Karl Helfferich

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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 was educated 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.

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 would have nothing to do with the economic fulfillment of the Versailles Treaty. He was killed in a railway wreck Bellinzona, Switzerland, in April 1924. His works comprise chiefly economic and political studies.

[edit] Bibliography

• The Reform of German Finance, 1897
• Money, 1903
• Germany's Wealth, 1913
• Do Away with Erzberger!, Verlag Scherl, Berlin, 1919, letters to the editor, the Berlin newspaper "Tag"
• The World War, (Die Weltkrieg) (3 vols.) published 1919 by Ullstein Berlin

[edit] 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. online reprint