Alfred Hugenberg
As Reich Minister, 1933
Born	Alfred Ernst Christian Alexander Hugenberg (1865-06-19)June 19, 1865 Hanover, Kingdom of Hanover
Died	March 12, 1951(1951-03-12) (aged 85) Kükenbruch, West Germany
Nationality	German
Education	Doctorate in economics
Alma mater	Göttingen, Heidelberg, Berlin, Strassburg
Employer	Krupp
Known for	Politician, media tycoon
Title	Minister of Economics and Agriculture
Term	January 1933 – 29 June 1933
Predecessor	Hermann Warmbold (Economics), Magnus von Braun (Agriculture)
Successor	Kurt Schmitt (Economics), Richard Walther Darré (Agriculture)
Political party	German National People's Party
Religion	Protestantism
Spouse	Gertrud Adickes

Alfred Ernst Christian Alexander Hugenberg (19 June 1865 – 12 March 1951) was an influential German businessman and politician. Hugenberg, a leading figure within nationalist politics in Germany for the first few decades of the twentieth century, became the country's leading media proprietor within the inter-war period. As leader of the German National People's Party Hugenberg was instrumental in helping Adolf Hitler become Chancellor of Germany and served in his first cabinet in 1933. Hugenberg had hoped to control Hitler and use him as his "tool"^[1] but ultimately he had little to no influence in the Third Reich.

Early years[link]

Born in Hanover to Carl Hugenberg, a royal Hanoverian official who in 1867 entered the Prussian Landtag as a member of the National Liberal Party, he studied law in Göttingen, Heidelberg, and Berlin, as well as economics in Strassburg.^[2] In 1891, Hugenberg co-founded, along with Karl Peters, the ultra-nationalist General German League and in 1894 its successor movement the Pan-German League (Alldeutscher Verband).^[2] In 1900 Hugenberg married his second cousin, Gertrud Adickes.^[3] At the same time he was also involved in a scheme in the Province of Posen where the Prussian Settlement Commission bought up land from Poles in order to settle ethnic Germans there.^[4]

Hugenberg initially took a role organising agricultural societies before entering the civil service in the Prussian Ministry of Finance in 1903.^[4] He left the public sector to pursue a career in business and in 1909 he was appointed chairman of the supervisory board of Krupp Steel and built up a close personal and political relationship with Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach.^[5] As well as administering Krupps finance (with considerable success) Hugenberg also set about developing personal business interests from 1916 onwards, including a controlling interest in the national newsmagazine Die Gartenlaube^[4] He remained at Krupp until 1918 when he set out to build his own business and during the Great Depression he was able to buy up dozens of local newspapers. These became the basis of his publishing firm Scherl House and, after he added controlling interests in Universum Film AG, Ala-Anzeiger AG, Vera Verlag and the Telegraphen Union, he had a near monopoly on the media which he used to agitate against the Weimar Republic amongst Germany's middle classes.^[6]

Nationalist leader[link]

Hugenberg Papen poster.

Hugenberg was one of a number of Pan Germans to become involved in the National Liberal Party in the run up to the First World War.^[7] During the war he switched his allegiance to the Fatherland Party and became one of its leading members, emphasising territorial expansion and anti-Semitism as his two main political issues.^[8] In 1919 Hugenberg joined the Deutschnationale Volkspartei or DNVP (German National People's Party), which he represented in the National Assembly (that produced the 1919 constitution of the Weimar Republic). He was elected to the Reichstag in the 1920 elections to the new body.^[9] The DNVP suffered heavy losses in the 1928 election, leading to the appointment of Hugenberg as sole chairman on the 21 October that same year.^[9]

Hugenberg moved the party in a far more radical direction than it had taken under its previous leader, Kuno Graf von Westarp. He hoped to use radical nationalism to restore the party's fortunes, and eventually, to overthrow the Weimar constitution and install an authoritarian form of government.^[2] Up to this point right-wing politics outside of the far right was going through a process of reconciliation to the Weimar Republic but this ended under Hugenberg, who renewed earlier DNVP calls for its immediate destruction.^[10] Under his direction a new DNVP manifesto appeared in 1931, demonstrating the shift to the right. Amongst its demands were immediate restoration of the Hohenzollern monarchy, a reversal of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, compulsory military conscription, repossession of the German colonial empire, a concerted effort to build up closer links with German people outside Germany (especially in Austria), a dilution of the role of the Reichstag to that of supervisory body to a newly established professional house of appointees reminiscent of Benito Mussolini's corporative state and reduction in the perceived over-representation of Jews in German public life.^[11]

