39 Facts About Matthias Erzberger

Matthias Erzberger was a politician of the Catholic Centre Party, member of the Reichstag and minister of finance of Germany from 1919 to 1920.

Matthias Erzberger was elected to the Weimar National Assembly in 1919 and served as minister of portfolio in Philipp Scheidemann's cabinet.

Matthias Erzberger pushed through the "Erzberger reforms" that transferred supreme taxing authority from the states to the central government and redistributed the tax burden more towards the wealthy.

Matthias Erzberger was born on 20 September 1875 in Buttenhausen in the Kingdom of Wurttemberg, the son of Josef Erzberger, a tailor and postman, and his wife Katherina.

Matthias Erzberger attended the seminaries in Schwabisch Hall and Bad Saulgau, where he graduated in 1894, and started a career as a primary school teacher.

Matthias Erzberger joined the Centre Party and was first elected to the German Reichstag in 1903 for Biberach.

Matthias Erzberger became a specialist in colonial policy and financial policy, contributing to the financial reforms of 1909.

In 1912, Matthias Erzberger became a member of the leadership of the parliamentary party.

Matthias Erzberger was in charge of foreign propaganda, especially relating to Catholic groups, and set up a system of information gathering using the resources of the Holy See and of the Freemasons.

Matthias Erzberger wrote letters to leading military authorities, later published, with extravagant plans for German annexations.

Matthias Erzberger won widespread socialist support for attempting through the Bundesrat to protect the civil rights of citizens.

Apart from Karl Liebknecht, Matthias Erzberger was the only German politician who is known to have tried to stop the Armenian genocide, the persecution of the Greeks, and the Assyrian genocide in the Ottoman Empire.

Matthias Erzberger travelled to Constantinople in February 1916 for negotiations with the Young Turks rulers allied with Germany, met Enver Pasha and Talaat Pasha on 10 February 1916, and at their request prepared a memorandum on the measures to be taken in favour of Christians in Turkey.

Matthias Erzberger hoped to have him replaced by Bernhard von Bulow.

Matthias Erzberger nevertheless succeeded in his main purpose in proposing the resolution, namely to persuade the Social Democrats to continue voting for war loans while a negotiated peace was sought.

Matthias Erzberger emerged from the proceedings surrounding the peace resolution as Germany's most powerful deputy.

In March 1918, Matthias Erzberger was the most influential supporter in government of the candidacy of Wilhelm, Duke of Urach for the proposed throne of the stillborn Kingdom of Lithuania.

On 3 October 1918, Matthias Erzberger entered the government of Prince Max von Baden as a state secretary without a specified portfolio.

On 6 November 1918, a reluctant Matthias Erzberger was appointed chairman of the Armistice Commission sent to negotiate with the Allies in the Forest of Compiegne.

Against hopes that Matthias Erzberger would be able to obtain better conditions from the Allies, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the chief Allied negotiator, was unwilling to make any concessions, with the exception of a slight extension of the time allotted to the German army to withdraw.

Matthias Erzberger was unsure whether he should hold out for further changes in Germany's favour.

Matthias Erzberger fell out with Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau, first Foreign Minister of the Weimar Republic, in early 1919 for advocating the handing over of Karl Radek, the Bolshevik diplomat and agitator, to the Entente following the collapse of the German Revolution.

When Scheidemann resigned over the harsh terms of Treaty of Versailles and a new government led by Gustav Bauer took over on 21 June 1919, Matthias Erzberger became finance minister and vice chancellor.

Matthias Erzberger supported the Treaty of Versailles, as he saw no military or political alternatives.

Matthias Erzberger was treated with particular contempt by the nationalist right wing as the man who had signed what was coming to be viewed as a humiliating and unnecessary surrender.

In July 1919, Matthias Erzberger introduced what became known as "Matthias Erzberger finance reform".

Second, Matthias Erzberger aimed for a significant redistribution of the tax burden, lightening the burden on low- to moderate income households.

Matthias Erzberger stabilized national finances, although they remained strained by the burden of war reparations.

Matthias Erzberger reformed and unified the previously independent state railway administrations into the German Reichsbahn, which began to make a profit for the first time and helped pay the war reparations.

Matthias Erzberger was consequently compelled by his party to resign his ministerial office and to give up his seat in the National Assembly in March 1920.

Matthias Erzberger was once more returned to the Reichstag at the general election of June 1920, but in accordance with the wish of his party, he abstained from immediate participation in politics, as proceedings had been instituted against him on a charge of evading taxation.

Matthias Erzberger was the leader of the left-wing of the Centre Party with Joseph Wirth.

Matthias Erzberger continued to be pursued by the relentless animosity of the reactionary parties, the conservatives and the national liberals of the German People's Party.

Matthias Erzberger was suspect for his activities as finance minister in 1919, as the supporter of liberal Catholic trade unions and, it was said, as political adviser of the Catholic Chancellor of the Reich, Joseph Wirth, who prepared a fresh scheme of taxation designed to impose new burdens upon capital and upon the prosperous landed interests in the summer of 1921.

Matthias Erzberger leaped down the slope by the road, but three further shots hit him in his lung, stomach, and leg.

Matthias Erzberger's assassins were later smuggled into Hungary and were prosecuted only after World War II.

Matthias Erzberger's funeral turned into a political rally, at which one of the speakers was Joseph Wirth.

Matthias Erzberger is buried in the Catholic cemetery of Biberach an der Riss.

Matthias Erzberger was instrumental in preparing the German nation for peace and in ensuring that the Catholic Centre Party, the predecessor of today's Christian Democratic Union, retained a modicum of power in an increasingly radicalized Germany.