Walter Rathenau

Walther Rathenau (September 29, 1867–June 24, 1922) was a German industrialist and politician who served as Foreign Minister of Germany. This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... Jump to: navigation, search September 29 is the 272nd day of the year (273rd in leap years). ... Jump to: navigation, search 1867 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... June 24 is the 175th day of the year (176th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 190 days remaining. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1922 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... This page lists State Secretaries for Foreign Affairs under the German Empire (1873-1918), and Ministers of Foreign Affairs under succeeding governments thereafter. ...

Family

Rathenau was born in Berlin, the son of Emil Rathenau, a prominent Jewish businessman and founder of the Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG) electrical-engineering company. He studied physics, chemistry and philosophy at Berlin and Strasbourg. 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. Berlin ( ♫), IPA: , is the capital of Germany and its largest city; down from 4. ... Jump to: navigation, search The word Jew (Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity; and often a combination of... AEG (Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft) (English Translation: General Electricity Company) is a German producer of electronics and electrical equipment. ... City motto: – City proper (commune) Région Alsace Département Bas-Rhin (67) Mayor Fabienne Keller (UMP) (since 2001) Area 78. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1899 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search The term German Empire commonly refers to Germany, from its consolidation as a unified nation-state on January 18, 1871, until the abdication of Kaiser (Emperor) Wilhelm II on November 9, 1918. ... Jump to: navigation, search The period of German history from 1919 to 1933 is known as the Weimar Republic IPA (German Weimarer Republik). ... Robert Musil (Klagenfurt, Austria, November 6, 1880 – April 15, 1942 in Geneva, Switzerland) was an Austrian writer, author of the unfinished long novel The Man Without Qualities (in German, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften), one of the most important modernist novels. ... The Man without Qualities - (German original title: Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften) is a novel in three books by the Austrian novelist and essayist Robert Musil. ...

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, but should instead integrate themselves into mainstream German society. This, he said, would eventually lead to the disappearance of anti-Semitism. This did not save him from becoming a hated figure, caricatured as a archetypal Jewish capitalist, by Germany's militant anti-Semitic movement. In the social sciences, assimilation is the process of integration whereby immigrants, or other minority groups, are absorbed into a generally larger community. ... For other meanings, please see Zionism (disambiguation) Zionism is a political movement and an ideology that supports a Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel, where the Jewish nation originated and where Jewish kingdoms and self governing states existed at various times in history. ... Jump to: navigation, search The color red and particularly the red flag are traditional symbols of Socialism. ... The Eternal Jew: 1937 German poster. ...

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 in a war footing, and enabling Germany to continue its war effort for four years despite acute shortages of labour and raw materials. Jump to: navigation, search World War I was primarily a European conflict with many facets: immense human sacrifice, stalemate trench warfare, and the use of new, devastating weapons - tanks, aircraft, machineguns, and poison gas. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1915 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ...

After the war Rathenau, a moderate liberal in politics, 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. The German Democratic Party, or Deutsche Demokratische Partei (DDP), was founded by leaders of the former Progressive Peoples Party (Fortschrittliche Volkspartei) and the left wing of the National Liberal Party (Nationalliberale Partei) in the early days of the Weimar Republic. ...

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 wingers claimed he was part of a "Jewish-Communist conspiracy." Jump to: navigation, search 1921 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search 1922 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search The treaty was an International affair The Treaty of Versailles of 1919 was the peace treaty which officially ended World War I between the Allies and Germany. ... Following World War I there were two Treaties of Rapallo, both named after Rapallo, a resort on the Ligurian coast of Italy: The Treaty of Rapallo, 1920 was an agreement between Italy and the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (the later Yugoslavia) for the independence of the state... The Nazi swastika symbol The National Socialist German Workers Party ( German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), better known as the NSDAP or the Nazi Party was a political party that was led to power in Germany by Adolf Hitler in 1933. ...

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 Soviets' methods. In his Kritik der dreifachen Revolution ("Critique of the triple revolution"), he noted:

"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 intelligence, 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."

Assassination

On June 24, 1922 Rathenau was assassinated by two right-wing army officers. When one morning he was driving from his house to the Wilhelmstraße, as he daily used to do, his car was passed by another in which three armed young men sat. They simultaneously shot at the minister with revolvers and then quickly drove away. A memorial stone in the Königsallee in Berlin-Grunewald commemorates the crime. One of the assassins was the future writer Ernst von Salomon. June 24 is the 175th day of the year (176th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 190 days remaining. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1922 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Ernst von Salomon (September 25, 1902 - August 9, 1972) was a German writer and one of the assassins of Walther Rathenau. ...

Rathenau's assassination may have significantly influenced the long-term political and economic 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.".

Jump to: navigation, search 1922 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search The designation of Freikorps (German for Free Corps) was originally applied to voluntary armies. ... The Reichstag building (April 2004) The Reichstag building in Berlin was constructed as the place where the Reichstag, the parliament of the German Empire, would convene. ... Friedrich Ebert (February 4, 1871–February 28, 1925) was a German politician (SPD), who served as the 9th Chancellor of Germany and its first president during the Weimar period. ...

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
• Gesammelte Schriften in 6 volumns
• 1924 Gesammelte Reden
• 1926 Briefe, 2 volumns
• 1927 Neue Briefe
• 1929 Politische Briefe

Jump to: navigation, search 1908 is a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1912 was a leap year starting on Monday. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1913 is a common year starting on Wednesday. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1917 was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1918 was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1919 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search 1919 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search 1919 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search 1919 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search 1924 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search 1926 was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search 1927 was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search 1929 was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ...

See also

• Liberalism
• Contributions to liberal theory
• 1920s Berlin

Jump to: navigation, search This article discusses liberalism as a major political ideology, not the usage of the term in specific countries. ... This is an (partial) overview of individuals that contributed to the development of liberal theory on a worldwide scale and therefore are strongly associated with the liberal tradition and instrumental in the exposition of political liberalism as a philosophy. ... Marlene Dietrich in the 1920s The Golden Twenties, in Berlin, Germany, were an exciting and extremely vibrant time in the history of Berlin, German history, and European history in general. ...

External links

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