Hugenberg also sought to eliminate internal party democracy and instill a führerprinzip within the DNVP, leading to some members breaking away to establish the Conservative People's Party (KVP) in late 1929.^[11] More were to follow in June 1930, appaled by Hugenberg's extreme opposition to the cabinet of Heinrich Brüning, a moderate whom some within the DNVP wanted to support.^[12]

Under Hugenberg's leadership, the DNVP toned down and later abandoned the monarchism which had characterized the party in its earlier years.^{[citation needed]} Despite Hugenberg's background in industry that constituency gradually deserted the DNVP under his leadership, largely due to a general feeling amongst industrialists that Hugenberg was too inflexible, and soon the party became the main voice of agrarian interest in the Reichstag.^[9]

Relationship with Hitler[link]

Hugenberg was vehemently opposed to the Young Plan and he set up a "Reich Committee for the German People's Petition" to oppose it, featuring the likes of Franz Seldte, Heinrich Class, Theodor Duesterberg and Fritz Thyssen.^[13] However he recognised that the DNVP and their elite band of allies did not have enough popular support to carry any rejection of the scheme through. As such Hugenberg felt that he needed a nationalist with support amongst the working classes whom he could use to whip up popular sentiment against the Plan. Adolf Hitler was the only realistic candidate and Hugenberg decided that he would use the Nazi Party leader to get his way.^[14] As a result the Nazi Party soon became benefactors of Hugenberg's largesse, both in terms of monetary donations and of favourable coverage from the Hugenberg-owned press, which had previously been largely ignored Hitler or denounced him as a socialist.^[14] Joseph Goebbels, who had a deep hatred of Hugenberg, initially spoke privately of breaking from Hitler over the alliance but he changed his mind when Hugenberg agreed that Goebbels should handle the propaganda for the campaign, giving the Nazi Party access to Hugenberg's media empire.^[15] Hitler was able to use Hugenberg to push himself into the political mainstream and once the Young Plan was passed by referendum Hitler promptly ended his links with Hugenberg.^[16] Hitler publicly blamed Hugenberg for the failure of the campaign but he retained the links with big business that the Committee had allowed him to cultivate and this began a process of the magnates deserting the DNVP for the Nazis.^[17] Hitler's handling of the affair was marred only by one thing and that was premature announcement in the Nazi press of his repudiation of the alliance by the Strasser brothers, whose left-wing economics were incompatible with Hugenberg's arch-capitalism.^[18]

Hugenberg in Bad Harzburg, 1931, with Prince Eitel Friedrich

Despite this episode in February 1931 Hugenberg joined the Nazi Party in leading the DNVP out of the Reichstag altogether as a protest against the Brüning government. By then the two parties were in a very loose federation known as the 'National Opposition'.^[19] This was followed in July of the same year by the release of a joint statement with Hitler guaranteeing that the pair would co-operate for the overthrow of the Weimar 'system'.^[20] The two presented a united front at Bad Harzburg on 21 October 1931 as part of a wider right-wing rally leading to suggestions that a Harzburg Front involving the two parties and the veterans movement Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten had emerged.^[21] The two leaders soon clashed however and Hugenberg's refusal to endorse Hitler in the German presidential election, 1932 widened the gap.^[21] Indeed rift between the two opened further when Hugenberg, fearing that Hitler might win the Presidency, persuaded Theodor Duesterberg to run as a junker candidate. Although he was eliminated on the first vote, due largely to Nazi allegations regarding his Jewish parentage, Hitler nonetheless failed to secure the Presidency.^[22]

