Karl Helfferich

Karl Theodor Helfferich (July 22, 1872 – April 23, 1924) was a German politician, economist, and financier from Neustadt an der Weinstraße in the Palatinate.

He studied law and political science at the universities of Munich, Berlin, and Strasbourg. He taught at the University of Berlin and later at the government school for colonial politics and oriental languages. In 1902 he entered upon a diplomatic career. He soon became a leader in the German government's policy of economic imperialism, and in 1906 he was appointed director of the Anatolian Railway. In 1908 he was made director of the powerful Deutsche Bank in Berlin. At the close of the Balkan War, Helfferich was the German financial delegate to the international conference (1913). He was Minister of Finance from 1915 to 1917, and was said to be responsible for financing the war through loans instead of taxes. On November 9, 1917 he was appointed Vice-Chancellor.

After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Helfferich was sent to Moscow as the German Ambassador to Russia, succeeding Wilhelm Mirbach, who was assassinated. Elected to the Reichstag of 1920, Helfferich threw in his influence with the extreme nationalists and strongly opposed reparations and the economic fulfillment of the Versailles Treaty. Helfferich was a prominent politician of the German National People's Party (DNVP) and gave radical anti-republican speeches against politicians who supported reparations fulfilment. In June 1920 he was selected as spokesman in the Reichstag for the parliamentary committee of inquiry into policies during the war, which he defended.

During the 1923 hyperinflation, Helfferich developed a plan for a new rye currency, backed by rye and other agriculture products. ["The Great Inflation", William Guttmann, 1975, pages 206-207] His plan was rejected, but many of its elements were incorporated in the successful RentenMark. At the end of 1923, when he applied for the post of Reichbank president, he was rejected in favor of Hjalmar Schacht.

Helfferich was killed in a railway wreck near Bellinzona, Switzerland, on April 23, 1924. His publications comprise chiefly economic and political studies.

Publications by Helfferich

* "The Reform of German Finance", 1897
* "Studies on Money and Banking", 1900
* "Money", 1903
* "Germany's National Wealth 1888-1913", 1915
* "Speeches and Essays from the War", 1917
* "Do Away with Erzberger!", Verlag Scherl, Berlin, 1919, letters to the editor, the Berlin newspaper "Tag"
* "The World War", ("Der Weltkrieg") (3 vols.) published 1919 by Ullstein Berlin

References

* "Karl Helfferich, 1872-1924: Economist, Financier, Politician", John G. Williamson. 1971, Princeton University Press.
*"New International Encyclopedia"
* "A Crash," obituary, Time magazine, May 5, 1924. [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,727793-1,00.html online reprint]

ee also

Weimar Republic