Alfred Hugenberg

Alfred Hugenberg (June 19th 1865 - March 12th 1951) was a racketeer and an influential German politician. He was member of the first government of Hitler in 1933.

Born with Hanover, wire of Karl Hugenberg, a member of the Prussian Parliament , it studied the right to Göttingen, Heidelberg, and Berlin, and the economy with Strasbourg. In 1891, Hugenberg took part in the foundation of the Pan-German Ligue ultra-nationalist ( Alldeutscher Verband ). In 1900 it Maria with her cousin Gertrud Adickes.

After having occupied various management positions in the sectors of the bank and the metallurgy, Hugenberg started in 1916 to build the Hugenberg-Konzern , a conglomerate of companies of edition, cinema, press and publicity. At the beginning of the Years 1920, Hugenberg exerted a great influence on the German press of extreme-right-hand side, by the means of its publisher Scherl Verlag .

In 1918, Hugenberg joined the Deutschnationale Volkspartei or DNVP (Left national the German people), which it represented at the National Assembly (which produced in 1919 the constitution of the Weimar Republic), then with the Reichstag . He became secretary of the DNVP after a disastrous defeat at the polls in 1928. There remained member of the Reichstag until in 1945, in spite of the dissolution of the DNVP (and all the other parties) with the come to power of the Nazis.

Hugenberg made take with its party a direction much more radical than that which it had with its preceding leader, Kuno Graf von Westarp. He hoped to use radical nationalism to restore success of them, and in the long term to reverse the Weimar Republic and to restore an authoritarian regime. Under the direction of Hugenberg, the DNVP attenuated the monarchism which had characterized it in its first years, before giving up it completely. The radicalism of Hugenberg involved a controversy in the party, which led its most preserving members to leave it to found the Conservative party of the people ( Konservative Volkspartei , KVP).

In the last years of the Weimar Republic, until the designation of Adolf Hitler like Reichskanzler (chancellor) in 1933, Hugenberg and the DNVP collaborated with the Nazis in their opposition to the government Brüning and, up to a certain point, to the Republic itself. However Hugenberg chooses to support von Papen in 1932. He became Minister for the economy, agriculture and the food in the first government of Hitler in 1933, while hoping that this one would not remain a long time with the capacity.

In June 1933 it was constrained to give up its ministerial wallets. Starting from the end 1933, the Nazis obliged it to yield its companies of media to them.

After the war, Hugenberg was imprisoned by the British. He died on March 12th, 1951, close to Rinteln.

External bonds

Photography and short biography of Alfred Hugenberg

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