Hugenberg's party had experienced a growth in support at the November 1932 election at the expense of the Nazis leading to a secret meeting between the two in which a reconciliation of sorts was agreed. Hugenberg hoped to harness the Nazis for his own ends once again and as such he dropped his attacks on them for the campaign for the March 1933 election.^[21]

Hitler's rise to power[link]

In early January 1933 Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher had developed plans for an expanded coalition government to include not only Hugenberg but also dissident Nazi Gregor Strasser and Centre Party politician Adam Stegerwald. Although Hugenberg had designs on a return to government his hatred of trade union activity meant that he had no intention of working with Stegerwald, the head of the Catholic Trade Union movement. When von Schleicher refused to exclude Stegerwald from his plans, Hugenberg broke off negotiations.^[23]

Hugenberg's main confidante Reinhold Quaatz had, despite being half-Jewish, pushed for Hugenberg to follow a more völkisch path and work with the Nazi Party and after the collapse of the von Schleicher talks this was the path he followed.^[24] Hugenberg and Hitler met on January 17, 1933 and Hugenberg suggested that they both enter the cabinet of Kurt von Schleicher, a proposal rejected by Hitler who would not move from his demands for the Chancellorship. Hitler did agree in principle to allow von Schleicher to serve under him as Defence Minister, although Hugenberg warned the Nazi leader that as long as Paul von Hindenburg was President Hitler would never be Chancellor.^[25] A further meeting between the two threatened to derail any alliance after Hugenberg rejected Hitler's demands for Nazi control over the interior ministries of Germany and Prussia but by this time Franz von Papen had come round to the idea of Hitler as Chancellor and he worked hard to persuade the two leaders to come together.^[26]

During the negotiations between Franz von Papen and President Paul von Hindenburg, Hindenburg had insisted that Hugenberg be given the ministires of Economics and Agriculture both at national level and in Prussia as a condition of Hitler becoming Chancellor, something of a surprise given the President's well publicised dislike of Hugenberg.^[27] Hugenberg, eager for a share of power, agreed to the plan and continued to believe that he could use Hitler for his own ends, telling the Stahlhelm leader Theodor Duesterberg that "we'll box Hitler in".^[28] He initially rejected HItler's plans to immediately call a fresh election, fearing that damage such a vote might inflict on his own party but, after being informed by Otto Meißner that the plan had Hindenburg's endorsement and by von Papen that von Schleicher was preparing to launch a military coup, he conceded to Hitler's wishes.^[29] Hugenberg vigorously campaigned for the NSDAP–DNVP alliance, although other leading members within his party expressed fears over socialist elements to Nazi rhetoric and instead appealed for a nonparty dictatorship, pleas ignored by Hitler.^[30]

Removal from politics[link]

In the elections Hugenberg's DNVP captured 52 seats in the Reichstag, although any hope that these seats could ensure influence for the party evaporated with the passing of the Enabling Act of 1933 soon after the vote.^[31] Nevertheless Hugenberg was Minister of Economy in the new government and was also appointed Minister of Agriculture in the Nazi cabinet, largely due to the support his party enjoyed amongst the north German landowners. As Minister Hugenberg declared a temporary moratorium on foreclosures, cancelled some debts and placed tarrifs on some widely produced agricultural goods in order to stimulate the sector. As a move to protect dairy farming he also placed limits on margarine production, although this move saw a rapid increase in the price of butter and margarine and made Hugenberg an unpopular figure outside of the farming community, hastening the inevitable departure of this non-Nazi from the cabinet.^[32] Meanwhile In June 1933, Hitler was forced to disavow Hugenberg who while attending the London World Economic Conference put forth a programme of German colonial expansion in both Africa and Eastern Europe as the best way of ending the Great Depression, which created a major storm abroad.^[33] Hugenberg's fate was sealed when State Secretary Fritz Reinhardt, ostensibly a subordinate to Hugenberg as Minister of Economy, presented a work-creation plan to the cabinet. The policy was supported by every member except Hugenberg, who was strongly opposed to the levels of government intervention in the economy that the scheme required.^[34]

