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Walther Rathenau (29 September 1867 24
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June 1922) was a German statesman who served
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as Foreign Minister during the Weimar Republic.
Walther Rathenau
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Rathenau initiated the Treaty of Rapallo,

which
removed major obstacles to trading with Soviet
Russia. Although Russia was already aiding
Germanys secret rearmament programme, rightwing nationalist groups branded Rathenau a
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revolutionary, when he was in fact a moderate
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liberal who openly condemned Soviet methods.
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They
also resented his background as a
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successful Jewish businessman.

Two months after signing the treaty, he was
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Rathenau as a democratic martyr until the Nazis

banned all commemorations of him.
Contents
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Alemannisch
Catal
etina
Dansk
Chancellor
Joseph Wirth
Preceded by
Joseph Wirth (acting)
Personal details
2.2 Postwar
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Friedrich Ebert
2 Career
2.1 World War
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President
Succeeded by Joseph Wirth (acting)
1 Family
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In other projects
In office
1 February 24 June 1922
group Organization Consul. The public viewed
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Foreign Minister of Germany
assassinated in Berlin by
the right-wing terrorist
Born
29 September 1867
Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia
Died
24 June 1922 (aged54)

Berlin, Free State of Prussia
5 See also
Political party
German Democratic Party
6 Notes
Relations
Emil Rathenau (father)
7 References
Profession
Industrialist, Politician, Writer
3 Assassination and aftermath

4 Works
7.1 Primary sources

8 External links
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
Gesellschaft (AEG), an electrical engineering company.
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
Rathenau never married. He had no children.
Career
[ edit ]
Polski
World War
Portugus
Romn
[ edit ]
During World War I,

Rathenau held senior posts in the
Suomi
Raw Materials Department of the War Ministry and
Svenska
became chairman of AEG upon his father's death in
Trke
1915. Rathenau played the key role in convincing the
War Ministry to set up the War Raw Materials

Edit links
Department (Kriegsrohstoffabteilung
- 'KRA'), of which
he was in charge from August 1914 to March 1915 and
established the fundamental policies and procedures.

His senior staff were on loan from industry. KRA
focused on raw materials threatened by the British
blockade,
as well as supplies from occupied Belgium
and France. It set prices and
regulated the distribution
Walther Rathenau in 1921
to vital war industries. It began the development of

ersatz raw materials. KRA suffered many inefficiencies
caused by the complexity and selfishness
[clarification needed]
Postwar
encountered from commerce, industry, and the government itself.[6]
[ 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
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.
Assassination and aftermath
[ 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
Hermann Ehrhardt (left, sitting in the
4 June 1922.[11] Historian Martin Sabrow points to

car) during the Kapp-Putsch in Berlin,
1920.
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
authoritarian regime or a military dictatorship. In order not to be completely delegitimized by the

murder of Rathenau, Ehrhardt carefully saw to it that no connections between him and the
assassins could be detected. Although Fischer and Kern connected with the Berlin chapter of
the Organisation Consul to use its resources, they mainly acted on their own in planning and
carrying out the assassination.[12]
The terrorists' aims were not achieved, however, and
civil war did not come. Instead, millions of Germans
gathered on the streets to express their grief and to
demonstrate against counter-revolutionary terrorism.[13]
When the news of Rathenau's death became known in
the Reichstag, the session turned into turmoil. DNVPpolitician Karl Helfferich in particular became the target
of attacks, because he had just recently uttered a
vitriolic attack upon Rathenau.[13] During the official
memorial ceremony the next day, Chancellor Joseph
Wirth from the Centre Party
held a speech soon to be
famous, in which, while pointing to the right side of the
State memorial ceremony with

Rathenau's laid out coffin in the
Reichstag, 27 June 1922.
parliamentary floor, he used a well known formula of

