Paul Silverberg

Last updated
Paul Silverberg, 1930 Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1987-1217-504, Paul Silverberg.jpg
Paul Silverberg, 1930

Paul Silverberg (born 6 May 1876 in Bedburg; died 5 October 1959 in Lugano) was a leading German industrialist until the rise of the Nazis. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

Early life

Paul Silverberg was born in Bedburg on 6 May 1876, the second of four children and the only son of Adolf (1845-1903) and Theodora Silverberg (1853-1924), née Schönbrunn. His father came from a traditional Jewish family and was active in Bedburg as a textile and brown coal entrepreneur. Paul Silverberg was initially of the Jewish faith, but converted to Protestantism in 1895. [1]

Leading Industrialist

Paul Silverberg initially worked as a lawyer. In 1903, he became the General Director of Fortuna AG, a brown coal company controlled by his father, which later became the Rheinische AG (today Rheinbraun). In 1926 he joined the company's supervisory board. Applying a strategy of horizontal integration he took over two other Rhineland brown coal firms to create the Rheinische AG für Braunkohlenbergbau und Brikettfabrikation (RAG). He was said to have blocked the ambitions of Hugo Stinnes and August Thyssen. A leading industrial leader of Jewish origin during the Weimar Republic, [4] in 1928 he sat on the supervisory board of twenty-five major German firms. [5]

Nazi persecution

After the Nazis came to power in Germany under Hitler in 1933, Silverberg was persecuted because of his Jewish heritage. [6] His trust in his network of allies was shattered, as non-Jewish industrialist Friedrich Flick and Fritz Thyssen manuveured to deprive him of control. [7] Obliged by Nazi anti-Jewish laws to withdraw from companies, associations, and organizations, his resistance was broken in 1933. [7] Expelled from the Reich Association of German Industry (Reichsverband der Deutschen Industrie) on 29 March 1933, and forced to resign as president of the Cologne Chamber of Industry and Commerce on 5 April 1933 he left Germany for the Swiss town of Lugano in late 1933. [7]

Postwar

Despite Konrad Adenauer's requests and being awarded the honorary presidency of the Cologne Chamber of Commerce and Industry, he refused to return to Germany after 1945. [8] Silverberg was a member of Gustav Stresemann's national liberal Deutsche Volkspartei. [9]

Publications

Literature

Sources

  1. 1 2 Beitrag über Paul Silverberg im Internetportal „Rheinische Geschichte“
  2. Rezension zu: Boris Gehlen: Paul Silverberg (1876-1959)
  3. Nachlass Bundesarchiv N 1013
  4. "Clingan on Gehlen, 'Paul Silverberg (1876-1959): Ein Unternehmer' | H-German | H-Net". networks.h-net.org. Retrieved 2022-02-08.
  5. Windolf, Paul. "The German-Jewish Economic Elite (1900 – 1933)" (PDF). University Trier. p. 15.
  6. Reinhard., Neebe (2011). Großindustrie, Staat und NSDAP 1930-1933 : Paul Silverberg und der Reichsverband der Deutschen Industrie in der Krise der Weimarer Republik. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN   978-3-647-35703-4. OCLC   775302548.
  7. 1 2 3 r2WPadmin. "Expulsion – Plunder – Flight: Businessmen and Emigration from Nazi Germany". Immigrant Entrepreneurship. Retrieved 2022-02-08.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. "1950-05-11 Brief Silverberg :: Konrad Adenauer". www.konrad-adenauer.de. Archived from the original on 2022-02-08. Retrieved 2022-02-08.
  9. Fritz, Stephen G. (1984). "The Search for Volksgemeinschaft: Gustav Stresemann and the Baden DVP, 1926-1930". German Studies Review. 7 (2): 249–280. doi:10.2307/1428572. ISSN   0149-7952. JSTOR   1428572.


Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Konrad Adenauer</span> Chancellor of West Germany from 1949 to 1963

Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer was a German statesman who served as the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1963. From 1946 to 1966, he was the first leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a new founded Christian-democratic party, which became the dominant force in the country under his leadership.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hjalmar Schacht</span> German politician and economist (1877–1970)

Hjalmar Schacht was a German economist, banker, centre-right politician, and co-founder of the German Democratic Party. He served as the Currency Commissioner and President of the Reichsbank under the Weimar Republic. He was a fierce critic of his country's post-World War I reparations obligations. He was also central in helping create the group of German industrialists and landowners that pushed Hindenburg to appoint the first NSDAP-led government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hans Globke</span> German politician (1898–1973)

Hans Josef Maria Globke was a German administrative lawyer, who worked in the Prussian and Reich Ministry of the Interior in the Reich, during the Weimar Republic and the time of National Socialism and was later the Under-Secretary of State and Chief of Staff of the German Chancellery in West Germany from 28 October 1953 to 15 October 1963 under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. He is the most prominent example of the continuity of the administrative elites between Nazi Germany and the early West Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deutscher Werkbund</span> German Association of Craftsmen

