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Freundeskreis der Wirtschaft

{{Short description|German industrialists linked with Nazi Party}}

The {{lang|de|Freundeskreis der Wirtschaft}} ({{langx|en|text=Circle of Friends of the Economy}}), which became known as {{lang|de|Freundeskreis Reichsführer SS}} (also {{lang|de|Freundeskreis Himmler}}) after the Nazi seizure of power, or "Keppler Circle", was a group of German industrialists whose aim was to strengthen the ties between the Nazi Party and business and industry. The group was formed and co-ordinated by Wilhelm Keppler, one of Adolf Hitler's close economic advisors.

Early development

File:Germany Soviet delegation, Wilhelm Keppler (cropped).jpg ]]

Keppler, who had been a member of the Nazi party since 1927, formed the Circle after Hitler's request in 1932 for the formation of a "study group on economic questions".{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q0amI9GmIe8C|title=Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler|last=Sutton|first=Antony C.|date=2010-11-01|publisher=CLAIRVIEW BOOKS|isbn=9781905570270|language=en|chapter=Chapter 9: Wall Street and the Nazi Inner Circle|chapter-url=http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/chapter_09.htm}} Members were not initially expected to be party members (though many later joined the party), and portrayed the group as "palaver" and an "innocuous gentleman's club".{{Cite journal|last=Stallbaumer|first=L. M.|title=Frederick Flick's Opportunism and Expediency|url=http://archive.adl.org/braun/dim_13_2_flick.html|journal=Dimensions: A Journal of Holocaust Studies|publisher=Anti-Defamation League|volume=13|issue=2|access-date=2017-02-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170215124300/http://archive.adl.org/braun/dim_13_2_flick.html|archive-date=2017-02-15|url-status=dead}} The size of the group never exceeded 40 members. Groups represented included manufacturing, banking, and Schutzstaffel (SS) officials.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yAijBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA62|title=The Respectable Career of Fritz K.: The Making and Remaking of a Provincial Nazi Leader|last=Berghoff|first=Hartmut|last2=Rauh|first2=Cornelia|date=2015-05-30|publisher=Berghahn Books|isbn=9781782385943|pages=62–63|language=en}}

The group became associated with Heinrich Himmler, a friend of Keppler, beginning in 1935.

Impact

Historians have argued that the membership of the group was not particularly influential, with few members from large industry.{{Cite book |last=Mommsen |first=Hans |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Weimar_Democracy/pyE6DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 |title=The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy |date=2017-11-01 |publisher=UNC Press Books |isbn=978-0-8078-7607-7 |language=en}}{{Rp|page=513}} Motivations for group members may have included strong anti-labor and anti-socialist positions, rather than pro-Hitler positions as such.{{Cite book |last=Bennett |first=Edward W. |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/German_Rearmament_and_the_West_1932_1933/sap9BgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=industrial+petition+1932+hindenburg&pg=PA301&printsec=frontcover |title=German Rearmament and the West, 1932-1933 |date=2015-03-08 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-7199-5 |pages=301 |language=en}} However, even scholars who are skeptical of the influence of the group note them as part of late-Weimar industrial leadership’s “opposition to parliamentary democracy”.{{Cite book |last=Kolb |first=Eberhard |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Weimar_Republic/bvpUwefuUKUC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=keppler |title=The Weimar Republic |date=2008-03-07 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-87566-5 |pages=192-193 |language=en}}

From 1936 to 1944, the members of the circle donated approximately 1 million Reichsmark a year to Himmler for uses "outside the budget". One use of the money was to fund the Ahnenerbe, which conducted Aryan historical and eugenicist research. Money from the group was also used to provide expenses and pay off debts of SS members{{Cite book |last=Koehl |first=Robert Lewis |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_SS/yo87AwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 |title=The SS: A History 1919-45 |date=2012-05-30 |publisher=The History Press |isbn=978-0-7524-8689-5 |pages=127, 189 |language=en}} which helped incentivize action by the otherwise-underpaid SS.{{Cite book |last=Mixon, Jr |first=Franklin G. |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Terrible_Efficiency/iCirDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 |title=A Terrible Efficiency: Entrepreneurial Bureaucrats and the Nazi Holocaust |date=2019-08-24 |publisher=Springer Nature |isbn=978-3-030-25767-5 |pages=73 |language=en}}

At least some members of the group, such as Friedrich Flick, later benefited from the NSDAP's policy of aryanization of Jewish-owned competitors. Membership in the group may have also played a role in allocation of concentration camp labor to industrial concerns.

It also sponsored the Jewish skull collection, when 86 victims were selected at Auschwitz, then murdered using Zyklon B gas at Natzweiler concentration camp and the corpses shipped to Reichsuniversität Straßburg for defleshing and ultimately public display by Professor August Hirt. The project stopped at this stage when Germany lost the war.{{Cn|date=January 2025}}

File:Friedrich Flick Nuremberg.JPG during the Nuremberg Trials]]

File:Heinrich Buetefisch.jpg in charge at Monowitz works]]

File:Otto Ohlendorf EGR.jpg testifies at the Einsatzgruppen trial, 9 October 1947.]]

Image:Pohl Death Sentence.jpg receives his sentence of death by hanging at Nuremberg trials.]]

Members

Members of the group included:{{Cite book|url=https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/pdf/NT_war-criminals_Vol-VI.pdf|title=Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals|publisher=United States Government Printing Office|year=1952|volume=VI: The Flick Case|pages=287}}

From manufacturing:

From banking:

From politics and the SS:

See also

References

{{Reflist}}

{{Heinrich Himmler}}

Category:Nazi Party organizations

Category:Heinrich Himmler