Philipp
Scheidemann: "There is the enemy - and there is no doubt about it: This
enemy is on
the right!"[14]
The crime itself was soon cleared up. Willi Gnther had bragged about his participation in public.
After his arrest on 26 June, he confessed to the crime without holding anything back. Hans
Gerd Techow was arrested the following day, Ernst Werner Techow, who was visiting his uncle,
three days later. Fischer and Kern, however, remained on the loose. After a daring flight, which
kept Germany in suspense for more than two weeks, they were finally spotted at the castle of
Saaleck in Thuringia,
whose owner was himself a secret member of the Organisation Consul.
On 17 July, they were confronted by two police detectives. While waiting for reinforcements
during the stand-off, one of the detectives fired at a
window, unknowingly killing Kern by a bullet
in the head. Fischer then took his own life.[15]
When the crime was brought to court in October 1922,
Ernst Werner Techow was the only defendant charged
with murder. Twelve more defendants were arraigned
on various charges, among them Hans Gerd Techow
and Ernst von Salomon, who had spied out Rathenau's
habits and kept up contact with the Organisation
Consul, as well as the commander of the Organisation
Consul in Western Germany, Karl Tillessen, a brother
Memorial service for Rathenau,

June 1923
of Erzberger's assassin Heinrich Tillessen, and his

adjutant Hartmut Plaas. The prosecution left aside the
political implications of the plot, but focused upon the
issue of
antisemitism.[16]
Ahead
of his assassination, Rathenau had indeed been the frequent
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
Unveiling of the first

Commemorative Plaque at the scene of
the crime in June 1929. Former
chancellor Joseph Wirth and Defence
Minister Wilhelm Groener in the first
row
to him, closing the Walther-Rathenau-Museum in his

former mansion, and renaming streets and schools
dedicated to him. Instead, a memorial plate to Kern and Fischer was solemnly unveiled at
Saaleck Castle in July 1933 and in October 1933, a monument was erected on the assassins'
grave.[20]
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)
Die neue Gesellschaft (1919) The New Society
translated by Arthur Windham, (1921) New
York: Harcourt, Brace and Co.

Der neue Staat (1919)
Der Kaiser (1919)
Kritik der dreifachen Revolution (1919)
Was wird werden (1920, a utopian novel)
Gesammelte Schriften (6 volumes)
Gesammelte Reden (1924)
Briefe (1926, 2 volumes)
Neue Briefe (1927)
Politische Briefe (1929)
See also
[ edit ]
Contributions to liberal theory

1920s Berlin
Liberalism
Notes
[ edit ]
1. ^ Walther Rathenau 1867-1922
(in German), LEMO - Lebendiges Museum Online (Deutsches
Historisches Museum, Berlin).

2. ^ Mendelsohn, E., Hoffman, S., Cohen, R.I., Against the Grain: Jewish Intellectuals in Hard
Times, 2013, ISBN 1782380035, p. 106
3. ^ Fink,
Carole (Summer 1995). "The murder of Walter Rathenau". Vol. 44 (3). Judaism: A
Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought. View excerpt in questia
4. ^ "Encyclopedia of World Biography on Walther Rathenau"
. BookRags. Retrieved Jan 2015.
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"
, Russia and Germany Reborn: Unification, the Soviet
Collapse, and the New Europe, Princeton University Press.

8. ^ W.R., Kritik der dreifachen Revolution - Apologie, 1919, S. Fischer, Berlin, (French) La triple
revolution, 1921, Aux ditions du Rhin, Paris - Ble, p. 265-266, Internet Archive
9. ^ Martin Sabrow (1994), Der Rathenaumord. Rekonstruktion einer Verschwrung gegen die
Republik von Weimar
, Munich: Oldenbourg, pp.8688, ISBN978-3-486-64569-9, retrieved
27 July 2012
Republik von Weimar
27 July 2012
Republik von Weimar
, Munich: Oldenbourg, p.7, ISBN978-3-486-64569-9, retrieved 27 July
2012
Republik von Weimar
27 July 2012
13. ^ a b Martin Sabrow (1996), "Mord und Mythos. Das Komplott gegen Walther Rathenau 1922", in
Alexander Demandt, Das Attentat in der Geschichte
, Cologne: Bhlau, pp.323324,
ISBN978-3-412-16795-0, retrieved 27 July 2012