An increasingly isolated figure, Hugenberg was finally forced to resign from the cabinet after a campaign of harassment and arrest was launched by Hitler against his DNVP coalition partners.^[35] The Sturmabteilung were also turned against the DNVP, with youth movements loyal to Hugenberg becoming the focus of attacks.^[4] He announced his formal resignation on 29 June 1933 and he was replaced by Kurt Schmitt in the Economy Ministry and Richard Walther Darré in the Agriculture Ministry.^[36] A 'Friendship Agreement' was signed between the Nazis and the DNVP immediately afterwards, the terms of which effectively dissolved the Nationalists with a few members whose loyalty could be guaranteed absorbed into the Nazi Party.^[37] Indeed the German National Front, as the DNVP had officially been called since May 1933, had officially dissolved on 27 June.^[38]

Although driven from his cabinet post Hugenberg was, along with von Papen and other former DNVP and Zentrum members, included on the list of candidates for the November 1933 election as a concession to middle class voters.^[39] However his stock with the Nazis had fallen so much that in December 1933 the Telegraph Union, the news agency owned by Hugenberg, was taken over by the Propaganda Ministry and merged into a new German News Office.^[40] Hugenberg was allowed to remain in the Reichstag until 1945 as one of 22 so-called "guests" members, who were officially designated as non-party representatives. Given that they shared the assembly with 639 Nazi deputies they had no influence.^[41]

Later years[link]

Although Hugenberg had lost the Telegraph Union early on he was allowed to retain most of his media interests until 1943 when the Nazi controlled Eher Verlag took control of his Scherl House. Hugenberg did not let them go cheaply however as he negotiated a large portfolio of shares in the Rhenish-Westphalian industries in return for his co-operation.^[9]

Hugenberg was initially detained after the war but in 1949 a Denazification court at Detmold adjudged him a "fellow traveller" rather than a Nazi, meaning that he was allowed to keep his property and business interests.^[9] He died on 12 March 1951 in Kükenbruch (present-day Extertal) near Detmold.

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Alfred Hugenberg

External links[link]

• Spartacus Educational website
• entry on Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence

v t e Economy Ministers of Germany Imperial Economy Secretaries (1871–1918) Rudolf Schwander Hans Karl Freiherr von Stein zu Nord- und Ostheim August Müller Weimar Republic (1918–1933) Rudolf Wissell Robert Schmidt Ernst Scholz Robert Schmidt Johann Becker Hans von Raumer Joseph Koeth Eduard Hamm Albert Neuhaus Rudolf Krohne Julius Curtius Paul Moldenhauer Robert Schmidt Hermann Dietrich Ernst Trendelenburg Hermann Warmbold Ernst Trendelenburg Hermann Warmbold Nazi Germany (1933–1945) Alfred Hugenberg Kurt Schmitt Hjalmar Schacht Hermann Göring Walther Funk German Democratic Republic (1949–1990) Christa Luft Gerhard Pohl Federal Republic of Germany (1949–) Ludwig Erhard Kurt Schmücker Karl Schiller Helmut Schmidt Hans Friderichs Otto Graf Lambsdorff Manfred Lahnstein Otto Graf Lambsdorff Martin Bangemann Helmut Haussmann Jürgen Möllemann Günter Rexrodt Werner Müller Wolfgang Clement Michael Glos Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg Rainer Brüderle Philipp Rösler

Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang (December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976) was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor.^[3] One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute.^[4] His most famous films are the groundbreaking Metropolis (the world's most expensive silent film at the time of its release) and M, made before he moved to the United States, his iconic precursor to the film noir genre.

Life and career[link]

Early life[link]

Lang was born in Vienna as the second son of Anton Lang (1860–1940),^[5] an architect and construction company manager, and his wife Pauline "Paula" Lang née Schlesinger (1864–1920). Fritz Lang himself was baptized on 28 December 1890 at the Schottenkirche in Vienna.^[6]

Lang's parents were of Moravian^{[citation needed]} descent and practicing Roman Catholics. His mother was born Jewish, but had converted to Catholicism when Fritz was ten. His mother took this conversion seriously and was dedicated to raising Fritz as a Catholic. Lang never had an interest in his Jewish heritage and identified himself as Catholic. Although he was not a particularly devout Catholic, he "regularly used Catholic images and themes [in] his films".^[7]

After finishing school, Lang briefly attended the Technical University of Vienna, where he studied civil engineering and eventually switched to art. In 1910 he left Vienna to see the world, traveling throughout Europe and Africa and later Asia and the Pacific area. In 1913, he studied painting in Paris, France.

