Waldemar Kraft (19 February 1898 – 12 July 1977) was a German

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

. A member of the SS in Nazi Germany, he served as Managing Director of the Reich Association for Land Management in the Annexed Territories from 1940 to 1945, administering parts of occupied Poland. After the war, he became a

West German West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

politician, sitting in the

Landtag of Schleswig-Holstein The Schleswig-Holstein Landtag is the state parliament of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. It convenes in the state's capital Kiel and currently consists of 69 members of five parties. The current majority consists of coalition of the ...

from 1950 to 1953 and serving as Minister of Finance. He entered the

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Commons ...

in 1953 and served as Federal Minister for Special Affairs in the Cabinet of Chancellor

Konrad Adenauer Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (; 5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a Germany, German statesman who served as the first Chancellor of Germany, chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1963. From 1946 to 1966, he was the fir ...

from 1953 to 1956. He retired from the Bundestag in 1961. Kraft initially represented the

All-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights The All-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights (german: Gesamtdeutscher Block/Bund der Heimatvertriebenen und Entrechteten or GB/BHE) was a right-wing political party in West Germany, which acted as an advocacy group of the Germa ...

and served as its chairman from 1951 to 1954. In 1956, he became a member of the Christian Democratic Union.

Education and profession

Waldemar Kraft was born to a

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

family in Brzustow, Jarotschin district, in the

Province of Posen The Province of Posen (german: Provinz Posen, pl, Prowincja Poznańska) was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1848 to 1920. Posen was established in 1848 following the Greater Poland Uprising as a successor to the Grand Duchy of Posen, w ...

on the

Prussian Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

n border (today Brzostów,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

). He attended secondary school in pre-1914 Posen, focusing his secondary school studies on agriculture. Between 1915 and 1920 he was a soldier of the

Prussian Army The Royal Prussian Army (1701–1919, german: Königlich Preußische Armee) served as the army of the Kingdom of Prussia. It became vital to the development of Brandenburg-Prussia as a European power. The Prussian Army had its roots in the co ...

and participated in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, where he was severely wounded. Afterwards he served as a company commander. After the war he chose to return to the

Greater Poland Greater Poland, often known by its Polish name Wielkopolska (; german: Großpolen, sv, Storpolen, la, Polonia Maior), is a Polish historical regions, historical region of west-central Poland. Its chief and largest city is Poznań followed ...

and from 1921 to 1939 he was the director of the or Main German Farmers' Associations in

Poznań Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John ...

. In 1925 he was also appointed director of the or Central Association of German Farming in

. From 1939 to 1940 he served as the regional President of Agriculture (the ) in

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

Posen. From 1940 to 1945 he was Managing Director of the or Reich Association for land management in the annexed territories, in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. Shortly before the war ended this Reich Association, and Kraft, moved to

Ratzeburg Ratzeburg (; Low German: ''Ratzborg'') is a town in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is surrounded by four lakes—the resulting isthmuses between the lakes form the access lanes to the town. Ratzeburg is the capital of the district Herzogtum Lau ...

Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein (; da, Slesvig-Holsten; nds, Sleswig-Holsteen; frr, Slaswik-Holstiinj) is the northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Sch ...

. From 1945 to 1947 he was interned in

and remained unemployed in

to 1950. From 1949 to 1951 he was the spokesperson for the or

Vistula and Warta Association. As such he signed the Charter of the German expellees and later became honorary chairman (an ).

Political affiliation

Kraft joined the

NSDAP The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...

in 1943(membership number 9.428.904). On 13 November 1939, immediately following the

invasion of

and the incorporation of his region into the

Warthegau The ''Reichsgau Wartheland'' (initially ''Reichsgau Posen'', also: ''Warthegau'') was a Nazi German ''Reichsgau'' formed from parts of Polish territory annexed in 1939 during World War II. It comprised the region of Greater Poland and adjacent ...

