Hugenberg, Alfred
Hugenberg, Alfred
(äl`frĕt ho͞o`gənbĕrkh), 1865–1951, German financier and politician. He was president of the directorate of the Krupp firm (1909–18), entered the Reichstag in 1919, and was chairman (1928–33) of the conservative German Nationalist party. Control of the Hugenberg combine, a media and finance conglomerate, enabled him to mount a powerful propaganda campaign against Communists, socialists, and the Versailles Treaty. He was a major financial backer of the Nazis, hoping to control them, and a member of Hitler's first cabinet (1933), but he resigned after six months. His party was dissolved, and his combine gradually absorbed by the Nazi state.Hugenberg, Alfred
Born June 19, 1865, in Hanover; died Mar. 12, 1951, in Kükenbruch, near Rinteln. German political figure and big entrepreneur.
Hugenberg was one of the founders of the Pan-German League (1891). From 1909 to 1918 he was general manager of the Krupp firm. In 1916 he set up a concern of his own comprising numerous publishing houses, newspapers, news agencies, and motion picture companies. In the years 1919— 20 he was a deputy to the National Assembly and in 1920 became a deputy to the Reichstag, representing the extreme right-wing German Nationalist People’s Party, of which he was chairman from 1928 to 1933. He helped finance Hitler’s National Socialist Party and actively promoted the establishment of the fascist dictatorship. In 1933 he was minister of food and agriculture in Hitler’s government. After the crushing defeat of fascist Germany (1945), Hugenberg established himself in West Germany, where the authorities listed him among fascism’s “fellow travelers” and exempted him from punishment. He was instrumental in the revival of militaristic organizations in West Germany, among them the “Steel Helmets.”