Walter rathenau biography
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Walther Rathenau
German businessman and politician (1867–1922)
Walther Rathenau (German:[ˈvaltɐˈʁaːtənaʊ]; 29 September 1867 – 24 June 1922) was a German industrialist, writer and politician who served as foreign minister of Germany from February to June 1922.
Rathenau was one of Germany's leading industrialists in the late German Empire. During World War I, he played a key role in the organisation of the German war economy and headed the War Raw Materials Department from August 1914 to March 1915.
After the war, Rathenau was an influential figure in the politics of the Weimar Republic. In 1921 he was appointed minister of reconstruction and a year later became foreign minister. Rathenau negotiated the 1922 Treaty of Rapallo, which normalised relations and strengthened economic ties between Germany and Soviet Russia. The agreement, along with Rathenau's insistence that Germany fulfil its obligations under the Treaty of Versailles, led right-wing nationalist groups
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From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, a figure of great intellectual power who ran the German state, however briefly, during one of its most tumultuous periods, and whose life was "the essence of German Jewish history."
This deeply informed biography of Walther Rathenau (1867–1922) tells of a man who—both thoroughly German and unabashedly Jewish—rose to leadership in the German War-Ministry Department during the First World War, and later to the exalted position of foreign minister in the early days of the Weimar Republic. His achievement was unprecedented—no Jew in Germany had ever attained such high political rank. But Rathenau’s success was marked bygd tragedy: within months he was assassinated by right-wing extremists seeking to destroy the newly formed Republic.
Drawing on Rathenau’s papers and on a depth of knowledge of both modern German and German-Jewish history, Shulamit Volkov creates a finely drawn portrait of this complex man who struggled with his Jewish identit
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Community
Walter Rathenau (1867-1922) served as head of the German KRA economic war management department from 1914-15.
Rathenau was an industrialist; his father was also head of the giant electrical group AEG. When war broke out in August 1914 (a war he believed would be lengthy) Rathenau approached Erich Falkenhayn, then Prussian War Minister, with a plan for centralised management and distribution of crucial war supplies.
Falkenhayn quickly saw the sense of Rathenau's program - which was in itself adapted from one prepared earlier by an AEG employee (von Mollendorf) - and Rathenau soon found himself appointed head of the KRA.
Rathenau's patriotism was undeniable but it was perhaps inevitable that contracts for production of important supplies invariably ended up in the hands of the largest suppliers, including AEG, to the exclusion of smaller manufacturers.
Rathenau's tenure as head of the KRA was relatively brief however.&nbs