Alfred Hugenberg
Alfred Ernst Christian Alexander Hugenberg (19 June 1865 – 12 March 1951) was an influential German businessman and politician. An important figure in nationalist politics in Germany for the first few decades of the twentieth century, Hugenberg became the country's leading media proprietor during the interwar period. As leader of the German National People's Party he was instrumental in helping Adolf Hitler become Chancellor of Germany and served in his first cabinet in 1933, hoping to control Hitler and use him as his "tool."[1] Those plans backfired, and by the end of 1933 Hugenberg had been pushed to the sidelines. Although Hugenberg continued to serve as a "guest" member of the Reichstag until 1945, he wielded no political influence.[2]
|Reich Minister of Economics|
|In office|
|President||Paul von Hindenburg|
|Chancellor||Adolf Hitler|
|Preceded by||Hermann Warmbold|
|Succeeded by||Kurt Schmitt|
|Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture|
|In office|
|President||Paul von Hindenburg|
|Chancellor||Adolf Hitler|
|Preceded by||Magnus von Braun|
|Succeeded by||Richard Walther Darré|
|Personal details|
|Born|
|Died||12 March 1951|
|Political party||German National People's Party|
|Spouse(s)||Gertrud Adickes|
|Alma mater||Göttingen, Heidelberg, Berlin, Straßburg|
30 January 1933 – 29 June 1933
30 January 1933 – 29 June 1933
Hanover, Kingdom of Hanover
Kükenbruch, West Germany
Early yearsEdit
Born in Hanover to Carl Hugenberg, a royal Hanoverian official who in 1867 entered the Prussian Landtag as a member of the National Liberal Party, the young Hugenberg studied law in Göttingen, Heidelberg, and Berlin, as well as economics in Straßburg.[3] In 1891, Hugenberg was awarded a PhD at Straßburg for his dissertation Internal Colonization in Northwest Germany,[4] in which he set out three ideas that guided his political thought for the rest of his life:
- The necessity for statist economic policies to allow German farmers to be successful.[4]
- Despite the necessity for the state to assist farmers, the German farmer should be encouraged to act as an entrepreneur, thereby creating a class of successful farmers/small businessmen who would act as a bulwark against the appeal of the Marxist Social Democrats, whom Hugenberg viewed as a grave threat to the status quo.[4]
- Finally, allowing German farmers to be successful required a policy of imperialism, as Hugenberg argued on Social Darwinist grounds that the "power and significance of the German race" could be secured if Germany colonized other nations.[4] Hugenberg maintained that Germany's prosperity depended upon having a great empire, and argued that, in the coming 20th century, Germany would have to battle three great rivals, namely Britain, the United States and Russia for world supremacy.[4]
Later in 1891, Hugenberg co-founded, along with Karl Peters, the ultra-nationalist General German League, and in 1894 its successor movement, the Pan-German League (Alldeutscher Verband).[3] From 1894 to 1899, Hugenberg worked as a Prussian civil servant in Posen (modern Poznań, Poland).[4] In 1900, he married his second cousin, Gertrud Adickes (1868–1960), with whom he had four children.[5] Gertrude was the daughter of Franz Burchard Adickes, Mayor of Frankfurt.
At the same time, Hugenberg became involved in a scheme in the Province of Posen in which the Prussian Settlement Commission bought land from Poles in order to settle ethnic Germans there.[6] In 1899, Hugenberg called for "annihilation of Polish population".[7] Hugenberg was strongly anti-Polish, and criticized the Prussian government for its "inadequate" Polish policies, favoring a more vigorous policy of Germanization.[8]
Hugenberg initially took a role organising agricultural societies before entering the civil service in the Prussian Ministry of Finance in 1903.[6] Again, Hugenberg came into conflict with his superiors, who opposed his plans to confiscate all the non-productive estates of the Junkers (landed nobility) in order to settle hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans, who would become his idealized farmer-small businessmen and "Germanize" the East.[9]
He subsequently left the public sector to pursue a career in business, and in 1909 he was appointed chairman of the supervisory board of Krupp Steel, and built up a close personal and political relationship with Baron Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, the CEO of Krupp AG.[10] Krupp had been "in search of a man of really superior intelligence" to run the finance department of Krupp AG, and found that man in Hugenberg, with his "extraordinary" intelligence and work ethic.[9] In 1902, Friedrich Alfred Krupp was outed and committed suicide[11] or died from illness[12][13] shortly after the Social Democratic newspaper Vorwarts published love letters he had written to his Italian male lovers. After his death, the entire firm of Krupp AG was left to his eldest daughter Bertha Krupp. As Krupp AG was one of the world's largest arms manufacturers, and the biggest supplier of weapons to the German state, the management of Krupp AG was of some interest to the state, and misogynistic Emperor Wilhelm II did not believe that a woman was capable of running a business. To solve this perceived problem, the Kaiser had Bertha marry a career diplomat, Gustav von Bohlen und Halbach, who was regarded by the Kaiser as a safe man to run Krupp AG. Gustav Krupp, as he was renamed by Wilhelm, knew little about running a business, however, and so depended very much on his board to assist him. Hugenberg's role in the management of Krupp AG was thus considerably larger than would be indicated by his title of director of finance; in many ways, he was the man who effectively ran the Krupp corporation during his ten years at the firm between 1908 and 1918.[14]