At the outbreak of World War I, Lang returned to Vienna and volunteered for military service in the Austrian army and fought in Russia and Romania, where he was wounded three times. While recovering from his injuries and shell shock in 1916, he wrote some scenarios and ideas for films. He was discharged from the army with the rank of lieutenant in 1918 and did some acting in the Viennese theater circuit for a short time before being hired as a writer at Decla, Erich Pommer's Berlin-based production company.

Expressionist films: the Weimar years (1918-1933)[link]

His writing stint was brief, as Lang soon started to work as a director at the German film studio Ufa, and later Nero-Film, just as the Expressionist movement was building. In this first phase of his career, Lang alternated between art films such as Der Müde Tod ("The Weary Death") and popular thrillers such as Die Spinnen ("The Spiders"), combining popular genres with Expressionist techniques to create an unprecedented synthesis of popular entertainment with art cinema. In 1920, he met his future wife, the writer and actress Thea von Harbou. She and Lang co-wrote all of his movies from 1921 through 1933, including 1922's Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (Dr. Mabuse the Gambler), which ran for over four hours in two parts in the original version and was the first in the Dr. Mabuse trilogy, 1924's five-hour Die Nibelungen, the famous 1927 film Metropolis, and the 1931 classic, M, his first "talking" picture.

Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou in their Berlin flat, 1923 or 1924

Although some^[who?] consider Lang's work to be simple melodrama, he produced a coherent oeuvre that helped to establish the characteristics of film noir, with its recurring themes of psychological conflict, paranoia, fate and moral ambiguity.^{[citation needed]} His work influenced filmmakers as disparate as Jacques Rivette and William Friedkin.

In 1931, after Woman in the Moon, Lang directed what many film scholars consider to be his masterpiece: M, a disturbing story of a child murderer (Peter Lorre in his first starring role) who is hunted down and brought to rough justice by Berlin's criminal underworld. M remains a powerful work; it was remade in 1951 by Joseph Losey, but this version had little impact on audiences, and has become harder to see than the original film. Lang epitomized the stereotype of the tyrannical German film director such as Erich von Stroheim and Otto Preminger; he was known for being hard to work with. During the climactic final scene in M, he allegedly threw Peter Lorre down a flight of stairs in order to give more authenticity to Lorre's battered look. His wearing a monocle added to the stereotype.

At the end of 1932, Lang started filming The Testament of Dr. Mabuse. Adolf Hitler came to power in January 1933, and by March 30, the new regime banned it as an incitement to public disorder. Testament is sometimes deemed an anti-Nazi film as Lang had put phrases used by the Nazis into the mouth of the title character.

Whereas Lang was worried about the advent of the Nazi regime, partly because of his Jewish heritage,^[7] his wife and screen writer Thea von Harbou had started to sympathize with the Nazis in the early 1930s and joined the NSDAP in 1932. They soon divorced. Lang's fears would be realized following his departure from Austria, as under Nazi eugenics laws he would be identified as a Jew even though his mother was a converted Roman Catholic, and he was raised as such.

Emigration[link]

On the set of The Woman in the Moon, 1929.

Shortly afterwards, Lang left Germany. According to Lang, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels called Lang to his offices to inform him that The Testament of Dr Mabuse was being banned but that he was nevertheless so impressed by Lang's abilities as a filmmaker (especially Metropolis), he was offering Lang a position as the head of German film studio UFA. Lang had stated that it was during this meeting that he had decided to leave for Paris - but that the banks had closed by the time the meeting was over. Lang has stated that he fled that very evening. ^[8][9]

Lang left Germany in 1934 and moved to Paris^[10] after his marriage to Thea von Harbou, who stayed behind, ended in 1933.^{[citation needed]}

In Paris, Lang filmed a version of Ferenc Molnár's Liliom, starring Charles Boyer. This was Lang's only film in French (not counting the French version of Testament). He then went to the United States.^[10]

Hollywood career (1936-1957)[link]

Upon his arrival in Hollywood, Lang joined the MGM studio and directed the crime drama Fury, starring Spencer Tracy as a man wrongly lynched for a crime he didn't commit. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1939. Lang made twenty-one features in the next twenty-one years, working in a variety of genres at every major studio in Hollywood, occasionally producing his films as an independent. These films, often compared unfavorably by contemporary critics to Lang's earlier works, have since been reevaluated as being integral to the emergence and evolution of American genre cinema, film noir in particular.

