Walther Funk was an economist and prominent Nazi official who served as
Reich Minister for Economic Affairs from 1938 to 1945 and was tried and convicted
as a major war criminal by the International Military Tribunal at
Nuremberg. Early life
Funk was born into a merchant family in 1890 in Danzkehmen near Trakehnen in
East Prussia. He was the only one of the Nuremberg defendants who was born in the
former eastern territories of Germany. He was the son of Wiesenbaumeister
Walther Funk the elder and his wife Sophie. He studied law, economics, and
philosophy at the Humboldt University of Berlin and the University of Leipzig. In
World War I, he joined the infantry, but was discharged as unfit for service in
1916. In 1920, Funk married Luise Schmidt-Sieben. Following the end of the
first war, he worked as a journalist, and in 1924 he became the editor of the
center-right financial newspaper the Berliner Börsenzeitung.
Political life Funk, who was a nationalist and
anti-Marxist, resigned from the newspaper in the summer of 1931 and
joined the Nazi Party, becoming close to Gregor Strasser, who arranged his first
meeting with Adolf Hitler. Partially because of his interest in economic
policy, he was elected a Reichstag deputy in July 1932, and within the
party, he was made chairman of the Committee on Economic Policy in December
1932, a post that he did not hold for long. After the Nazi Party came to
power, he stepped down from his Reichstag position and was made Chief
Press Officer of the Third Reich. Third Reich career
In March 1933, Funk was appointed as a State Secretary at the Ministry of
Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. In 1938, he assumed the title of Chief
Plenipotentiary for Economics. He also became Reich Minister of Economics in
February 1938, replacing Hjalmar Schacht, who had been dropped in
November 1937. Schacht had been dismissed in a power struggle with
Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, who was quick to tie the ministry more closely
to his Four Year Plan Office. Jewish property
Funk was closely involved in the theft and disposal of the property of German
Jews from this time. He boasted that by 1938, the German state had managed to
steal Jewish property worth two million marks, using decrees from Hitler and
other top Nazis to force German Jews to leave their property and assets to them
if they emigrated. They were forced by Göring to pay for the damage caused by
the Nazis to their own property on Kristallnacht, and increasingly deprived
of their personal wealth and assets as the Second World War approached. They
were ultimately murdered in the many death camps, Nazi concentration camps
and Ghettoes established by the Nazis. Before their incarceration, they were
stripped of any valuables, such as property and other assets, personal
property such as paintings and other fine art, jewellry and any currency or
gold. If they were lucky, they may have lived briefly as slave laborers, but
generally were destined to be murdered in gas chambers or by a bullet in the
back of the head. Any other personal items such as clothing, and shoes were
stolen before their murder, and false teeth, gold teeth and any other personal
items not already stolen, were taken from their corpses. Their hair was shorn
either just before their murder by gassing with Zyklon B or just after
their death. Their bodies were then burnt in crematoria, and their ashes
dispersed. Reichsbank
In January 1939, Hitler appointed Funk as President of the Reichsbank, again
replacing Schacht, and this way he became also a member of the board of
directors of the Bank for International Settlements, based in Switzerland. He
was appointed to the Central Planning Board in September 1943.
Nuremberg Despite poor health, Funk was tried with
other Nazi leaders at the Nuremberg Trials. Accused of conspiracy to commit
crimes against peace; planning, initiating and waging wars of
aggression; war crimes and crimes against humanity, he argued that,
despite his titles, he had very little power in the regime. At the Nuremberg
trials American Chief Prosecutor Jackson labeled Funk as "The Banker of Gold
Teeth", referring to the practice of extracting gold teeth from Nazi
concentration camp victims, and forwarding the teeth to the Reichsbank
for melting down to yield bullion. Many other gold items were stolen from
victims, such as jewellery, eyeglasses and gold finger rings. Göring described
Funk as "an insignificant subordinate," but documentary evidence and his wartime
biography Walther Funk, A Life for Economy were used against him during the
trial, leading to his conviction on counts 2, 3 and 4 of the indictment and
his sentence of life imprisonment. Funk was held at Spandau Prison along
with other senior Nazis. He was released on 16 May 1957 because of ill health. He
made a last-minute call on Rudolf Hess, Albert Speer and Baldur von Schirach
before leaving the prison. He died three years later in Düsseldorf of diabetes.
References External links
Funk war crimes dossier