During his time at Krupp AG, Hugenberg was known for his "inflexibility", "stubbornness", and "self-righteousness" as he constantly fought with the two unions representing the workers, one allied with the SPD and the other with the Zentrum.[15] Hugenberg did not approve of either union and instead sponsored an "yellow" union representing the management, making his tenure a time of endless disputes with the workers.[16] Hugenberg favored the idea of a Werksgemeinschaft (economic community), where the Krupp family would act as the patriarchal authority to their workers, granting them higher wages and even junior shares in Krupp AG, in exchange for the workers would be subservient and loyal to die Firma ("the firm") as Krupp AG was always called.[17] Very little came of his plans for a Werksgemeinschaft, and living conditions and wages for the workers at die Firma did not change very much during Hugenberg's time.[18] Hugenberg's interest in having the workers own their own houses stemmed only from his interest in stopping demands for democracy and socialism as he had very strong Social Darwinist views, which led to argue that the problem of poverty was a genetic problem with the poor inheriting bad genes that made them unsuccessful in life-improving their life standards for him was only necessary to halt demands for political and social change.[19]
At the time, Krupp AG was Europe's largest corporation and one of the largest corporations in the world, and Hugenberg's success in raising annual dividends from 8% in 1908 to 14% in 1913 won him much admiration in the world of German business.[9] A more unwelcome appearance in the limelight occurred with the Kornwalzer affair, in which the Social Democrat MdR Karl Liebknecht exposed industrial espionage by Hugenberg.[20] The management of Krupp AG did not even try to deny the allegations of bribery and industrial espionage, with Krupp arguing in a press article that any attack on the firm of Krupp AG was an attack on the ability of the German state to wage war by the socialist-pacifist SPD, and though several junior employees of Krupp AG were convicted of corruption, Hugenberg and the rest of the Krupp board were never indicted.[20] In 1912, Kaiser Wilhelm II personally awarded Hugenberg the Order of the Red Eagle for his success at Krupp AG, saying that Germany needed more businessmen like Hugenberg.[21] At the ceremony, Hugenberg praised the Kaiser in his acceptance speech, and went on to say that democracy would not improve the condition of the German working class, but only a "very much richer, very much greater and very much powerful Germany" would solve its problems.[21] After the Social Democrats won the largest number of seats in the Reichstag in the 1912 elections, Hugenberg first became interested in the media as he believed that the right-wing parties such as the National Liberals and the Conservatives needed more newspapers to champion their views.[22]
First World WarEdit
As well as administering Krupp's finance (with considerable success), Hugenberg also set about developing personal business interests from 1916 onwards, including a controlling interest in the national newsmagazine Die Gartenlaube (The Garden Arbor).[6] In 1914, Hugenberg welcomed the onset of the First World War, and resumed his work with his close friend Heinrich Class of the Pan-German League.[23] During the war, Hugenberg was an annexationist who wanted the war to end with Germany annexing much of Europe, Africa and Asia to make the German Reich into the world's greatest power.[23] In September 1914, Hugenberg and Class co-wrote a memorandum setting out the annexationist platform, which demanded that, once the war was won, Germany would annex Belgium and northern France, British sea power would end, and Russia would be reduced to the "frontiers existing at the time of Peter the Great".[23] Beyond that, Germany was to annex all of the British, French and Belgian colonies in sub-Saharan Africa, and create an "economic union", embracing Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy, the Scandinavian nations and the nations of the Balkans, which would be dominated by the Reich.[23] Finally, the Hugenberg–Class memo called for a policy of colonization in Eastern Europe, where the German state would settle thousands of German farmers in the land annexed from the Russian Empire.[23]
The Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, was actually an annexationist himself, but refused to support the annexationists in public. Under the constitution of 1871, the Reichstag had limited powers, but one of those powers was the right to pass budgets. In the 1912 elections, the Social Democrats won a majority of the seats in the Reichstag. In 1914, the Social Democrats split into two factions, with the Independent Social Democrats opposing the war and the Majority Social Democrats supporting the war under the grounds that Russia was supposedly about to attack Germany. However, the Majority Social Democrats were opposed to the annexationists, and to secure their co-operation in passing budgets, Bethmann Hollweg refused to support the annexationists in public. Bethmann Hollweg's Septemberprogramm—drafted in September 1914 at a time when the fall of Paris was believed to be imminent, as the German armies had almost reached the French capital, and to be issued when Paris fell—was remarkably similar to the Hugenberg–Class memo.