The Deutscher Werkbund is a German association of artists, architects, designers and industrialists established in 1907. The Werkbund became an important element in the development of modern architecture and industrial design, particularly in the later creation of the Bauhaus school of design. Its initial purpose was to establish a partnership of product manufacturers with design professionals to improve the competitiveness of German companies in global markets. The Werkbund was less an artistic movement than a state-sponsored effort to integrate traditional crafts and industrial mass production techniques, to put Germany on a competitive footing with England and the United States. Its motto Vom Sofakissen zum Städtebau indicates its range of interest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilhelm Marx</span> German politician (1863–1946)

Wilhelm Marx was a German judge, politician and member of the Catholic Centre Party. During the Weimar Republic he was the chancellor of Germany twice, from 1923–1925 and 1926–1928, and served briefly as the minister president of Prussia in 1925. With a total of 3 years and 73 days, he was the longest-serving chancellor during the Weimar Republic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilhelm Sollmann</span> German journalist and politician (1881–1951)

Friedrich Wilhelm Sollmann, later William Frederick Sollmann was a German journalist, politician, and interior minister of the Weimar Republic. In 1919, he was on the staff of the German delegation that was to receive the Treaty of Versailles. In 1933, he emigrated and eventually moved to the United States where he became an advocate for the peaceful resolution of conflicts.

The Adolf Hitler Fund of German Trade and Industry was a donation from the German employers' association and the "Reichsverband" of German industry, which was established on June 1, 1933, to support the NSDAP. It was named after the Führer of the NSDAP Adolf Hitler and was meant for the "national reconstruction".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karl Jarres</span> German politician (1874–1951)

Karl Jarres was a German lawyer and politician of the German People's Party during the Weimar Republic. From 1923 to 1924, he was the minister of the Interior and vice-chancellor of Germany. Jarres was also the long-serving mayor of Duisburg from 1914 to 1933. After the Nazis deposed him, he started a career in industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Josef Grohé</span> German Nazi official and war criminal

Josef Grohé was a German Nazi Party official. He was the long-serving Gauleiter of Gau Cologne-Aachen and Reichskommissar for Belgium and Northern France toward the end of the Second World War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Secret Meeting of 20 February 1933</span> Campaign fund raising conference between Hitler and German industrialists

The Secret Meeting of 20 February 1933 was a secret meeting held by Adolf Hitler and 20 to 25 industrialists at the official residence of the President of the Reichstag Hermann Göring in Berlin. Its purpose was to raise funds for the election campaign of the Nazi Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus (politician)</span> German politician (1891-1971)

Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus was a German politician from the Conservative People's Party and a Reichsminister in both of Chancellor Heinrich Brüning's cabinets. In the first he was Minister for the Occupied Territories and then Minister without Portfolio ; in the second, he served as Minister of Transport.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Militant League for German Culture</span>

The Militant League for German Culture, was a nationalistic anti-Semitic political society during the Weimar Republic and the Nazi era. It was founded in 1928 as the Nationalsozialistische Gesellschaft für deutsche Kultur by Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg and remained under his leadership until it was reorganized and renamed to the National Socialist Culture Community in 1934.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prussian State Council</span> Upper house of Prussian Parliament of Prussia from 1920 to 1933

The Prussian State Council was the second chamber of the bicameral legislature of the Free State of Prussia between 1921 and 1933; the first chamber was the Prussian Landtag. The members of the State Council were elected by the provincial parliaments and gave the provinces of Prussia a voice in the legislative process. The Council had an indirect right to introduce legislation, could object to bills passed by the Reichstag and had to approve expenditures that exceeded the budget.

Vollrath von Maltzan Freiherr von Wartenberg und Penzlin was West German ambassador to France from 1955 to 1958.

Hans Friedrich Wilhem Ernst von Raumer was a German politician of the German People's Party (DVP). He served as minister in two governments of the Weimar Republic and was also active as a representative of German industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Religious affiliations of chancellors of Germany</span>

Most German chancellors have been followers of a Christian church. German society has been affected by a Catholic-Protestant divide since the Protestant Reformation, and the same effect is visible in this list of German chancellors. It is largely dominated by Catholics and Protestants as these remain the main confessions in the country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ernst Poensgen</span>

Carl Albert Ernst Poensgen was a German entrepreneur and patron of the city of Düsseldorf.

Peter Klöckner was a German businessman and industrialist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Max Wallraf</span> German politician (1859–1941)

Ludwig Theodor Ferdinand Max Wallraf was a German politician who served as mayor of Cologne from 1907 to 1917. He was State Minister of the Interior from 1917 to 1918. As a German National People's Party politician, he was a member of the Reichstag from 1924 to 1930 and briefly served as its President in 1924/25.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Max Meirowsky</span> German Jewish industrialist

Max Meirowsky was a German-Jewish industrialist and art collector persecuted by the Nazis.