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Walther Rathenau
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Walther Rathenau (29 September 1867 24
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assassinated in Berlin by
the right-wing terrorist
Born
29 September 1867
Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia
Died
5 See also
Political party
6 Notes
Relations
7 References
Profession
Deutsch
Family
Espaol
Rathenau was born in Berlin. His parents were Emil Rathenau and Mathilde Nachmann.[1] His
Esperanto
Euskara
[ edit ]
father was a prominent Jewish businessman and founder of the Allgemeine Elektrizitts-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walther_Rathenau[28.04.2016 22:31:08]
Go
He studied physics, chemistry, and philosophy in Berlin and Strasbourg, and received a
Franais
Bahasa Indonesia
doctorate in physics in 1889 after studying under August Kundt.[2] His German Jewish heritage
Italiano
and his wealth[3] were both factors in establishing his deeply divisive reputation in German
politics at a time of antisemitism. He worked as an engineer before he joined the AEG board in
1899, becoming a leading industrialist in the late German Empire and early Weimar Republic
Latina
Latvieu
periods.[4]
Rathenau is generally acknowledged to be, in part, the basis for the German noble
Malagasy
and industrialist Paul Arnheim, a character in Robert Musil's novel The Man Without Qualities.[5]
Nederlands
Norsk bokml
Norsk nynorsk
Career
[ edit ]
Polski
World War
Portugus
Romn
[ edit ]
Suomi
Svenska
Trke
Department (Kriegsrohstoffabteilung
- 'KRA'), of which
he was in charge from August 1914 to March 1915 and
[clarification needed]
Postwar
[ edit ]
Rathenau was a moderate liberal in politics, and after World War I, he was one of the founders
of the German Democratic Party
(DDP). He rejected the state ownership of industry and
advocated greater worker participation in the management of companies. His ideas were
influential in postwar governments.
In 1921, Rathenau was appointed Minister of Reconstruction, and, in 1922 he became Foreign
Minister. His insistence that Germany should fulfill its obligations under the Treaty of Versailles,
but work for a revision of its terms, infuriated extreme German nationalists. He also angered
such extremists by negotiating the 1922 Treaty of Rapallo with the Soviet Union,
although the
treaty implicitly recognized secret German-Soviet collaboration begun in 1921 that provided for
the rearmament of Germany,
including German aircraft manufacturing in Russian territory.[7]
The leaders of the (still obscure) National Socialist German Workers' Party and other extreme
groups[citation needed] falsely claimed he was part of a "Jewish-Communist conspiracy," despite
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walther_Rathenau[28.04.2016 22:31:08]
the fact that he was a liberal German nationalist who had bolstered the country's recent war
effort.
The British politician Robert Boothby
wrote of him, "He was something that only a German Jew
could simultaneously be: a prophet, a philosopher, a mystic, a writer, a statesman, an industrial
magnate of the highest and greatest order, and the pioneer of what has become known as
'industrial rationalization'."
Despite his desire for economic and political co-operation between Germany and the Soviet
Union, Rathenau remained skeptical of the methods
of the Soviets:[8]
We cannot use Russia's methods, as they only and at best prove that the economy
of an agrarian nation can be leveled to the ground; Russia's
thoughts are not our
thoughts. They are, as it is in the spirit of the Russian city intelligentsia,
unphilosophical, and highly dialectic; they
are passionate logic based on unverified
suppositions. They assume that
a single good, the destruction of the capitalist
class, weighs more than all other goods, and that poverty, dictatorship, terror and
the fall of civilization must be accepted to secure this one good. Ten million people
must die to free ten million people from the bourgeoisie is regarded as a harsh but
necessary consequence. The Russian idea is compulsory happiness, in the same
sense and with the same logic as the compulsory introduction of Christianity and
the Inquisition.
