich Chamber of Culture . The F-circle was created at his suggestion .

Funk (right) in August 1944 when his State Secretary Franz Hayler was awarded the Knight's Cross for the War Merit Cross

In February 1938 Funk was appointed Prussian and Reich Minister of Economics after his predecessor Hjalmar Schacht had resigned. This made him a member of the Prussian State Council . From January 1939 he was also President of the Reichsbank ; Emil Puhl was his deputy in this post . Funk defended himself after the Second World War that it was “Göring's fault” that he became President of the Reichsbank . "I had to do what Goering said". From August 1939, as a member of the Council of Ministers for the defense of the Reich, he was responsible for economic measures.

As Reich Economics Minister, Funk played a key role in driving Jews out of economic life and in promoting their expropriation . With the “ Ordinance on the Registration of Property of Jews ” of July 6, 1938 and the “ Third Ordinance on the Reich Citizenship Act ” of June 14, 1938, the economic activity of Jews was recorded, controlled and finally brought to a standstill. On July 25, 1940, he gave a speech on the economic reorganization of Europe . In what is also known as the Funk Plan , he and his State Secretary Gustav Schlotterer set out principles for the currency, trade and industrial policy of a European economic area under German leadership.

On August 9, 1940, Funk, in his role as Minister of Economics and President of the Reichsbank, denied Jews access to their assets in banks or other institutions. In 1942, Funk made a secret agreement with Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler that the valuables of the Jews murdered in the extermination camps should be forwarded to the Reichsbank. The bank credited the value of the delivery in favor of the SS to the special “Max Heiliger” account.

In the winter of 1941/42 he was awarded the War Merit Cross, Second Class, together with his colleague August Hagemann.

On February 4, 1943, Funk closed all handicrafts, trade and catering businesses that were not important to the war effort. In September 1943 he became a member of the central planning staff of the Reich Minister for Armaments and War Production Albert Speer . In the same year he received a grant of 520,000 Reichsmarks .

From 1944, however, he increasingly lost influence and was soon considered to be a less ambitious alcoholic , who was neither technically nor politically up to his tasks.

He was a member of the supervisory board, according to George Hallgarten chairman of the supervisory board of Continental Oil AG , which operated in Romania , among other places .

Convictions and Trials (1945 to 1960)

Walther Funk in the dock at the Nuremberg trials in 1945/1946

After the end of the war, British units took up radio in June 1945 in the Ruhr area . In the Nuremberg war crimes trial he was sentenced to life imprisonment for war crimes and crimes against humanity . In his defense, Funk cited above all the order emergency : he had only carried out Hermann Göring's orders. He was loyal to Hitler out of comfort, not out of conviction.

On May 17, 1957, Funk was released early from prison in the Spandau War Crimes Prison for health reasons . In December 1958, the West Berlin Spruchkammer sentenced Funk, which had been classified as highly contaminated, to a fine of DM 10,900 . The judgment should be understood as symbolic reparation for the persecution of the Jews that it supported .

Walther Funk died on May 31, 1960 in Düsseldorf.

See also

Publications

  • European Economic Community. Haude & Spener, Berlin 1942.
  • The countries of the southeast and the European economic community. Südost-Echo Verlagsgesellschaft, Vienna 1944.
  • Economic order and currency mechanism. 1944.
  • The economic face of the new Europe. Lecturer at the opening d. from the Association of Berlin Merchants a. Industrial and Economic University Berlin organizes. Lecture series "European Economic Community" on Jan. 15, 1942. Otto v. Holten, Berlin 1942.
  • Economic order in the new Europe. Südost-Echo Verlagsgesellschaft, Vienna 1941.
  • Economic reorganization of Europe. M. Müller & Son, Berlin 1940.
  • Address by the Reich Economics Minister and Reichsbank President Funk to the Central Committee of the Reichsbank on March 30th. 1939. Printer d. Reichsbank, Berlin 1939.
  • Principles of German Foreign Trade Policy and the Problem of International Debt . Junker u. Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1938.
  • Liberation from war tributes through economic and social renewal. Berliner Börsen-Zeitung, Berlin 1929.
  • With the "New York" to New York . Berliner Börsen-Zeitung, Berlin 1927.
  • The gold mark bank of the German economy . Berliner Börsen-Zeitung, Berlin 1923.

literature

Web links

Commons : Walther Funk  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Hanfstaengl : 15 years with Hitler. Between the white and the brown house. 2nd Edition. Piper, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-492-02622-2 , chapter 12.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h Walther Funk - Officials of National Socialist Reich Ministries . In: Officials of National Socialist Reich Ministries . January 29, 2018 ( ns-reichsministerien.de [accessed March 29, 2018]).
  3. ^ A b German Historical Museum Foundation: Just seen on LeMO: LeMO biography. Retrieved April 15, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Henry Ashby Turner : The Big Entrepreneurs and the Rise of Hitler . Berlin 1985, p. 178.
  5. ↑ This is also confirmed by Hans Kehrl in his memoirs see Hans Kehrl: Crisis Manager in the Third Reich . Düsseldorf 1973, p. 110. Quotation: "His [Funk] relations with the German economy were far-reaching, and before the takeover of power, his mediation from business circles had raised considerable funds for the party."
  6. ↑ Funk's interrogation on May 19, 1947 (PDF) Institute for Contemporary History, ZS-902-36
  7. ↑ Thomas Sandkühler: Europe and National Socialism. Ideology, monetary policy, mass violence. In: Zeithistorische Forschungen / Studies in Contemporary History 9 (2012), pp. 428–441, the word "Funk-Plan" on p. 435 ( online , accessed on April 3, 2020).
  8. ↑ Rheinisch-Westfälische Wirtschaftsbiographien , Volume 17, Part 2 of publications by the Historical Commission for Westphalia , Aschendorff, 1999, p. 410.
  9. ↑ Gerd R. Ueberschär , Winfried Vogel : Serving and earning. Hitler's gifts to his elites . Frankfurt 1999, ISBN 3-10-086002-0 .
  10. ↑ George Hallgarten , Joachim Radkau : German Industry and Politics from Bismarck to the Present. Reinbek 1981, p. 388f
personal data
SURNAME Funk, Walther
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Funk, Walther Immanuel (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and politician (NSDAP), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH August 18, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Trakehnen , East Prussia
DATE OF DEATH May 31, 1960
Place of death Dusseldorf