Believing that he was not one of them, Hugenberg, like the rest of the annexationists, spent the years 1914 to 1917 attacking Bethmann Hollweg as essentially a traitor.[24] In 1915, Hugenberg published a telegram to Class in the name of the united chambers of commerce of the Ruhr, demanding that Wilhelm II dismiss Bethmann Hollweg and if the Kaiser was unwilling, that the military should depose Bethmann Hollweg, stating that if the Reich failed to achieve the annexationist platform once the war was won that it would cause a revolution from the right that would end the monarchy.[24] It was Hugenberg's interest in mobilizing support for the annexationists and bringing down Bethmann Hollweg that led him into the media, as Hugenberg in 1916 started to buy newspapers and publishing houses in order to create more organs for the expression of his imperialistic views.[25] Hugenberg was secretly assisted by the state in his efforts to build a media empire, all the more so as the state distrusted the liberal newspapers owned by the Ullstein brothers and by Rudolf Mosse, all of whom were Jewish, leading the state to request that a circle of "patriotic" businessmen to lend Hugenberg the necessary funds to buy up newspapers.[26] The most important of Hugenberg's allies in lending him the money were various members of the Krupp family.[27]
After buying the Scherl newspaper chain in July 1916, Hugenberg announced, at the first meeting of the board under his management, that he had only bought the Scherl corporation to champion annexationist and Pan-German war aims, and that any editor opposed to his expansionistic views should resign immediately, before he fired them.[28] Hugenberg's biographer, John Leopold, wrote: "This very visible success of the Scherl concern led to the charge that Hugenberg was a war profiteer and an unscrupulous manipulator of the postwar inflation. This was undoubtedly true. During the period from 1914 through 1924, Hugenberg had securely established the basis of his entire syndicate. His business transactions were filled plans to buy and sell shares of different companies, the creation of new corporations as a holding concerns to take various firms, contracts with confidants acting as middlemen and ever-present schemes to avoid taxes. Hugenberg exploited the corporate law, which he knew so well, and utlized his own financial acumen, which had so finely developed, to secure his empire. He knew the rules of the game and manipulated them to full advantage".[29]
Aside from his membership in the Pan-German League, Hugenberg had a more personal reason for being an annexationist. Together with his friends Emil Kirdorf, Hugo Stinnes and Wilhelm Beukenberg, Hugenberg in 1916–1917 founded a number of corporations to exploit the occupied parts of Belgium and northern France.[30] These companies were favored by the Army, which ruled occupied Belgium and France as both Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff—both firm annexationists—appreciated Hugenberg's willingness to spend millions of marks to mobilize public support for their cause.[30] In 1918, after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Hugenberg founded two corporations, the Landgesellschaft Kurland m.b.H and Neuland AG, which had a combined budget of 37 million marks, to establish co-operative funds that would make loans to the hundreds of thousands of German farmers that he expected to soon be settled in Eastern Europe.[31]
Hugenberg remained at Krupp until 1918, when he set out to build his own business, and during the Great Depression he was able to buy up dozens of local newspapers. Hugenberg's increasing involvement in Pan-German and annexationist causes together with his interest in building a media empire caused him to depart from Krupp, which he found to be a distraction from what really interested him.[32] These newspapers became the basis of his publishing firm, Scherl House, and, after he added controlling interests in Universum Film AG (UFA), Ala-Anzeiger AG, Vera Verlag and the Telegraphen Union, he had a near-monopoly on the German media, which he used to agitate for opposition to the Weimar Republic amongst Germany's middle classes.[33] The most important of Hugenberg's media properties were the Telegraphen-Union, which played a role in the German media analogous to Reuters's in the United Kingdom and the Associated Press in the United States, employing some 250 journalists in thirty offices around the world to report on national and international news for smaller newspapers in Germany who could not afford national and international correspondents.[34] At the height of its influence, some 1, 600 newspapers in Germany subscribed to the Telegraphen-Union.[35] Through the Telegraphen-Union was described as "non-partisan", its coverage of both national and foreign news tended to be very sympathetic towards right-wing polititical parties opposed to the Weimar republic.[36]