[ edit ]
On 24 June 1922, two months after the signing of the Treaty of Rapallo
(which renounced
German territorial claims from World War I), Rathenau was assassinated. On this Saturday
morning, Rathenau had himself chauffeured from his house in Berlin-Grunewald to the Foreign
Office in Wilhelmstrae. During the trip, his NAG-Convertible was passed by a
Mercedes-Touring car with Ernst Werner Techow behind the wheel and Erwin Kern and
Hermann Fischer on the backseats. Kern opened fire with a MP 18-submachine gun
at close
range, killing Rathenau almost instantly, while Fischer threw a
hand grenade into the car before
Techow quickly drove them away.[9] Also involved in the plot were Techow's younger brother
Hans Gerd Techow, future writer Ernst von Salomon,
and Willi Gnther (aided and abetted by
seven others, some of them
schoolboys). All conspirators were members of the ultra-nationalist
secret Organisation Consul (O.C.).[10] A memorial stone in the Knigsallee in Grunewald marks
the scene of the crime.
Rathenau's assassination was but one in a series of
terrorist attacks
by Organisation Consul. Most notable
among them had been the assassination of former
finance minister Matthias Erzberger in August 1921.
While Fischer and Kern prepared their plot, former
chancellor Philipp Scheidemann barely survived an
attempt on his life by Organisation Consul assassins on
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Hermann Ehrhardt,
the undisputed leader of the
Organisation Consul, as the one who ordered the
murders. Ehrhardt and his men believed that
Rathenau's death
would bring down the government and prompt the Left to act against the
Weimar Republic, thereby provoking civil war, in which the Organisation Consul would be called
on for help by the Reichswehr.
After an anticipated victory Ehrhardt hoped to establish an
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issue of
antisemitism.[16]
Ahead
target of vicious antisemitic attacks, and the assassins had also been members of the violently
antisemitic Deutschvlkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund. Kern had, according to Ernst Werner
Techow, argued that Rathenau had to be murdered, because he had intimate relations with
Bolshevik Russia, so that he had even married off his sister to the Communist Karl Radek
and
that Rathenau himself had confessed to be one of the three hundred "Elders of Zion" as
described in the notorious antisemitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.[17] But the
defendants vigorously denied that they had killed Rathenau because he was Jewish.[18]
Neither
was the prosecution able to fully uncover the involvement of the Organisation Consul in the plot.
Thus Tillessen and Plaas were only convicted of non-notification of a crime and sentenced to
three and two years in prison, respectively. Salomon received five years imprisonment for
accessory to murder. Ernst Werner Techow narrowly escaped the death penalty, because in a
last-minute confession he managed to convince the court that he had only acted under the
threat of death by Kern. Instead he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for accessory to
murder.[16]
Initially, the reactions to Rathenau's assassination
strengthened the
Weimar Republic. The most notable
reaction was the enactment of the
Republikschutzgesetz(de)
(Law for the Defense of the
Republic), which took effect on 22 July 1922. As long
as the Weimar Republic existed, the date 24 June
remained a
day of public commemorations. In public
memory, Rathenau's death increasingly appeared to be
a martyr-like sacrifice for democracy.[19]
Things changed with the Nazi seizure of power
in 1933.
The Nazis systematically wiped out public
commemoration of Rathenau by destroying monuments
Works
[ edit ]
Reflektionen (1908)
Zur Kritik der Zeit (1912)
Zur Mechanik des Geistes (1913)
Von kommenden Dingen (1917)
Vom Aktienwesen. Eine geschftliche Betrachtung (1917)
An Deutschlands Jugend (1918)
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See also
[ edit ]
Notes
[ edit ]
5. ^ Pchter, Henry Maximilian (1982). Weimar tudes. New York: Columbia University Press.
pp.172 et seq.
6. ^ D. G. Williamson, "Walther Rathenau and the K.R.A. August 1914-March 1915," Zeitschrift fr
Unternehmensgeschichte (1978) Issue 11, pp 118-136.