14. ^ Heinrich Kppers (1997), Joseph Wirth: Parlamentarier, Minister Und Kanzler Der Weimarer
Republik
, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, p.189, ISBN978-3-515-07012-6, retrieved 27 July
2012
Republik von Weimar
27 July 2012
16. ^ a b Martin Sabrow (1994), Der Rathenaumord. Rekonstruktion einer Verschwrung gegen die
Republik von Weimar
, Munich: Oldenbourg, pp.103112, 139142, ISBN978-3-486-64569-9,
retrieved 27 July 2012

17. ^ Ernst von Salomon has later claimed that Kern's argument was merely pretextual. Historian
Norman Cohn believes that Techow's evidence stands. Cohn, Norman (1967). Warrant for
Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,
New York: Harper & Row, p. 145-6.
18. ^ Martin Sabrow (1999), Die verdrngte Verschwrung: der Rathenau-Mord und die deutsche
Gegenrevolution
, Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, p.184, ISBN978-3-596-
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
Arsenal, pp.7576, ISBN978-3-931109-11-0, retrieved 28 July 2012

19. ^ Martin Sabrow (1996), "Mord und Mythos. Das Komplott gegen Walther Rathenau 1922", in
Alexander Demandt, Das Attentat in der Geschichte
, Cologne: Bhlau, pp.336337,

20. ^ Martin Sabrow (1998), "Erstes Opfer des "Dritten Reichs"?", Die Macht der Mythen: Walther
Rathenau im ffentlichen Gedchtnis: sechs Essays
, Berlin: Das Arsenal, pp.9091,
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 ]
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)
Wikimedia Commons has

media related to Walther
Rathenau.
at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about Walther Rathenau
at Internet
Archive
Works by Walther Rathenau
Wikisource has the text of a

1922 Encyclopdia
Britannica article about
Walther Rathenau.
at LibriVox (public
domain audiobooks)
Speech by German President Friedrich Ebert at
Rathenau's burial
(German)
Political offices
Precededby
Foreign Minister of Germany
Succeededby
Joseph Wirth
1922
Joseph Wirth
v t e
Foreign Ministers of Germany
[show]
v t e
First Wirth cabinet 10 May 1921 to 22 October 1921
[show]
v t e
Second Wirth cabinet 26 October 1921 to 14 November

1922
[show]
WorldCat Identities
Authority control
LCCN: n79084127
ISNI:
0000 0001 2095 933X GND: 118598430 SUDOC: 02845605X BNF:

cb12028793j (data) NDL: 00550880 NKC: jn19990006845 BNE:
XX1410839 RKD: 229309
Categories: 1867 births

Assassinated Jews
1922 deaths
Assassinated German politicians
Deaths by firearm in Germany
German anti-communists
German male writers
German businesspeople
German science fiction writers
Government ministers of Germany

Murdered ministers
VIAF: 36932567
Foreign Ministers of Germany

German engineers
German Jews
German terrorism victims
Jewish German history
Jewish German politicians
People from the Province of Brandenburg
People murdered in Berlin
Organisation Consul victims
Soldiers of the French Foreign Legion
Weimar Republic politicians
Writers from Berlin
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Walther Rathenau - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Read Edit View history

June 1922) was a German statesman who served

as Foreign Minister during the Weimar Republic.

Rathenau initiated the Treaty of Rapallo,

revolutionary, when he was in fact a moderate

liberal who openly condemned Soviet methods.

successful Jewish businessman.

Rathenau as a democratic martyr until the Nazis

Joseph Wirth (acting)

Succeeded by Joseph Wirth (acting)

1 February 24 June 1922

group Organization Consul. The public viewed

Foreign Minister of Germany

24 June 1922 (aged54)

German Democratic Party

Emil Rathenau (father)

Industrialist, Politician, Writer

3 Assassination and aftermath

7.1 Primary sources