20 Facts About Wilhelm Cuno

Wilhelm Carl Josef Cuno was a German businessman and politician who was the chancellor of Germany from 1922 to 1923 for a total of 264 days.

Wilhelm Cuno's tenure included the beginning of the occupation of the Ruhr by French and Belgian troops and the period in which inflation in Germany accelerated towards hyperinflation.

Wilhelm Cuno instituted a policy of passive resistance and provided financial assistance to the workers and firms affected by it.

Wilhelm Cuno was born on 2 July 1876 in Suhl, in what was then Prussian Saxony and is in Thuringia.

Wilhelm Cuno studied law in Berlin and Heidelberg and was awarded a Juris Doctor.

Wilhelm Cuno was employed by the federal Treasury Department in 1907, initially as, was promoted in 1910 to and then in 1912 to.

In late 1916, Wilhelm Cuno was put in charge of the department of war-related economic issues at the Treasury Department.

At the request of Albert Ballin, general director of the Hamburg America Line, Wilhelm Cuno quit the civil service to join the shipping company as a director in November 1917.

Wilhelm Cuno left it in protest after Germany signed the Treaty of Rapallo, which normalised relations with the Soviet Union.

In 1921 and 1922, Wilhelm Cuno was an important negotiator in talks between German shipping firms and the government regarding compensation for the merchant ships delivered to the Allies under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.

In 1920, Wilhelm Cuno led HAPAG into an alliance with United American Lines, helping to re-establish HAPAG as a passenger line.

Wilhelm Cuno unofficially represented Germany's foreign policy interests during his travels abroad.

Wilhelm Cuno rejected several proposals to assume the post of foreign minister in the autumn of 1922 and minister of finance after Matthias Erzberger's resignation in 1920, but he agreed to form a cabinet after the resignation of Joseph Wirth's second cabinet.

Wilhelm Cuno was appointed chancellor on 22 November 1922 by presidential decree and without a vote in the Reichstag.

Wilhelm Cuno had a somewhat aloof position towards the Republic and its parliamentary system.

Wilhelm Cuno held the Reichstag in fairly low esteem and felt the bickering between the parties to be distasteful.

Wilhelm Cuno formed a government composed of six non-party economists plus two members each of the German People's Party, German Democratic Party and Centre Party, and one from the Bavarian People's Party.

Wilhelm Cuno retired from politics and returned to serve as a director at HAPAG.

Wilhelm Cuno was involved in negotiations about the release of German property impounded in the US during the war and in working towards the merger with the Norddeutsche Lloyd shipping company, which took place in 1930.

Wilhelm Cuno died suddenly on 3 January 1933 at Aumuhle near Hamburg.