For Hugenberg, the great trauma of his life was Germany's defeat in World War One, which he blamed on the November Revolution, the "stab-in-the-back" that was alleged to defeated the Reich just when was alleged to be on the verge of victory.[37] Hugenberg was always convinced that Germany would recover from the defeat of 1918, all the more so as he believed the German military had not actually been defeated in 1918; in his viewpoint, because it was the "stab-in-the-back" that caused the defeat, all that was necessary was merely to remove the "traitors" from the scene in order to win the next world war that he expected to occur sometime in the near-future.[38] In Hugenberg's viewpoint, just as the Thirty Years' War was followed by rise of Brandenburg/Prussia and the crushing defeat of Prussia by Napoleon in 1806 was followed by the War of Liberation in 1813-1814, so too would the Prussian-German state rise again to emerge victorious over its enemies.[39] Hugenberg's devotion to the "Social Darwinistic and Nietzchean philosophies" with the emphasis on the power of willpower that he had embraced in the late 19th century further reinforced his commitment to doing his part in bringing about the revival of Germany.[40]
Nationalist leaderEdit
Hugenberg was one of a number of Pan Germans to become involved in the National Liberal Party in the run up to the First World War.[41] During the war, his views shifted sharply to the right. Accordingly, he switched his allegiance to the Fatherland Party and became one of its leading members, emphasising territorial expansion and anti-Semitism as his two main political issues.[42] In 1919 Hugenberg followed most of the Fatherland Party into the German National People's Party (Deutschnationale Volkspartei, DNVP), which he represented in the National Assembly (that produced the 1919 constitution of the Weimar Republic). He was elected to the Reichstag in the 1920 elections to the new body.[43]
In 1920, Hugenberg founded a populist tabloid, the Berliner Illustrierte Nachtausgabe, which became his most profitable newspaper, having a daily circulation of 216, 000 by 1929.[44] In the cities such as Berlin, the Hugenberg newspapers had to compete with the liberal newspapers owned by the Ullstein and Mosse families, and the Hugenberg media empire was most influential in the small towns and rural areas of Germany where the newspapers owned by Hugenberg were most people's main source of the news..[45] Even in areas where Hugenberg did not own the newspapers, the local newspapers were dependent upon the Hugenberg-owned Telegraphen-Union (TU) for news outside of their areas; about 600 newspapers in the rural areas and small towns of Germany exclusively reprinted articles written by TU journalists for their national and international news.[46] Through Hugenberg was often described as representing the interests of the industrialists, Leopold wrote: "His nationalist insistence on autarchy and his diametrical opposition to all forms of unionism represented not the attitude of most businessmen, but the ideology of the Pan-German League. No longer concerned with the profits and losses of any industry other than his media empire, Hugenberg was free to criticize the immediate demands of industrialists for practical solutions and he reverted to the simplistic solutions espoused by the Pan-Germans since the prewar war".[47] Hugenberg's Social Darwinist views remained unchanged as he argued that the "survival of the fittest" should become "the life principle of development", a stance that put at odds with the leaders of the left-wing of the DNVP such as Hans Schlange-Schöningen, Gottfried Treviranus, Walther Lambach, and Gustav Hülser, men who shared his vehement opposition to Marxism, but were opposed to his harsh Social Darwnism.[48]
The DNVP suffered heavy losses in the 1928 election, leading to the appointment of Hugenberg as sole chairman on 21 October that same year.[43] Hugenberg moved the party in a far more radical direction than it had taken under its previous leader, Kuno Graf von Westarp. After the 1928 election, a DNVP MdR, Walther Lambach, published an article in the journal Politische Wochenschrift, saying that the poor showing of the DNVP in the election was due to its monarchism as Lambach argued that the vast majority of the German people did not pine for the return of the exiled Kaiser, and the party's emphasis on this point was alienating the public, who had come to accept the republic.[49] Lambach ended his article by writing that the DNVP needed a volkkonservatismus (popular conservatism) that addressed the concerns of ordinary Germans and that restoring the monarchy was not one of them.[50]
Hugenberg was the leader of the DNVP monarchist purists for whom no changes in the party's platform were acceptable, and he started to press for the DNVP to expel Lambach as a way of bringing down Westarp who only agreed to censure Lambach for his article.[51] At Hugenberg's instigation, the Potsdam branch of the DNVP expelled Lambach on its own in July 1928, presenting Westarp with a fait accompli, which showed that way that party's grassroots members felt about the Lambach affair.[52] Hugenberg followed up this triumph with an article saying that the DNVP was "not a parliamentary party in the proper sense of the word, but as a grand group of men-as a community of opinion, not a community of interests", which in his view had caused the DNVP to degenerate from its core principles, which Lambach's article was only the most deplorable and recent example.[53] Hugenberg argued the DNVP could not change its values as he wrote: "Only an ideological party which is led and which leads can save the soul and economy of the German people!"[54] Using Lambach as a surrogate for his attack on Westarp, Hugenberg argued that the DNVP could not be a brei ("mishmash") of people of different values such as monarchists and republicans, and could only be led by an "strong" leader fanatically devoted to upholding the party's values who would lead in an authoritarian style, by which he clearly meant himself.[55] Lambach appealed against his expulsion and was allowed back into the DNVP as he argued that he himself was still a monarchist and his article was intended only to spark discussion.[56]