One of his most famous films noir is the police drama The Big Heat (1953), noted for its uncompromising brutality, especially for a scene in which Lee Marvin throws scalding coffee on Gloria Grahame's face. During this period, his visual style simplified (owing in part to the constraints of the Hollywood studio system) and his worldview became increasingly pessimistic, culminating in the cold, geometric style of his last American films, While the City Sleeps (1956) and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956).

Lang found it harder to find congenial production conditions in Hollywood and his advancing age left him less inclined to grapple with American backers. The German producer Artur Brauner expressed interest in remaking The Indian Tomb (a story that Lang had developed in the twenties that was ultimately taken from him by studio heads and directed instead by Joe May),^[11] so Lang abandoned his plans for retirement and returned to Germany in order to make his "Indian Epic". Following the production, Brauner was ready to proceed with his remake of Das Testament des Doctor Mabuse when Lang approached him with the idea of adding another original film to the series. The result was The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960), made in a hurry and with a relatively small budget. It can be viewed as the marriage between the director's early experiences with expressionist techniques in Germany as well as the spartan style already visible in his late American work. Lang was approaching blindness during the production, making it his final project.

Death and legacy[link]

While his career had ended without fanfare, his American and later German works were championed by the critics of the Cahiers du cinéma. Lang died in 1976 and was interred in the Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.^[12]

Filmography[link]

Pop culture[link]

• Lang appears as himself in Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 film Le Mepris. During the film, his reputation is discussed, and he somewhat lampoons his own reputation for being a temperamental director.

• An old German director with the demeanor of Lang appears during the filming of a bank robbery in Woody Allen's 1969 comedy Take the Money and Run.

• In David Foster Wallace's novel Infinite Jest, Lang is mentioned in tandem with James Cameron on page 48.

• A fictional Lang appears as a main character in the Fullmetal Alchemist movie Conqueror of Shambala.

• In Episode 11 of Season 1 of City Hunter, the antagonist's name is Fritz Lang.

• Madonna portrayed Lang for a sequence in her 1989 music video for "Express Yourself", complete with Lang's signature suit and monocle. The video itself is a tribute to Metropolis (film).

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Michaux, Agnès. 'Je les chasserai jusqu'au bout du monde jusqu'à ce qu'ils en crèvent; Paris: Editions 1, 1997; ISBN 2-86391-933-4
• Friedrich, Otto. City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940s; New York: Harper & Row, 1986; ISBN 0-06-015626-0 (See e.g. pp. 45–46 for anecdotes revealing Lang's arrogance.)
• McGilligan, Patrick. Fritz Lang: The Nature of the Beast; New York: St. Martins Press, 1997; ISBN 0-312-13247-6
• Schnauber, Cornelius. Fritz Lang in Hollywood; Wien: Europaverlag, c1986; ISBN 3-203-50953-9 (in German)
• Youngkin, Stephen (2005). The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-2360-7.  - Contains interviews with Lang and a discussion of the making of the film M

External links[link]

Biography portal

• Fritz Lang at the Internet Movie Database
• Fritz Lang Bibliography (via UC Berkeley Media Resources Center)
• Senses of Cinema - Biographie
• Fritz Lang at filmportal.de
• Interview with Fritz Lang from 1967
• Bibliography
• Fritz Lang at Find a Grave
• (French) "Symptôme, exhibition, angoisse. Représentation de la terreur dans l’œuvre allemande de Fritz Lang (1919-1933/1959-1960)", un article de Nicole Brenez extrait de De la Figure en général et du Corps en particulier (1998).

