Walther Rathenau

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Walther Rathenau (September 29, 1867 – June 24, 1922) was a German industrialist, politician, writer, and statesman who served as Foreign Minister of Germany during the Weimar Republic.

Contents 1 Family 2 Political career 3 Assassination 4 Works 5 See also 6 External links

[edit] Family

Rathenau was born in Berlin, the son of Emil Rathenau, a prominent Jewish businessman and founder of the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG), an electrical-engineering company. He studied physics, chemistry, and philosophy in Berlin and Strasbourg. In addition to being a Jew and heir to a wealthy industrialist, Rathenau was also a homosexual and a Freemason, all of which combined to make him a deeply divisive figure in German politics. He worked as an engineer before joining the AEG board in 1899, becoming a leading industrialist in the late German Empire and early Weimar Republic periods. Rathenau is thought to be the basis for the German industrialist character "Arnheim" in Robert Musil's novel The Man Without Qualities.

[edit] Political career

Rathenau was a leading proponent of a policy of assimilation for German Jews: he argued that Jews should oppose both Zionism and socialism and fully integrate themselves into mainstream German society. This, he said, would eventually lead to the disappearance of anti-Semitism.

His wealthy Jewish heritage, along with his heavy political engagement and involvement in important decisions, caused aversion and aroused contempt on the extreme right, which later led to his assassination in 1922.

During World War I Rathenau held senior posts in the Raw Materials Department of the War Ministry, as well as becoming chairman of AEG on his father's death in 1915. He played the leading role in putting Germany's economy on a war footing, and enabling wartime Germany to continue its war effort for years despite acute shortages of labor and raw materials.

Rathenau was a moderate liberal in politics, and after WWI he was one of the founders of the German Democratic Party (DDP). He rejected the tide of socialist thought which swept Germany after the shock of defeat and revolution, opposing state ownership of industry and advocating greater worker participation in the management of companies. His ideas were influential in post-war 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, while working for a revision of its terms, infuriated German nationalists. He also angered nationalists by negotiating the Treaty of Rapallo with the Soviet Union. The leaders of the (still obscure) Nazi Party and other right-wing groups claimed he was part of a "Jewish-Communist conspiracy."

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'."

In fact, despite his desire for economic and political co-operation between Germany and the Soviet Union, Rathenau remained skeptical of the methods of the Soviets. In his Kritik der dreifachen Revolution (Critique of the triple revolution) he noted that:

"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."

"If ten million people must die to free ten million people from the bourgeoisie, then this is 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] Assassination

On June 24, 1922, two months after the signing of the Treaty of Rapallo, Rathenau was assassinated by two right-wing army officers linked to Organisation Consul. On the morning of 24 June 1922 he was driving from his house to the Wilhelmstraße, as he did daily. During the trip his car was passed by another in which three armed men were sitting. They simultaneously shot at the minister with machine guns and then quickly drove away. A memorial stone in the Königsallee in Berlin-Grunewald marks the scene of the crime. One of the assassins was the future writer Ernst von Salomon - he had provided the car but was not present at the shooting.^{[citation needed]}

Some believe that Rathenau's assassination may have significantly influenced the long-term political, economic, and social development of Europe. It was certainly an early sign of the instability and violence which were eventually to destroy the Weimar Republic. The British writer Morgan Philips Price wrote:

"In June 1922 Walter Rathenau, a big Jewish industrialist and progressive economist, was assassinated by gangsters of the extreme Right who were the heart and soul of the Freikorps. I was present at the memorial service in the Reichstag and noted an extraordinary outburst of enthusiasm among the workers of Berlin, as expressed in their trade union leaders and socialist parties, for the Republic and for President Ebert. The rank and file of the Majority Social Democrats were now thoroughly aroused...first Communists, then Socialists, and now a big industrialist were murdered for having Liberal views and, in the last case, for being a Jew. The situation in Germany was becoming more and more sinister.".

[edit] Works

• 1908 Reflektionen
• 1912 Zur Kritik der Zeit
• 1913 Zur Mechanik des Geistes
• 1917 Von kommenden Dingen
• 1918 An Deutschlands Jugend
• 1919 Die neue Gesellschaft
• 1919 Der neue Staat
• 1919 Der Kaiser
• 1919 Kritik der dreifachen Revolution
• 1920 Was wird werden (a utopian novel)
• Gesammelte Schriften in 6 volumns
• 1924 Gesammelte Reden
• 1926 Briefe, 2 volumns
• 1927 Neue Briefe
• 1929 Politische Briefe

[edit] See also

• Contributions to liberal theory
• 1920s Berlin
• Liberalism

[edit] External links

• Walther-Rathenau-Gesellschaft e.V. (German)
• Speech by German President Friedrich Ebert at Rathenau's burial

Preceded by Joseph Wirth

Foreign Minister of Germany 1922

Succeeded by Joseph Wirth