Waldemar Kraft | |
|---|---|
 Kraftc. 1953 | |
| Managing Director of theReich Association for Land Management in the Annexed Territories [de] | |
| In office 1940–1945 | |
| Federal Minister for Special Affairs | |
| In office 1953–1956 | |
| Schleswig-HolsteinMinister of Finance | |
| In office 1950–1953 | |
| Member of theBundestag | |
| In office 1953–1961 | |
| Member of theSchleswig-Holstein Parliament forLauenburg-west | |
| In office 1950–1953 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1898-02-19)19 February 1898 Brzustow,Province of Posen,German Empire |
| Died | 12 July 1977(1977-07-12) (aged 79) |
| Nationality | German |
| Political party | National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) All-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights (GB/BHE) Christian Democratic Union (CDU) |
Waldemar Kraft (19 February 1898 – 12 July 1977) was a Germanpolitician. A member of theSS 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 aWest German politician, sitting in theLandtag of Schleswig-Holstein from 1950 to 1953 and serving as Minister of Finance. He entered theBundestag in 1953 and served asFederal Minister for Special Affairs in the Cabinet of ChancellorKonrad Adenauer from 1953 to 1956. He retired from the Bundestag in 1961.
Kraft initially represented theAll-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights and served as its chairman from 1951 to 1954. In 1956, he became a member of theChristian Democratic Union.
Waldemar Kraft was born to aProtestantGerman family in Brzustow,Jarotschin district, in theProvince of Posen on thePrussian-Russian border (todayBrzostów,Poland). He attended secondary school in pre-1914Posen, focusing his secondary school studies on agriculture. Between 1915 and 1920 he was a soldier of thePrussian Army and participated inWorld War I, where he was severely wounded. Afterwards he served as a company commander.
After the war he chose to return to theGreater Poland and from 1921 to 1939 he was the director of theHauptvereins der Deutschen Bauernvereine or Main German Farmers' Associations inPoznań. In 1925 he was also appointed director of theDeutschen Landwirtschaftlichen Zentralverbandes in Polen or Central Association of German Farming inPoland.
From 1939 to 1940 he served as theregional President of Agriculture [de] (theLandwirtschaftskammer) inNaziPosen. From 1940 to 1945 he was Managing Director of theReichsgesellschaft für Landbewirtschaftung in den eingegliederten Ostgebieten mbH („Reichsland“) [de] or Reich Association for land management in the annexed territories, inBerlin. Shortly before the war ended this Reich Association, and Kraft, moved toRatzeburg inSchleswig-Holstein. From 1945 to 1947 he was interned inSchleswig-Holstein and remained unemployed inRatzeburg to 1950.
From 1949 to 1951 he was the spokesperson for theLandsmannschaft Weichsel-Warthe orGerman Vistula and Warta Association. As such he signed the Charter of the German expellees and later became honorary chairman (anEhrenvorsitzender).
Kraft joined theNSDAP in 1943 (membership number 9.428.904). On 13 November 1939, immediately following theNazi invasion ofPoland and the incorporation of his region into theWarthegau, he was also appointed anEhren-Hauptsturmführer or Honorary Captain ofSS.
In 1950 he was among the founders of theGesamtdeutscher Block/Bund der Heimatvertriebenen und Entrechteten (often abbreviated in texts to "GB/BHE") orAll-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights inSchleswig-Holstein. In 1951 he was elected national chairman of the League andEva 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.[1]
In March 1956 Kraft, Finckenstein and Theodor Oberländer joined theCDU, which led to the decline of influence of theAll-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights in German politics.
From 1950 to 1953 Kraft was a member of the state parliament ofSchleswig-Holstein, where he represented the electoral district ofLauenburg-west. From 1953 to 1961 he was subsequently elected a member of theWest GermanBundestag.
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 ofChancellorKonrad Adenauer inBonn. On 16 October 1956 he resigned from the federal government.
He died in Bonn in 1977.
A committedCDU stalwart afterWorld War II and champion of the rights of theGermans expelled fromPoland,British historianRichard Grunberger cited him as an example of the permeation or infiltration ofSS attitudes and values into mainstream postwarWest German society and politics.[2] Opinion revolves around his involvement in theSS, but it is unclear whether Kraft volunteered for theSS-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 theGauleiter ofWarthegau,Arthur Greiser, were senior and important SS officers and that may have influenced Kraft.
Links to related articles | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| International | |
|---|---|
| People | |
