Walther Rathenau (German: [ˈvaltɐ ˈʁaːtənaʊ]; 29 September 1867 – 24 June 1922) was a German industrialist, writer and politician who served as foreign minister of Germany from February 1922 until his assassination in 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, including a nascent Nazi Party, to brand him part of a Jewish-communist conspiracy.
Two months after the signing of the treaty, Rathenau was assassinated by members of the ultra-nationalist Organisation Consul in Berlin in the belief that he was a literal "Elder of Zion". His death was followed by national mourning as well as widespread demonstrations against counter-revolutionary terrorism, which briefly strengthened the Weimar Republic. Rathenau came to be viewed as a democratic martyr during the Weimar era. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, all commemorations of Rathenau were banned.
Rathenau was born in Berlin to Emil Rathenau, a prominent Jewish businessman and founder of the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG), a producer of electricity and electrical equipment, and Mathilde Nachmann.
Education and business experience
Rathenau studied physics, chemistry and philosophy in Berlin and Strasbourg, and received a doctorate in physics in 1889 after studying under August Kundt.
Rathenau worked as a technical engineer in a Swiss aluminium factory and then as a manager in a small electro-chemical firm in Bitterfeld, where he conducted experiments in electrolysis. He returned to Berlin and joined the AEG board in 1899, becoming a leading industrialist in the late German Empire and early Weimar Republic. He set up power stations in Manchester, Buenos Aires and Baku. AEG acquired ownership of a streetcar company in Madrid, and in East Africa he purchased a British firm.
In total, he was involved with 84 companies worldwide. AEG was particularly praised for vertical integration methods and a strong emphasis on supply chain management. Rathenau developed an expertise in business restructuring and turning companies around. His strong organizational abilities made his company very successful. He made substantial profits from commercial lending on a wide industrial scale, which he then reinvested in capital and assets.
Visits to Germany's African colonies
During the same period, Rathenau was becoming interested in politics. He became close friends with the businessman Bernhard Dernburg, who was appointed Germany's first colonial secretary in May 1907. Dernburg introduced Rathenau to Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow, who agreed that at his own expense Rathenau could accompany Dernburg on official visits to the colonies of German East Africa in 1907 and German Southwest Africa in 1908.
Soon after returning from East Africa, Rathenau submitted a report to the German government which was influential in developing official policy towards the colony. Like Dernburg, Rathenau believed that African workers were the most valuable resource in the colony and that it was essential to care for their well-being. Rathenau argued that the colonial justice system must treat Africans fairly.
During his time in German South West Africa, Rathenau condemned the treatment of the Herero people, referring to the Herero and Namaqua genocide as "the greatest atrocity that has ever been brought about by German military policy". He condemned the "system of deportation and concentration camps" and described the "present position of the native" as having the "outward appearance of slavery".
Rathenau held a sense of inferiority in society due to his Jewishness, realising, in the words of Hans-Ulrich Wehler, "that he had come into the world as a second-class citizen and that no amount of ability and merit could ever free him from the condition".
His German Jewish heritage and his accumulated wealth were both factors in establishing his deeply divisive reputation in German politics at a time of increasingly widespread antisemitism in Germany. In a 1918 book, he summed up his thoughts on growing up Jewish in Germany, writing that his patriotism and loyalty to his country were no different from those of any fellow German regardless of religion or ethnicity:
I am a German of Jewish origin. My people are the German people, my homeland is Germany, my faith is German faith, which stands above denominations.At the time, there was a widespread belief in Germany that Jews could never put their country first. The idea that the Jews were "our misfortune", as the German nationalist historian Heinrich Treitschke wrote, led to the proliferation from the 1880s of antisemitic parties. There were no Jewish officers in the Prussian Army – the ruling class in the Imperial Officer Corps was both outspokenly and latently antisemitic and eventually supported the Nazis' antisemitic policies.
Rathenau was a strong proponent of full and radical assimilation of German Jews into German society. In his 1897 article Höre, Israel! ("Hear, O Israel!"), he wrote:
Strange sight! In the midst of German life an isolated, strange human tribe, resplendently and conspicuously adorned, hot-blooded and animated in its behaviour. An Asian horde on the soil of the March of Brandenburg. The forced cheerfulness of these people does not betray the amount of old, unquenched hatred that rests on their shoulders. Little do they know that only an age that keeps all natural forces in check is able to protect them from what their fathers would have suffered. In close association with each other, strictly closed off from the outside – thus they live in a semi-voluntary, invisible ghetto, not a living member of the people but a foreign organism in its body. ... What, then, must happen? An event without historical precedent: the conscious self-education of a race to assimilate to outside demands. ... Assimilation in the sense that tribal qualities – regardless of whether they are good or bad – that are demonstrably hateful to fellow Germans are cast off and replaced by more suitable ones. ... The goal of the processes should not be imitation Germans, but Jews who are German by nature and education.