7. ^ Stent, Angela E. (1998), "Chapter 1"
9. ^ Martin Sabrow (1994), Der Rathenaumord. Rekonstruktion einer Verschwrung gegen die
Republik von Weimar
27 July 2012
10. ^ Martin Sabrow (1994), Der Rathenaumord. Rekonstruktion einer Verschwrung gegen die
Republik von Weimar
27 July 2012
11. ^ Martin Sabrow (1994), Der Rathenaumord. Rekonstruktion einer Verschwrung gegen die
Republik von Weimar
2012
12. ^ Martin Sabrow (1994), Der Rathenaumord. Rekonstruktion einer Verschwrung gegen die
Republik von Weimar
27 July 2012
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walther_Rathenau[28.04.2016 22:31:08]
13. ^ a b Martin Sabrow (1996), "Mord und Mythos. Das Komplott gegen Walther Rathenau 1922", in
Alexander Demandt, Das Attentat in der Geschichte
2012
15. ^ Martin Sabrow (1994), Der Rathenaumord. Rekonstruktion einer Verschwrung gegen die
Republik von Weimar
27 July 2012
16. ^ a b Martin Sabrow (1994), Der Rathenaumord. Rekonstruktion einer Verschwrung gegen die
Republik von Weimar
14302-3, retrieved 28 July 2012; Martin Sabrow (1998), "Die Macht der Erinnerungspolitik", Die
Macht der Mythen: Walther Rathenau im ffentlichen Gedchtnis: sechs Essays
, Berlin: Das
References
[ edit ]
Felix, David. Walther Rathenau and the Weimar Republic, Johns Hopkins UP, 1971.
Henderson, W. O. "Walther Rathenau: A Pioneer of the Planned Economy," Economic
History Review (1951) 4#1 pp.98108 in JSTOR
Himmer, Robert. "Rathenau, Russia, and Rapallo," Central European History (1976) 9#2
pp.146183 in JSTOR
Kollman, Eric C. "Walther Rathenau and German Foreign Policy: Thoughts and Actions,"
Journal of Modern History (1952) 24#2 pp.127142 in JSTOR
Pois, Robert A. "Walther Rathenau's Jewish Quandary," Leo Baeck Institute Year Book
(1968), Vol. 13, pp 120131.
Strachan, Hew, The First World War: Volume I: To Arms (2001) pp 101449 on Rathenau
and KRA in the war
Volkov, Shulamit. Walter Rathenau: Weimar's Fallen Statesman (Yale University Press;
2012) 240 pages; scholarly biography
Williamson, D. G. "Walther Rathenau and he K.R.A. August 1914-March 1915," Zeitschrift fr
Unternehmensgeschichte (1978) Issue 11, pp 118136.
Primary sources
[ edit ]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walther_Rathenau[28.04.2016 22:31:08]
Count Harry Kessler, Berlin in Lights: The Diaries of Count Harry Kessler (19181937) Grove
Press, New York, (1999).
Walter Rathenau: Industrialist, Banker, Intellectual, And Politician; Notes And Diaries 1907
1922. Hartmut P. von Strandmann (ed.), Hilary von Strandmann (translator). Clarendon
Press, 528 pages, in English. October 1985. ISBN 978-0-19-822506-5 (hardcover).
External links
[ edit ]
Walther-Rathenau-Gesellschaft e.V.
Works by Walther Rathenau
(German)
at Project Gutenberg
at Internet
Archive
Works by Walther Rathenau
at LibriVox (public
domain audiobooks)
Speech by German President Friedrich Ebert at
Rathenau's burial
(German)
Political offices
Precededby
Succeededby
Joseph Wirth
1922
Joseph Wirth
v t e
[show]
v t e
[show]
v t e
[show]
WorldCat Identities
Authority control
LCCN: n79084127
ISNI:
1922 deaths
German anti-communists
German male writers
German businesspeople
VIAF: 36932567
German Jews
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walther_Rathenau[28.04.2016 22:31:08]
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