Carl Vincent Krogmann

Carl Vincent Krogmann (born 3 March 1889 in Hamburg - died 14 March 1978 in Hamburg) was a German banker, industrialist and Nazi Party politician. He served as Mayor of Hamburg for the majority of the Nazi period of government.

Contents

Early years

Krogmann was born into one of Hamburg's old Huguenot and married Emerentia Krogmann, who was noted for her antisemitic views.[1] He came from a leading shipping family and inherited one of the city's leading maritime concerns as a result.[2] Krogmann was a founder member of the Freundeskreis der Wirtschaft, an influential group of far right industrialists established in 1932 by Wilhelm Keppler.[3] Unlike Keppler he was not a member of the Nazi Party until 1933, a fact that left him with little influence within the movement in later years.[4]

Mayor

He was appointed mayor of Hamburg on 8 March 1933 after being endorsed by a new coalition controlling the city made up of 8 Nazis, four members of the German National People's Party and one each from the German People's Party and the German State Party. His power was increased soon afterwards when the Nazis dissolved the Hamburg Parliament and awarded Krogmann power of decree.[5] His appointment was ratified in no small degree because of his status as a member of one of Hamburg's pre-eminent mercantile families and as such it was hoped thst he would appeal to the business community in the city, much of which was sceptical about the Nazis.[6]

However Krogmann had an early rival however in the form of Reichstatthalter (Governor) Karl Kaufmann and by 1936 he had been named Führer of Hamburg, denting Krogmann's power.[7] Initially mayor, he had been given the stronger title Regierender Bürgermeister following the dissolution of the Hamburg Parliament. However as Kaufmann's power grew so Krogmann's status diminshed so as by 1937 he had been demoted to the lesser title of First Councillor of the Municipal Authority.[7]

Despite his shaky status Krogmann, a devotee of the writings of Richard Wagner, Paul de Lagarde and Houston Stewart Chamberlain, was a staunch believer in Nazism, especially its antisemitic aspects and rigorously enforced anti-Jewish laws within Hamburg whilst publicly speaking in support of them elsewhere.[4] He demonstrated this in particular in a speech he delivered to the Ostasiatischen Vereins in 1935 in which he rounded on members of the business community who were critical of the racial policy of the Third Reich, whilst emphasising the "decisive importance" of the Jewish question.[8]

Post-war

After the Second World War he was interned in Bielefeld until being fined 10,000 Marks in August 1948 for membership of a criminal organisation and released.[9] He withdrew form politics and worked initially in construction before operating his own wholesale lumber business, as well as publishing various editions of his diaries. He died in Hamburg in 1978.[10]

References

  1. ^ Frank Bajohr, "Aryanisation" in Hamburg: The Economic Exclusion of Jews and the Confiscation of their Property in Nazi Germany, Berghahn Books, 2002, p. 16
  2. ^ Niall Ferguson, Paper and Iron: Hamburg Business and German Politics in the Era of Inflation, 1897-1927, Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 443
  3. ^ CHAPTER NINE - Wall Street and the Nazi Inner Circle
  4. ^ a b Bajohr, "Aryanisation" in Hamburg, p. 48
  5. ^ Bajohr, "Aryanisation" in Hamburg, p. 47
  6. ^ John Garrard, Heads of the Local State: Mayors, Provosts and Burgomasters since 1800, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2007, p. 143
  7. ^ a b Bajohr, "Aryanisation" in Hamburg, pp. 47-48
  8. ^ Bajohr, "Aryanisation" in Hamburg, p. 55
  9. ^ Dr. Heinrich Erdmann, Hamburg im Dritten Reich. Sieben Beiträge, Veröffentlichungen der Landeszentrale für politische Bildung, Hamburg, 1998, p. 33
  10. ^ Ernst Klee, Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 2007, p. 342
First Mayors of Hamburg since 1919
Weimar period (1919-1933)
Nazi period (1933-1945)
Carl Vincent Krogmann
Modern Hamburg
(since 1945)