Wolfgang Clement
Wolfgang Clement
Federal Minister of Economics and Labour
In office 2002–2005
Preceded by	Werner Müller (Economics) Walter Riester (Labour)
Succeeded by	Michael Glos (Economics) Franz Müntefering (Labour)
Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia
In office 1998–2002
Preceded by	Johannes Rau
Succeeded by	Peer Steinbrück
Personal details
Born	(1940-07-07) 7 July 1940 (age 71) Bochum, Germany
Nationality	German
Alma mater	University of Marburg

Wolfgang Clement (born 7 July 1940 in Bochum) is a German politician. Clement was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). He was Premier of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia from 1998 to 2002 and Federal Minister of Economics and Labour from 2002 to 2005.

Wolfgang Clement is an Honorary Member of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation

Education and career[link]

After attaining his abitur at the Graf-Engelbert-Schule in Bochum, Clement first completed a Volontariat (internship) at the Westfälische Rundschau newspaper in Dortmund. He then studied jurisprudence at the University of Münster, leaving in 1965 with a law degree after passing the First State Examination. This qualification also permitted him to teach. Clement was subsequently employed as an articled clerk and assistant at the Institute for Trial Law at the University of Marburg. In 1968, he returned to the Westfälische Rundschau, first as a political editor. He later became head of the political department, then deputy editor-in-chief. In 1986, Clement moved to the newspaper Hamburger Morgenpost in Hamburg, where he remained as editor-in-chief until 1989. On 12 November 2004, he was presented with an honorary doctorate (Dr. h. c.) by Ruhr University in Bochum.

Family[link]

Wolfgang Clement is married and has five daughters. He lives in Bonn.

Party[link]

Clement has been a member of the SPD since 1970. From 1981 to 1986 he was spokesman for the SPD federal executive board and was also a deputy federal party whip from 1985 to 1986.

From 1994 to 2001 he was on the SPD State Executive in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), from 1996 as deputy leader. Clement has been a member of the SPD federal executive board since 1997 and SPD deputy chairman since December 1999.

On 31 July 2008, Clement was shut out from the SPD^[1] by the Landesschiedskommission (i.e. State arbitration board) of NRW. Clement, not willing to accept this, went to the superior Bundesschiedskommission (Federal arbitration board) which subsequently cancelled the verdict on 24 November 2008. On 25 November, however, Clement himself announced his decision to leave the party.

Member of Parliament[link]

Clement was a member of the State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia from 1 October 1993 to 7 November 2002.

Public office[link]

In 1989 Clement was appointed head of the state chancellery of North Rhine-Westphalia by Johannes Rau’s government. After the state election in 1990 he relinquished this office in favour of the post of Minister for special tasks, effective from 13 June 1990. After the 1995 state election Clement was made Minister of Economics and Small Business, Technology and Transport.

After he had long been seen as the “crown prince” of Johannes Rau, Clement was finally elected as Rau’s successor as State Premier of North Rhine-Westphalia on 27 May 1998.

In a government statement of 17 June 1998 Wolfgang Clement announced the amalgamation of the Justice and Interior ministries into one entity. There was serious doubt about whether this decision was compatible with the German Constitution, as it was seen by some as a violation of the division of powers. On 9 February 1999 the Constitutional Court of North Rhine-Westphalia ruled that the amalgamation violated the rights of the state parliament. In spite of this, Clement wanted to continue with the merger, at least until the 2000 state election, but had to bow to growing pressure from coalition partner Bündnis '90/Die Grünen (the Green party). The merger was cancelled and Clement himself took on the responsibilities of Justice Minister from 10 to 22 March 1999. From 23 March 1999 to the end of the legislative period on 27 June 2000 Jochen Dieckmann was Justice Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia.

In the 2000 state election the SPD, under Clement’s leadership, received 42.8% of all votes cast, a drop of 3.2% from the previous election. However, the SPD was again able to form a coalition government with the Greens.

Even after this election there were fierce debates between Clement and in particular Bärbel Höhn, the Minister of the Environment (Bündnis '90/Die Grünen), who opposed the continuation of coal mining subsidies and the support of big industrial projects (e.g. Garzweiler II) that were promoted by Clement.

