Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk

Germany state institutions Fascists and Nazis Conservatism and Christian democracy Counter-revolutionary forces 1887–1977 ○ Died

Finance minister from 1932 to 1945 whose ministry plundered Jewish property, then "Leading Minister" of the Flensburg Government

From a noble Anhalt family and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, he headed the finance ministry's budget department and became finance minister under Papen in 1932, staying at Hindenburg's request throughout the Nazi regime. A non-partisan conservative, he welcomed the Nazi rise to power and contributed to its anti-Jewish measures, and became a Nazi Party member in 1937. From 1939 his ministry was increasingly occupied with stealing Jewish property and laundering money. In May 1945 he became "Leading Minister" and foreign and finance minister of Dönitz's Flensburg Government, and spoke in a broadcast of an "Iron Curtain" across Europe. Sentenced at the 1949 Ministries Trial to ten years for laundering victims' property and financing the concentration camps, he was released in an amnesty in 1951.

Also known as: Johann Ludwig Graf Schwerin von Krosigk