Paul Pleiger

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Paul Pleiger (born 28 September 1899 in Gräfenhainichen; died 22 July 1985 in Hattingen) was a German state adviser and corporate general director.

The miner's son underwent training as an engineer and soon afterwards established himself as a small-scale entrepreneur and machine factory owner.

Quite early on – the exact date has been lost – he joined the NSDAP. For the Party, Pleiger functioned as a Gau economic adviser in the Gau of Westphalia-South (Westfalen-Süd), before he was summoned to the Raw Materials Office in Berlin in 1934.

In 1937, Hermann Göring transferred to Pleiger the management of the Reichswerke AG für Erzbergbau und Eisenhütten "Hermann Göring", commonly known as the Reichswerke Hermann Göring ("Hermann Göring Reich Works"), an industrial establishment dealing in ore mining and iron, which was huge but unprofitable, but nevertheless deemed necessary to further Germany's growth and power. In 1941, Pleiger became Reich commissioner for Nazi Germany's coal supply, and in 1942 "Reich Commissioner for the Whole Economy of the East".

In the Ministries Trial at Nuremberg, Pleiger was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 1949, which he finished in 1959.

As General Director of the Hermann Göring Reich Works, Pleiger was one of the Third Reich's most influential economic functionaries and state entrepreneurs. As Reich Commissioner for the Eastern Economy, along with his position at the Göring Works, he was jointly responsible for the exploitation of people and material from Nazi-occupied lands with all its force and terror.