Since he started his term of office as state premier of North Rhine-Westphalia on 27 May 1998, four ministers have resigned or left their position early.

• October 1998: Minister for the Economy Bodo Hombach moves to Berlin to become Minister of the Chancellery after the federal election (which resulted in an SPD-Greens coalition under the leadership of Gerhard Schröder)

• 9 March 1999: Reinhard Rauball resigns from his office of Justice Minister after just once week in the position

• 17 April 2001: Detlev Samland had admitted at the end of March 2001 that he had not paid tax on his earnings from being a board director according to regulations. He now accepts the consequences from this tax misdemeanour and resigns from his position as Minister for European and Federal Affairs. His successor his Hannelore Kraft.

• 26 January 2000: The so-called “flight affair” causes the downfall of Finance Minister and close friend of Clement, Heinz Schleußer. It was alleged that Schleußer and other leading politicians had used aircraft belonging to the Westdeutsche Landesbank (West German State Bank, WestLB) for personal flights. Schleußer maintains until the end that he never flew on personal business but eventually admits that he had taken a female companion on board on two occasions, a claim that he had previously denied.

In Clement’s time in office as state premier of North Rhine-Westphalia four investigating committees were set up.

• Review of state enterprises: Gesellschaft für Wirtschaftsförderung (Institute for Economic Support), Projekt Ruhr GmbH, Bildungszentrum für die Entsorgungs- und Wasserwirtschaft GmbH (Education Centre for Waste and Water Ltd., BEW) as well as the business connections of Christian Langer with the state chancellery.

• High Definition Oberhausen (HDO) – to look at the support practices, especially limitations and shortcomings, of the state in broadcasting, film and media sectors, in particular examining all actions and mismanagement at the Technologiezentrum Oberhausen (Oberhausen Technology Centre, HDO)

• High Definition Oberhausen (HDO) – continuing the examination of actions and mismanagement begun in the second committee.

• Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale (West German State Bank Giro Centre, WestLB) – looking at the air travel made by members of the state government or parliament with the assistance and at the expense of the WestLB.

After the 2002 federal election Clement gave up his office of Premier on 21 October and was appointed federal Minister of Economics Labour in the government led by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. With this he was taking over the newly created so-called “super ministry” that had been formed by the amalgamation of the Economic and Labour ministries.

The expectations created by the merger – that Clement could bring about an economic upturn and a decrease in unemployment thanks to the expanded powers available to him – are yet to be fulfilled (as of July 2005). Clement’s policy in this role has been marked by two areas of conflict. First, there have been numerous conflicts with Minister for the Environment Jürgen Trittin (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) on the issues of deposits on drink cans, the phasing out of nuclear energy and the trading in emissions certificates that had been agreed upon at the World Climate Conference in Kyoto. Second, in contrast to many other government members, Clement wanted to continue unwaveringly with the measures under Schröder’s “Agenda 2010” reforms package, rather than slowing down the roll-out. The reforms have come under much criticism since their unveiling in March 2003.

In view of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s frequent threats to resign, especially in 2003, Clement was seen by some to be Schröder’s only possible successor.

Post 2005 federal election[link]

Following the 18 September 2005 federal election, Clement was, together with the other ministers in Schröder’s government, dismissed from office on 18 October 2005, the opening session of the sixteenth Bundestag. At the same time, Clement was appointed by President Horst Köhler in a caretaker role to continue his functions until the formation of a new government. After the election of Angela Merkel as Chancellor on 22 November 2005 Clement permanently left office.

References[link]

This article draws heavily on the corresponding article in the German-language Wikipedia.

External links[link]

• "Wolfgang Clement – Prime Minister of North-Rhine Westphalia" – 1998 article at the World Socialist Web Site
• Article by Wolfgang Clement about the Baltic Sea natural gas pipeline at the website of Wintershall AG, December 2005
• The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation

v t e Ministers-President of North Rhine-Westphalia Rudolf Amelunxen Karl Arnold Fritz Steinhoff Franz Meyers Heinz Kühn Johannes Rau Wolfgang Clement Peer Steinbrück Jürgen Rüttgers Hannelore Kraft

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