However, the Lambach case had galvanized the DNVP's membership against Westarp and for Hugenberg, who knew that the DNVP would be calling a party congress later that year, which had the power to elect a new leader, the Lambach affair was a godsend.[57] Using the Lambach case as his rallying cry, Hugenberg campaigned aggressively amongst the party's membership, greatly helped by the fact that the Pan-German League had taken over many of the DNVP's local branches.[58] When the party congress opened on 20 October 1928, Westarp was on the defensive right from the start as he was forced to apologize for the DNVP's poor showing in the most recent election and he appealed to delegates themselves for idea about improving the party's image, making him look like a weak leader.[59] By contrast, Hugenberg-who lacking in charm and charisma-was able to present himself as a man with a definite plan to restore the party's fortunes.[60] The fact that the members of the Pan-German League were overrepresented at the party congress further favored Hugenberg who was elected the DNVP's new leader on 21 October 1928.[61]
He hoped to use radical nationalism to restore the party's fortunes, and eventually, to overthrow the Weimar constitution and install an authoritarian form of government.[3] Up to this point, right-wing politics outside of the far right was going through a process of reconciliation with the Weimar Republic, but this ended under Hugenberg, who renewed earlier DNVP calls for its immediate destruction.[62] Under his direction, a new DNVP manifesto appeared in 1931, demonstrating the shift to the right. Amongst its demands were immediate restoration of the Hohenzollern monarchy, a reversal of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, compulsory military conscription, repossession of the German colonial empire, a concerted effort to build up closer links with German speaking people outside Germany (especially in Austria), a dilution of the role of the Reichstag to that of a supervisory body to a newly established professional house of appointees reminiscent of Benito Mussolini's corporative state, and reduction in the perceived over-representation of Jews in German public life.[63]
Hugenberg also sought to eliminate internal party democracy and instill a führerprinzip within the DNVP, leading to some members breaking away to establish the Conservative People's Party (KVP) in late 1929.[63] More were to follow in June 1930, appalled by Hugenberg's extreme opposition to the cabinet of Heinrich Brüning, a moderate whom some within the DNVP wanted to support.[64] Despite Hugenberg's background in industry, that constituency gradually deserted the DNVP under his leadership, largely due to a general feeling amongst industrialists that Hugenberg was too inflexible, and soon the party became the main voice of agrarian interests in the Reichstag.[43] Hugenberg's unwillingness to have the DNVP enter the cabinet greatly embittered the industrialists who complained the DNVP under his leadership was a perpetual opposition party, and as such the largest contributor to the DNVP by 1931 had became Hugenberg himself, which had the effect of cementing his control.[65]
Hugenberg had purchased the UFA studio-the largest film production company in both Germany and Europe-with the aim of making right-wing "national" films, but in this case, his concern for profits overrode his ideology.[66] The transition from silent film to talkies had imposed significant costs on UFA, which chose to mostly produce films designed for the widest possible audience in order to recoup the costs of installing sound equipment.[67] Between 1930-1933, only a limited number of UFA films were the type of "national" films that Hugenberg had envisioned when he brought UFA, and of the "national" films only Yorck and Morgenrot were financially successful at the box office.[68] Despite his anti-Semitism, Hugenberg did not fire the many Jews who worked at UFA as directors, script-writers, actors, etc as he did not want to lose any talent to rival studios.[69]
Relationship with HitlerEdit
Hugenberg was vehemently opposed to the Young Plan, and he set up a "Reich Committee for the German People's Petition" to oppose it, featuring the likes of Franz Seldte, Heinrich Class, Theodor Duesterberg and Fritz Thyssen.[70] However, he recognised that the DNVP and their elite band of allies did not have enough popular support to carry any rejection of the scheme through. As such, Hugenberg felt that he needed a nationalist with support amongst the working classes, whom he could use to whip up popular sentiment against the Plan. Adolf Hitler was the only realistic candidate, and Hugenberg decided that he would use the Nazi Party leader to get his way.[71] As a result, the Nazi Party soon became the recipients of Hugenberg's largesse, both in terms of monetary donations and of favourable coverage from the Hugenberg-owned press, which had previously largely ignored Hitler or denounced him as a socialist.