, he was also appointed an ''

Hauptsturmführer __NOTOC__ (, ; short: ''Hstuf'') was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was used in several Nazi organizations such as the SS, NSKK and the NSFK. The rank of ''Hauptsturmführer'' was a mid-level commander and had equivalent seniority to a ...

'' or Honorary Captain of SS. In 1950 he was among the founders of the (often abbreviated in texts to "GB/BHE") or

. In 1951 he was elected national chairman of the League and Eva Gräfin Finck von Finckenstein became his press secretary. In September 1954 she was not reelected into the League administrative board, which led to the resignation of Waldemar Kraft as Chairman. In March 1956 Kraft, Finckenstein and Theodor Oberländer joined the CDU, which led to the decline of influence of the

in German politics.

MP

From 1950 to 1953 Kraft was a member of the state parliament of

, where he represented the electoral district of

Lauenburg Lauenburg (), or Lauenburg an der Elbe ( en, Lauenberg on the Elbe), is a town in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is situated on the northern bank of the river Elbe, east of Hamburg. It is the southernmost town of Schleswig-Holstein ...

-west. From 1953 to 1961 he was subsequently elected a member of the

Bundesarchiv Bild 183-21910-0004, Bonn, Kabinett Adenauer II, Gruppenbild

After the elections in 1953 he retired on 20 October 1953 from the State Government and was appointed on the same day as the Federal Minister without Portfolio under government of

Chancellor Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

. On 16 October 1956 he resigned from the federal government. He died in Bonn in 1977.

Evaluation

A committed CDU stalwart after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and champion of the rights of the

Germans , native_name_lang = de , region1 = , pop1 = 72,650,269 , region2 = , pop2 = 534,000 , region3 = , pop3 = 157,000 3,322,405 , region4 = , pop4 = ...

expelled from

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

historian

Richard Grunberger Richard Grunberger (7 March 1924 Vienna, Austria – 15 February 2005) was a British historian who specialised in study of the Third Reich. He was born in Austria to Jewish parents. After the 1938 Anschluss with Hitler's Germany, he was put on ...

cited him as an example of the permeation or infiltration of SS attitudes and values into mainstream postwar

society and politics.Richard Grunberger, ''Hitler's SS'' (1970), page.114. Opinion revolves around his involvement in the SS, but it is unclear whether Kraft volunteered for the SS-Ehrenführer post at his own initiative or to advance his career or whether he was pressured to do so by his immediate superiors. Both the Minister for Agriculture, Richard Walther Darré, and the

Gauleiter A ''Gauleiter'' () was a regional leader of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) who served as the head of a ''Administrative divisions of Nazi Germany, Gau'' or ''Reichsgau''. ''Gauleiter'' was the third-highest Ranks and insignia of the Nazi Party, rank in ...

Arthur Greiser Arthur Karl Greiser (22 January 1897 – 21 July 1946) was a Nazi German politician, SS-''Obergruppenführer'', ''Gauleiter'' and ''Reichsstatthalter'' (Reich Governor) of the German-occupied territory of ''Wartheland''. He was one of the perso ...

, were senior and important SS officers and that may have influenced Kraft.

References

Literature

* Rainer Salzmann, ''Kraft, Waldemar''. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). Band 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, p. 655/656. * Waldemar Kraft. In: ''Kanzler und Minister 1949-1998. Biografisches Lexikon der deutschen Bundesregierungen'', ed. by Udo Kempf and Hans-Georg Merz, Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 2001, pp. 380–384. * Richard Grunberger, ''Hitler's SS'' (1970), page.114. * "Schütze Kraft" in ''Der Spiegel'' (19 May 1954) {{DEFAULTSORT:Kraft, Waldemar 1898 births 1977 deaths People from Jarocin County People from the Province of Posen German Protestants Nazi Party politicians All-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights politicians Christian Democratic Union of Germany politicians German Army personnel of World War I Grand Crosses 1st class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

Education and profession

Political affiliation

MP

Evaluation

See also

References

Literature