Louis-Lucien Klotz

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Louis-Lucien Klotz (January 11, 1868 – June 15, 1930) was a French journalist and politician. He was the French Minister of Finance during World War I.

Born in Paris to Alsatian Jewish parents, Louis-Lucien Klotz was 32 years yoiung than his oldest brother Victor Klotz (1836-1906), a wealthy silks dealer. After completing his legal education, he enrolled as an advocate at the Court of Appeal in Paris. In 1888, at the age of twenty, he founded the Vie Franco-Russe, an illustrated paper intended to increase popular support for the Franco-Russian alliance. In 1892 he became editor of the Voltaire, and campaigned against the reactionary policy of Jules Ferry. In the following year he was an unsuccessful candidate for his Paris district at the legislatorial elections. Two years later he founded the Français Quotidien, a patriotic daily paper devoted to national defense, into which the "Voltaire" was later merged. ^[1]

After another failure at the polls, he was elected by an overwhelming majority for Montdidier at the general election of 1898 as a radical socialist. Klotz was a member of several communal and charitable societies, including the Society for the Defense of Children, the Prison Society, and the Central Committee for Labor.^[2] He retained his seat until 1925 and was noted for his industry. He served as president of the commission of the customs, then rapporteur general of the budget.

He occupied the following prominent ministerial posts:

   * Minister for Finance (November 3 1910-March 2 1911) in the second government Aristide Briand;
   * Minister for Finance (June 27 1911-March 22 1913);
   * Minister of the Interior (March 22-December 8 1913) in the Government of Louis Barthou, at the time of the demonstrations against the three years law;
   * Minister for Finance of (September 12 1917-January 20 1920), with responsibility for negotiating reparations from Germany, characterised by his famous formula: "Boche will pay!".

In 1924, Klotz published his memoirs of this period: De la guerre à la paix (War with peace).

On July 12 1929, after risky speculations, he was condemned to two years imprisonment for passing unsupported cheques. He died less than a year later, on June 15 1930, and with no further hope of settlement, his debtors seized the hotel at 9 rue de Tilsitt, which he had inherited from his brother.

His lack of financial acumen was noted years earlier by Georges Clemenceau, who reportedly commented that "my finance minister is the only Jew in Europe who knows nothing about money." (To Lose a Battle, by Alistair Horne.)

There are claims that under an apple tree in Angers, Klotz seduced his best friend, Leon Gambetta, then 15 years old, and that this homosexual experience was the source Gambetta's homophobia and anti-semitism. These claims must be false because Klotz was not born until Gambetta was aged thirty. Gambetta would, however, have been only two years younger than Victor Klotz.