[71] Joseph Goebbels, who had a deep hatred of Hugenberg, initially spoke privately of breaking away from Hitler over the alliance, but he changed his mind when Hugenberg agreed that Goebbels should handle the propaganda for the campaign, giving the Nazi Party access to Hugenberg's media empire.[72] Hitler was able to use Hugenberg to push himself into the political mainstream, and once the Young Plan was passed by referendum, Hitler promptly ended his links with Hugenberg.[73] Hitler publicly blamed Hugenberg for the failure of the campaign, but he retained the links with big business that the Committee had allowed him to cultivate, and this began a process of the business magnates deserting the DNVP for the Nazis.[74] Hitler's handling of the affair was marred by one thing, and that was the premature announcement in the Nazi press of his repudiation of the alliance with the Strasser brothers, whose left-wing economics were incompatible with Hugenberg's arch-capitalism.[75]
Despite this episode, in February 1931 Hugenberg joined the Nazi Party in booting the DNVP out of the Reichstag altogether, as a protest against the Brüning government. By then, the two parties were in a very loose federation, known as the 'National Opposition'.[76] This was followed in July of the same year by the release of a joint statement, with Hitler guaranteeing that the pair would co-operate for the overthrow of the Weimar 'system'.[77] The two presented a united front at Bad Harzburg on 21 October 1931, as part of a wider right-wing rally leading to suggestions that a Harzburg Front involving the two parties and the veterans' organisation Der Stahlhelm had emerged.[78] The two leaders soon clashed, and Hugenberg's refusal to endorse Hitler in the 1932 German presidential election widened the gap.[78] Indeed, the rift between the two opened further when Hugenberg, fearing that Hitler might win the Presidency, persuaded Theodor Duesterberg to run as a Junker candidate after Prince Oskar of Prussia declinced to run as the DNVP candiate.[79] Although Duesterberg was eliminated on the first vote, due largely to Nazi allegations regarding his Jewish parentage, Hitler nonetheless failed to secure the Presidency.[80]
Hugenberg's party had experienced a growth in support at the November 1932 election at the expense of the Nazis, leading to a secret meeting between the two in which a reconciliation of sorts was agreed upon. Hugenberg hoped to harness the Nazis for his own ends once again, and as such he dropped his attacks on them for the campaign for the March 1933 election.[78]
Hitler's rise to powerEdit
In early January 1933, Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher had developed plans for an expanded coalition government, to include not only Hugenberg, but also dissident Nazi Gregor Strasser and Centre Party politician Adam Stegerwald. Although Hugenberg had designs on a return to government, his hatred of trade union activity meant that he had no intention of working with Stegerwald, the head of the Catholic Trade Union movement. When von Schleicher refused to exclude Stegerwald from his plans, Hugenberg broke off negotiations.[81]
Hugenberg's main confidante, Reinhold Quaatz, had, despite being half-Jewish, pushed for Hugenberg to follow a more völkisch path and work with the Nazi Party, and after the collapse of the von Schleicher talks, this was the path he followed.[82] Hugenberg and Hitler met on 17 January 1933, and Hugenberg suggested that they both enter the cabinet of Kurt von Schleicher, a proposal rejected by Hitler, who would not move from his demands for the Chancellorship. Hitler did agree in principle to allow von Schleicher to serve under him as Defence Minister, although Hugenberg warned the Nazi leader that as long as Paul von Hindenburg was president, Hitler would never be Chancellor.[83] A further meeting between the two threatened to derail any alliance, after Hugenberg rejected Hitler's demands for Nazi control over the interior ministries of Germany and Prussia but by this time, Franz von Papen had come round to the idea of Hitler as Chancellor, and he worked hard to persuade the two leaders to come together.[84]
During the negotiations between Franz von Papen and president Paul von Hindenburg, Hindenburg had insisted that Hugenberg be given the ministries of Economics and Agriculture, both at national level and in Prussia, as a condition of Hitler becoming Chancellor, something of a surprise, given the President's well publicised dislike of Hugenberg.[85] Hugenberg, eager for a share of power, agreed to the plan, and continued to believe that he could use Hitler for his own ends, telling the Stahlhelm leader Theodor Duesterberg that "we'll box Hitler in".[86] He initially rejected Hitler's plans to immediately call a fresh election, fearing the damage such a vote might inflict on his own party but, after being informed by Otto Meißner that the plan had Hindenburg's endorsement, and by von Papen that von Schleicher was preparing to launch a military coup, he acceded to Hitler's wishes.[87] Hugenberg vigorously campaigned for the NSDAP–DNVP alliance, although other leading members within his party expressed fears over socialist elements to Nazi rhetoric, and instead appealed for a nonparty dictatorship, pleas ignored by Hitler.[88]
Hugenberg made no effort to stop Hitler's ambition of becoming a dictator, although he himself was authoritarian by inclination. Along with the other DNVP members of the cabinet, he voted for the Reichstag Fire Decree of 1933, which effectively wiped out civil liberties.
