Gottfried Feder
Gottfried Feder | |
---|---|
Berlin Institute of Technology | |
Field | Urbanism |
School or tradition | NazismStrasserism |
Alma mater | Humboldt University of Berlin |
Influences | Ludwig Feuerbach Wilhelm Marr Rudolf Jung Silvio Gesell |
Contributions | Planned communityDeep foundation |
Gottfried Feder (27 January 1883 – 24 September 1941) was a German civil engineer, a self-taught economist, and one of the early key members of the Nazi Party and its economic theoretician. One of his lectures, delivered on 12 September 1919, drew Adolf Hitler into the party.[1]
Early life and education
Feder was born in Würzburg on 27 January 1883, the son of civil servant Hans Feder and Mathilde Feder (née Luz). After being taught in a classical Gymnasium[citation needed] first in Ansbach and then in Munich, he studied engineering in Berlin and Zürich. He founded a construction company in 1908 that became particularly active in Bulgaria where it built a number of official buildings.
Feder claimed that he studied financial politics and economics on his own from 1917 onward. But there is no evidence to back up this claim. He developed a hostility towards wealthy bankers during World War I and wrote a "manifesto on breaking the shackles of interest" ("Brechung der Zinsknechtschaft") in 1919. This was soon followed by the founding of a "task force" dedicated to those goals that demanded a nationalisation of all banks and an abolition of interest.
That year, Feder, together with
1920s politics
In February 1920, together with Adolf Hitler and Anton Drexler, Feder drafted the "
Feder took part in the party's
In early 1926, Feder played a key role in assisting Hitler to overcome the challenge to his authority presented by the National Socialist Working Association. This was a short-lived group of northern and western German Gauleiter, organized in September 1925 and led by Gregor Strasser, which unsuccessfully sought to amend the "25 Points." Around Christmas 1925, Feder obtained a copy of the proposed revision and informed Hitler of it. As a coauthor of the original 1920 program, Feder felt protective of it and was furious that an attempt to amend it was underway without his or Hitler's knowledge.[7] At a meeting of the Working Association in Hanover on 24 January 1926, Feder attended, uninvited but as Hitler's representative. The meeting became contentious with Joseph Goebbels, one of the Working Association leaders, demanding that Feder be ejected, shouting: "We don't want any stool pigeons!"[8] However, a vote was taken and Feder was allowed to participate. The draft program was vigorously debated with Feder raising objections on various points. In the end, the Strasser draft was not approved.[9] Shortly afterward, on 14 February, Hitler called a leadership meeting known as the Bamberg Conference where he forcefully opposed the positions advocated by the Working Association and insisted that the original program be retained intact. Strasser was made to retrieve all copies of the draft program that had been distributed. Hitler reasserted his authority as supreme Party leader and stamped out any potential threat from the Working Association, which faded into irrelevance and was formally dissolved later in the year.[10]
Feder briefly dominated the Nazi Party's official views on financial politics, but after he became chairman of the party's economic council in 1931, his anti-capitalist views led to a great decline in financial support from Germany's major industrialists. Following pressure from
Nazi Germany
Feder continued to write papers, putting out "Kampf gegen die Hochfinanz" ("The Fight against high finance", 1933) and the
However, despite its consistency with the
When Hjalmar Schacht took office as Minister of Economics on 2 August 1934, one of his first actions was to fire Feder from his State Secretary post.[14] Feder then served as Reichskommissar for Settlement until December 1934. He also was a member of Hans Frank's Academy for German Law.[15] Feder ended up becoming Professor for Settlement Policy[16] at the Technische Hochschule Berlin in December 1936, where he stayed until his death in Murnau, Bavaria, on 24 September 1941.
Publications by Feder
- "Das Manifest zur Brechung der Zinsknechtschaft des Geldes" in Kritische Rundschau (1919) (The Manifesto for Breaking the Interest Bondage of Money in Critical Review).
- Expanded New Edition in An Alle, Alle! Number 1 (1919).
- "Der Staatsbankrott die Rettung" in An Alle, Alle! Number 2 (1919) ("The State Bankruptcy the Rescue").
- Das Programm der N.S.D.A.P. und seine weltanschaulichen Grundgedanken (The program of the NSDAP and its ideological principles).
- Die Wohnungsnot und die soziale Bau- und Wirtschaftsbank als Retterin aus Wohnungselend, Wirtschaftskrise und Erwerbselend (The housing shortage and the social construction and business bank as a rescuer from the misery of the home, the economic crisis and the economic crisis).
- Der Deutsche Staat auf nationaler und sozialer Grundlage (1923) (The German state on a national and social basis).
- Was will Adolf Hitler? (1931) (What does Adolf Hitler want?).
- Kampf gegen die Hochfinanz (1933) (Fight against high finance).
- Die organische Volkswirtschaft (1934) (The organic economy).[17]
- Der ständische Gedanke im Nationalsozialismus (The concept of class in National Socialism).
- Grundriß einer nationalsozialistischen Volkswirtschaftstheorie (Floor plan of a National Socialist economic theory).
- with Ferdinand Werner, Ernst Graf zu Reventlow and others: Das neue Deutschland und die Judenfrage. Diskussionsbeitrag (The new Germany and the Jewish question. Discussion contribution). Rüdiger (C. E. Krug), Leipzig 1933 (original title: Der Jud ist schuld (The Jew is to blame)).
- Die Juden (The Jews). Central Publisher of the NSDAP, Frz. Rather Nachf., Munich 1933.
- Gewerkschaften, DAF und der Wert des Arbeit (Trade unions, DAF and the value of labor), 1934.
- Die neue Stadt. Versuch der Begründung einer neuen Stadtplanungskunst aus der sozialen Struktur der Bevölkerung (The new city. Attempt to establish a new urban planning art from the social structure of the population). Published by Julius Springer, Berlin 1939.
See also
References
- ISBN 978-0-060-38025-0.
- ISBN 978-0-393-33761-7.
- ^ Kershaw, Ian (2001) [1991]. Hitler: A Profile in Power, Chapter I, London.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 82.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 87.
- ^ Gottfried Feder in the Reichstag database
- ^ Jeremy Noakes (1966) Conflict and Development in the NSDAP 1924-1927, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol 1, Issue 4, Sage Publications Ltd., p. 25.
- ISBN 978-0-831-77404-2.
- ^ Jeremy Noakes (1966) Conflict and Development in the NSDAP 1924-1927, pp. 26-27.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 169–170.
- ^ Hein, Carola, Visionary Plans and Planners. In Japanese Capitals in Historical Perspective (Fiévé, Waley eds.) RoutledgeCurzon.
- ISBN 0-03-076435-1.
- ^ Grunberger, The 12-Year Reich, p. 154.
- ISBN 978-1-258-01696-8. Retrieved 14 August 2020.
- ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8.
- ISBN 3-906769-72-0. Retrieved 15 January 2017.
External links
- Das Manifest zur Brechung der Zinsknechtschaft des Geldes "The Manifesto for Breaking the Chains of Gold" by Gottfried Feder at archive.org
- Das Programm des NSDAP und seine weltanschaulichen Grundgedanken "The Program of the NSDAP and its Ideological Foundations" by Gottfried Feder at archive.org
- Feder's patent for an Apparatus for making concrete piles in the ground on Google Patents
- Information about Gottfried Feder in the Reichstag database
- Newspaper clippings about Gottfried Feder in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
- Programme of the Party of Hitler, the NSDAP and its General Conceptions in English