Waldemar Kraft (19 February 1898 – 12 July 1977) was a German
politician. 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 politician, sitting in the
Landtag of Schleswig-Holstein from 1950 to 1953 and serving as Minister of Finance. He entered the
Bundestag in 1953 and served as
Federal Minister for Special Affairs in the Cabinet of Chancellor
Konrad Adenauer from 1953 to 1956. He retired from the Bundestag in 1961.
Waldemar Kraft was born to a
ProtestantGerman family in Brzustow,
Jarotschin district, in the
Province of Posen on the
Prussian-
Russian border (today
Brzostów,
Poland). 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 and participated in
World War I, where he was severely wounded. Afterwards he served as a company commander.
After the war he chose to return to the
Greater Poland and from 1921 to 1939 he was the director of the Hauptvereins der Deutschen Bauernvereine or Main German Farmers' Associations in
Poznań. In 1925 he was also appointed director of the Deutschen Landwirtschaftlichen Zentralverbandes in Polen or Central Association of German Farming in
Poland.
From 1939 to 1940 he served as the regional President of Agriculture (the Landwirtschaftskammer) in
NaziPosen. From 1940 to 1945 he was Managing Director of the Reichsgesellschaft für Landbewirtschaftung in den eingegliederten Ostgebieten mbH („Reichsland“) or Reich Association for land management in the annexed territories, in
Berlin. Shortly before the war ended this Reich Association, and Kraft, moved to
Ratzeburg in
Schleswig-Holstein. From 1945 to 1947 he was interned in
Schleswig-Holstein and remained unemployed in
Ratzeburg to 1950.
From 1949 to 1951 he was the spokesperson for the Landsmannschaft Weichsel-Warthe or
German Vistula and Warta Association. As such he signed the Charter of the German expellees and later became honorary chairman (an Ehrenvorsitzender).
Political affiliation
Kraft joined the
NSDAP in 1943 (membership number 9.428.904). On 13 November 1939, immediately following the
Nazi invasion of
Poland and the incorporation of his region into the
Warthegau, he was also appointed an Ehren-Hauptsturmführer or Honorary Captain of
SS.
In 1950 he was among the founders of the Gesamtdeutscher Block/Bund der Heimatvertriebenen und Entrechteten (often abbreviated in texts to "GB/BHE") or
All-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights in
Schleswig-Holstein. 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.[1]
From 1950 to 1953 Kraft was a member of the state parliament of
Schleswig-Holstein, where he represented the electoral district of
Lauenburg-west. From 1953 to 1961 he was subsequently elected a member of the
West 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 of
ChancellorKonrad Adenauer in
Bonn. 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 and champion of the rights of the
Germans expelled from
Poland,
British historian
Richard Grunberger cited him as an example of the permeation or infiltration of
SS attitudes and values into mainstream postwar
West German society and politics.[2] 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 of
Warthegau,
Arthur Greiser, were senior and important SS officers and that may have influenced Kraft.
^Richard Grunberger, Hitler's SS (1970), page.114.
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.
Berg (from 27 June 1955, from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 26 June 1956 FVP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
Blank (from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 26 June 1956 FVP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
Blücher (from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 26 June 1956 FVP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
Euler (from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 26 June 1956 FVP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
Fassbender (from 18 November 1955 DP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
Hübner (from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 26 June 1956 FVP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
Manteuffel (from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 26 June 1956 FVP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
Neumayer (from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 26 June 1956 FVP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
Preiß (from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 26 June 1956 FVP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
Preusker (from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 26 June 1956 FVP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
Schäfer (from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 26 June 1956 FVP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
Schneider (from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 26 June 1956 FVP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
Bender (from 12 July 1955 Non-attached, from 14 July 1955 Group Kraft/Oberländer, from 15 July 1955 Guest of CDU/CSU-Fraktion, from 20 March 1956 CDU/CSU)
Eckhardt (from 12 July 1955 Non-attached, from 14 July 1955 Group Kraft/Oberländer, from 15 July 1955 Guest of CDU/CSU-Fraktion, from 20 March 1956 CDU/CSU)
Finck (from 12 July 1955 Non-attached, from 14 July 1955 Group Kraft/Oberländer, from 15 July 1955 Guest of CDU/CSU-Fraktion, from 20 March 1956 CDU/CSU)
Haasler (from 12 July 1955 Non-attached, from 14 July 1955 Group Kraft/Oberländer, from 15 July 1955 Guest of CDU/CSU-Fraktion, from 20 March 1956 CDU/CSU)
Körner (from 12 July 1955 Non-attached, from 14 July 1955 FDP, from 23 February 1956 Non-attached, from 15 March 1956 Demokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DA), from 26 June 1956 FVP, from 14 March 1957 DP/FVP)
Kraft (from 12 July 1955 Non-attached, from 14 July 1955 Group Kraft/Oberländer, from 15 July 1955 Guest of CDU/CSU-Fraktion, from 20 March 1956 CDU/CSU)
Oberländer (from 12 July 1955 Non-attached, from 14 July 1955 Group Kraft/Oberländer, from 15 July 1955 Guest of CDU/CSU-Fraktion, from 20 March 1956 CDU/CSU)
Samwer (from 15 October 1953, from 12 July 1955 Non-attached, from 14 July 1955 Group Kraft/Oberländer, from 15 July 1955 Guest of CDU/CSU-Fraktion, from 20 March 1956 CDU/CSU)