Removal from politicsEdit
In the elections Hugenberg's DNVP captured 52 seats in the Reichstag, although any hope that these seats could ensure influence for the party evaporated with the passing of the Enabling Act of 1933 (which the DNVP supported) soon after the vote.[89] Nevertheless, Hugenberg was Minister of Economy in the new government and was also appointed Minister of Agriculture in the Nazi cabinet, largely due to the support his party enjoyed amongst the north German landowners. As Minister, Hugenberg declared a temporary moratorium on foreclosures, cancelled some debts and placed tariffs on some widely produced agricultural goods in order to stimulate the sector. As a move to protect dairy farming he also placed limits on margarine production, although this move saw a rapid increase in the price of butter and margarine and made Hugenberg an unpopular figure outside of the farming community, hastening the inevitable departure of this non-Nazi from the cabinet.[90] Meanwhile, in June 1933, Hitler was forced to disavow Hugenberg after Hugenberg, while attending the London World Economic Conference, put forth a programme of German colonial expansion in both Africa and Eastern Europe as the best way of ending the Great Depression, which created a major storm abroad.[91] Hugenberg's fate was sealed when State Secretary Fritz Reinhardt, ostensibly a subordinate to Hugenberg as Minister of Economy, presented a work-creation plan to the cabinet. The policy was supported by every member except Hugenberg, who was strongly opposed to the levels of government intervention in the economy that the scheme required.[92]
An increasingly isolated figure, Hugenberg was finally forced to resign from the cabinet after a campaign of harassment and arrest was launched by Hitler against his DNVP coalition partners.[93] The Sturmabteilung (SA) were also turned against the DNVP, with youth movements loyal to Hugenberg becoming the focus of attacks.[6] He announced his formal resignation on 29 June 1933 and he was replaced by others who were loyal to the Nazi Party, Kurt Schmitt in the Economy Ministry and Richard Walther Darré in the Agriculture Ministry.[94] A 'Friendship Agreement' was signed between the Nazis and the DNVP immediately afterwards, the terms of which effectively dissolved the Nationalists with a few members whose loyalty could be guaranteed absorbed into the Nazi Party.[95] Indeed, the German National Front, as the DNVP had officially been called since May 1933, had officially dissolved on 27 June.[96]
Although driven from his cabinet post, Hugenberg was, along with Papen and other former DNVP and Centre Party (Zentrum) members, included on the Nazi list of candidates for the November 1933 election as a concession to middle-class voters.[97] However, his stock with the Nazis had fallen so much that in December 1933 the Telegraph Union, the news agency owned by Hugenberg, was taken over by the Propaganda Ministry and merged into a new German News Office.[98] Hugenberg was allowed to remain in the Reichstag until 1945 as one of 22 so-called "guest" members, who were officially designated as non-party representatives. Given that they shared the assembly with 639 Nazi deputies, and given that the Reichstag met on an increasingly infrequent basis in any event, independents like Hugenberg had no influence.[99]
Later yearsEdit
Although Hugenberg had lost the Telegraph Union early on he was allowed to retain most of his media interests until 1943 when the Nazi-controlled Eher Verlag took control of his Scherl House. Hugenberg did not let them go cheaply, however, as he negotiated a large portfolio of shares in the Rhenish-Westphalian industries in return for his co-operation.[43]
Hugenberg was initially detained after the war, but in 1949 a Denazification court at Detmold adjudged him a "Mitläufer" ("Fellow Traveller") rather than a Nazi, meaning that he was allowed to keep his property and business interests.[43] He died in Kükenbruch (now part of Extertal) near Detmold on 12 March 1951.
ReferencesEdit
- ^ Richard J. Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich, Penguin Press, 2004, p. 314
- ^ "Alfred Hugenberg | German political leader". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 28 September 2020.
- ^ a b c Tim Kirk, Cassell's Dictionary of Modern German History, Cassell, 2002, p. 180
- ^ a b c d e f Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, page 1.
- ^ Günter Watermeier, Politischer Mord und Kriegskultur an der Wiege der Weimarer Republik, GRIN Verlag, 2007, p. 13
- ^ a b c d Louis Leo Snyder, Encyclopedia of the Third Reich, Wordsworth Editions, 1998, p. 177
- ^ Sebastian Conrad, Globalisation and the Nation in Imperial Germany, Cambridge University Press, p. 175
- ^ Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, pages 1–2.
- ^ a b c Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, page 2.
- ^ Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in Power, Penguin Books, 2006, p. 373
- ^ Willi Boelcke, Krupp und die Hohenzollern in Dokumenten 1850-1918. Frankfurt 1970. pages 158-162
- ^ Michael Epkenhans, Ralf Stremmel: Friedrich Alfred Krupp. Ein Unternehmer im Kaiserreich. München 2010. page 14
- ^ Julius Meisbach: Friedrich Alfred Krupp - wie er lebte und starb, Verlag K.A.Stauff & Cie., Köln ca. 1903
- ^ Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, pages 2–3.
