Alfred hugenberg biography

Who was Alfred Hugenberg? We need you! Help us build the largest biographies collection on the web! Add a New Bio. Powered by CITE. He became increasingly isolated in the cabinet and failed in his attempt to become "economic dictator". He was forced out of the cabinet after five months, on the same day that the DNVP voted to disband. After that he no longer had any political influence and over time also had to cede his media holdings to the Nazis.

The son of an upper-middle-class family, Hugenberg initially resented the Junkers landed nobilitybut over time he came to accept the idea of "feudal-industrial control of Germany", believing in an alliance of Junkers and industrialists. 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.

Hugenberg initially took a role organizing agricultural societies before entering the civil service in the Prussian Ministry of Finance in He subsequently left the public sector to pursue a career in business, and in he was appointed chairman of the supervisory board of Krupp Steel where he built up a close personal and political relationship with Baron Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbachthe CEO of Krupp AG.

As Krupp AG was one of the world's largest arms manufacturers and the chief supplier of weapons to the German state, the management of Krupp AG was of some interest to the state, and Emperor Wilhelm II did not believe that a woman was capable of running a business. To solve this perceived problem, the Emperor had Bertha marry a career diplomat, Gustav von Bohlen und Halbachwho was regarded by the Emperor as a safe man to run Krupp AG.

Gustav Krupp, as he was renamed by Wilhelm, knew alfred hugenberg biography about running a business and so depended 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 and 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 Social Democrats SPD and the other with the Centre Party.

His strong social Darwinist views led him 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 living standards for him was only necessary to halt demands for political and social change as opposed to a positive goal in and of itself. He believed that center-right and right-wing parties such as the National Liberals and the Conservatives needed more newspapers to champion their views.

As well as administering Krupp's alfreds hugenberg biography with considerable success, Hugenberg also set about developing personal business interests from onwards, including a controlling interest in the national newsmagazine Die Gartenlaube The Garden Arbor. The chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann Hollwegwas initially an annexationist himself but refused to support the annexationists in public.

Under the Constitution ofthe Reichstag had limited powers, one of which was the right to pass budgets. In the electionsthe Social Democrats won more seats in the Reichstag than any other party. Inthey split into two factions, with the Independent Social Democrats opposing the war and the Majority Social Democrats supporting the war on the grounds that Russia was supposedly about to attack Germany.

However, the Majority Social Democrats were opposed to the annexationists, and to secure their cooperation in passing budgets, Bethmann Hollweg refused to support the annexationists in public. Bethmann Hollweg's Septemberprogramm — drafted in September 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.

Aside from his membership in the Pan-German League, Hugenberg had a more personal reason for being an annexationist. Together with his industrialist friends Emil KirdorfHugo Stinnes and Wilhelm Beukenberg, Hugenberg in — founded a number of corporations to exploit the occupied parts of Belgium and northern France. 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.

H and Neuland AG, which had a combined budget of 37 million marks, to establish cooperative funds that would make loans to the hundreds of thousands of German farmers that he expected to soon be settled in Eastern Europe. Believing that Bethmann Hollweg was not one of them, Hugenberg, like the rest of the annexationists, spent the years to attacking him as essentially a traitor.

After buying the Scherl newspaper chain in JulyHugenberg 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 editors opposed to his expansionist views should resign immediately, before he fired them. This was undoubtedly true.

During the period from throughHugenberg had securely established the basis of his entire syndicate. His business transactions were filled with plans to buy and sell shares of different companies, the creation of new corporations as 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 used his own financial acumen, which had been so finely developed, to secure his empire. He knew the rules of the game and manipulated them to full advantage. Hugenberg remained at Krupp untilwhen 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. For Hugenberg, the great trauma of his life was Germany's defeat in World War One, which he blamed on the November Revolutionthe " stab-in-the-back " that was alleged to have defeated the Reich just when it was alleged to be on the verge of victory.

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. Accordingly, he switched his allegiance to the Fatherland Party and became one of its leading members, emphasizing territorial expansion and anti-Semitism as his two main political issues.

He was elected to the Reichstag in the elections to the new body. Unable to find positive goals that were capable of holding the DNVP together, let alone of creating the sort of national unity that he wanted, Hugenberg came to define his Sammlungspolitik in negative terms by seeking to find "enemies" to provide a unity in hatred. InHugenberg founded a populist tabloid, the Berliner Illustrierte Nachtausgabewhich became his most profitable newspaper, having a daily circulation ofby In cities such as Berlin, the Hugenberg newspapers had to compete with the liberal newspapers owned by the Ullstein and Mosse alfreds hugenberg biography, 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.

Although Hugenberg was often described as representing the interests of the industrialists, John 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 era".

As a supporter of KatastrophenpolitikHugenberg rather perversely welcomed the inflation as the beginning of the end of the Weimar Republic, arguing that the economic disaster would awaken the furor teutonicus that would lead to the "Third Reich". Only a few will and can do this. We, the entire spectrum of non-socialists, can do no more than prepare the way for these few.

Hopefully we will find that which we desire. In Novemberwhen the Nazis launched the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, they received significant coverage in the Hugenberg newspapers for the first time. You must bind together and not tear apart! To end the hyperinflation ofa new currency, the Reichsmark was created to replace the worthless Papiermarkreparation payments were lowered through the Dawes Planand a huge loan to Germany was floated in New York.

Alfred hugenberg biography

Since the DNVP agreed to support the government of Hans LutherHugenberg grew more embittered, writing a series of essays in February—Marchlater published as a book, that included such lines as "it stinks in the German Reich " and the "false leaders belong in the asylums". In JanuaryHugenberg was involved in a plan for a putsch organized by his good friend, Henrich Classcalling for President Hindenburg to appoint as chancellor someone who was unacceptable for the Reichstagwhich would lead to a motion of no confidence.

Bernhard noted that the Mosse and Ullstein families were Jewish while Hugenberg was not. Bernhard's pamphlet first made Hugenberg well known. As the DNVP took part in several coalitions, Hugenberg emerged as one of the leading critics within the party of the approach of the party's leader, Kuno von Westarp, charging that he was betraying the party's principles.

The Hugenberg newspapers loudly announced that UFA had been brought to prevent "republicans, Jews and internationalists" from making any more films at UFA. The DNVP suffered heavy losses in the electionleading to the appointment of Hugenberg as sole chairman on 21 October that same year. Lambach argued that the vast majority of the German people did not pine for the return of the exiled Emperor, and the party's emphasis on this point was alienating the public, which had come to accept the Republic.

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. 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 that would have the power to elect a new leader, and that the Lambach affair was a godsend.

Huger, Isaac. Huger, John. Hugessen, Hon. James K. Huggett, Frank Edward. Huggett, Susan —. Huggins, Charles Brenton. Huggins, Edie. Huggins, Jackie Huggins, James Byron —. Huggins, Larry —. InHitler proposed that he become Minister of Economy and Agriculture but Hugenberg had in alfred hugenberg biography no political influence. He resigned after he observed violence committed by the SA against young people favorable to his political party.

Leopold, J.