- ^ Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, pages 3.
- ^ Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, pages 3.
- ^ Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, pages 3.
- ^ Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, pages 3.
- ^ Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, pages 3.
- ^ a b Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, page 4.
- ^ a b Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, page 3.
- ^ Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, pages 5.
- ^ a b c d e Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, page 6.
- ^ a b Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, page 7.
- ^ Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, pages 6–8.
- ^ Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, pages 8-9.
- ^ Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, pages 8-9.
- ^ Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, page 9.
- ^ Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, page 15.
- ^ a b Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, page 10.
- ^ Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, pages 10–11.
- ^ Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, page 11.
- ^ Robert Wistrich, Who's Who in Nazi Germany, Bonanza Books, 1984, p. 157
- ^ Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, pages 14
- ^ Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, page 14.
- ^ Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, page 14.
- ^ Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, page 11.
- ^ Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, page 11.
- ^ Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, page 11.
- ^ Leopold, John. Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, page 11.
- ^ Karl Dietrich Bracher, The German Dictatorship, Penguin, 1971, p. 36
- ^ Paul Bookbinder, Weimar Germany: The Republic of the Reasonable, Manchester University Press, 1996, pp. 222–223
- ^ a b c d e Wistrich, Who's Who in Nazi Germany, p. 158
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.15
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.38-39
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.39
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.41
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.41
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.45-46
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.46
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.47
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.47-48
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.48
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.48
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.48
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.48-49
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.49
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.49-50
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.51
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.51
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.52
- ^ Ernst Nolte, Three Faces of Fascism, Mentor Books, 1965, p. 426
- ^ a b Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich, p. 95
- ^ Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich, p. 259
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.94
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.94
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.94
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.94
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977 p.94
- ^ Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris, Penguin, 1999, p. 310
- ^ a b Michael Fitzgerald, Adolf Hitler: A Portrait, Spellmount, 2006, p. 81
- ^ Anthony Read, The Devil's Disciples: The Lives and Times of Hitler's Inner Circle, Pimlico, 2004, p. 184
- ^ Fitzgerald, Adolf Hitler: A Portrait, p. 82
- ^ Read, The Devil's Disciples, p. 185
- ^ Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris, p. 326
- ^ Hans Mommsen, From Weimar to Auschwitz, Polity Press, 1991, p. 135
- ^ F.L. Carsten, The Rise of Fascism, Methuen, 1970, p. 143
- ^ a b c Henry Ashby Turner Jr., Hitler's Thirty Days to Power, Bloomsbury, 1996, p. 69
- ^ Leopold, John Alfred Hugenberg, New Haven, 1977 p.108-110
- ^ Konrad Heiden, The Fuehrer, Robinson, 1999, pp. 350–351
- ^ Turner, Hitler's Thirty Days to Power, pp. 89–92
- ^ Hermann Weiss & Paul Hoser (eds), Die Deutschnationalen und die Zerstörung der Weimarer Republik. Aus dem Tagebuch von Reinhold Quaatz 1928–1933 (Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 59), Oldenbourg: Munich 1989, pp. 19–21
- ^ Turner, Hitler's Thirty Days to Power, pp. 69–70
- ^ Turner, Hitler's Thirty Days to Power, pp. 137–141
- ^ Turner, Hitler's Thirty Days to Power, p. 146
- ^ Turner, Hitler's Thirty Days to Power, pp. 147
- ^ Turner, Hitler's Thirty Days to Power, pp. 154–157
- ^ Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich, p. 369
- ^ Alfred Grosser, Germany in Our Time: A Political History of the Post-War Years, Penguin Books, 1971, p. 28
- ^ Evans, The Third Reich in Power, p. 420
- ^ Hildebrand, Klaus The Foreign Policy of the Third Reich London: Batsford 1973 pp. 31–32
- ^ Kershaw, Hitler: Hubris, p. 449
- ^ Evans, The Third Reich in Power, p. 13
- ^ Evans, The Third Reich in Power, p. 27
- ^ Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich, pp. 373–373
- ^ Kershaw, Hitler: Hubris, p. 477
- ^ Evans, The Third Reich in Power, p. 109
- ^ Evans, The Third Reich in Power, p. 146
- ^ Read, The Devil's Disciples, p. 344
External linksEdit
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Alfred Hugenberg.|
- Spartacus Educational website
- entry on Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence
- Newspaper clippings about Alfred Hugenberg in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
|Political offices|
|Preceded by||Leader of the German National People's Party||Succeeded by|
|Preceded by||Minister of Food||Succeeded by|
Kuno von Westarp
1928–1933
party dissolved
Magnus Freiherr von Braun
1933
Richard Walther Darré