THYSSEN, FRITZ (1873 - 1951)
Fritz Thyssen, the son of the successful industrialist, August Thyssen (1842-1926), was born on the 9th November, 1873,in Mulheim. His father was one of the wealthiest industrialist in Germany and a supporter of the Catholic Centre Party until its participation in the signing of the Versailles Treaty.
He joined the German Army in 1896 and reached the rank of second lieutenant.
In 1898 Thyssen joined Thyssen & Co a company owned by his father in the Ruhr. By the outbreak of the First World War the company employed 50,000 workers and produced 1,000,000 tons of steel and iron a year.
In 1923 took part in the resistance against the Ruhr Occupation by Belgian and French troops. He was arrested and received a large fine for his activities.
At a meeting with General Eric Ludendorff in October 1923, Thyssen was advised to go and hear Adolf Hitler speak. He did this and was so impressed he began to finance the Nazi Party.
Thyssen inherited his father's fortune in 1926. He continued to expand and in 1928 formed United Steelworks, a company that controlled more that 75 per cent of Germany's ore reserves and employed 200,000 people.
He joined the Party in December 1931 after Hugenberg's alliance with the Nazis convinced him that the Young Plan spelled catastrophe for Germany, and that only a strong State authority could save the nation. The same year he recruited Hjalmar Schacht to the cause and in November, 1932, the two men joined with other industrialists in signing the letter that urged Paul von Hindenburg to appoint Adolf Hitler as chancellor. This was successful and on 20th February, 1933, they arranged a meeting of the Association of German Industrialists that raised 3 million marks for the Nazi Party in the forthcoming election.
In September 1933, Thyssen was appointed Prussian State Councillor for life by Goering, whom he had specially subsidized as a 'moderate' bulwark against the radicalism of the Nazi Left. On 12 November 1933, he became a member of the Reichstag for the Dusseldorf East and in the same year, he was chosen to head an institute for research into the corporate state (Standische Wirtschaftsordnung).
Thyssen supported the measures that Hitler took against the left-wing political groups and trade unions. He also put pressure on Hitler to suppress the left of the Nazi Party that resulted in the Night of the Long Knives. However, as a Catholic, Thyssen objected when Hitler began persecuting people for their religious beliefs.
The Nazi - Soviet pact of 23 August 1939 and the aggressive war policy of the regime had been the last straw for Thyssen, who wrote to Hitler as 'a free and upright German', claiming to be the 'voice of the tormented German nation' calling for a restoration of 'freedom, right and humanity' in the German Reich. Thyssen's appeal was ignored.
Thyssen resigned as state councillor in protest against Crystal Night. The following year he fled to Switzerland. Thyssen moved to France.He was stripped in absentia of his German citizenship by Hitler and his property was confiscated.
In 1941, his memoirs, I Paid Hitler, first appeared in English, an anguished settling of accounts with the Nazi regime which 'has ruined Germany' but singularly unreliable in its recounting of his financial relationship with the National Socialists. He was arrested by the Vichy government and was returned to Germany where he was sent to a concentration camp.
Thyssen was freed by Allied forces in 1945. Arrested he was convicted by a German court for being a former leader of the Nazi Party and was ordered to hand over 15 per cent of his property to provide a victims of Nazi persecution. Fritz Thyssen died in Buenos Aires on 8th February, 1951.
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Fritz Thyssen wrote a letter to Adolf Hitler explaining why he had left Nazi Germany (28th December, 1939)
My conscience is clear. I know that I have committed no crime. My sole mistake is to have believed in you, our leader, Adolf Hitler, and in the movement initiated by you - to have believed with the enthusiasm of a passionate lover of my native Germany.
Since 1923 I have made the greatest sacrifices for the National Socialist cause, have fought with word and deed, without asking any reward for myself, merely inspired by the hope that our unfortunate German people would finally recover. The initial events after the National Socialists come to power seemed to justify this hope, at least as long as Herr von Papen was vice-chancellor.
A sinister development followed these events. The persecution of the Christian religion, taking the form of cruel measures against the priests and insults to the Churches, led me to protest in the early days, for instance when the police president of Dusseldorf issued a protest to Marshal Goering, It was in vain.
When, on November 9th, 1938, the Jews were despoiled and martyrized in the most cowardly and brutal manner, and their temples razed to the ground throughout Germany, I also protested. To reinforce this protest, I resigned my office as state councillor. This, too, as in vain.
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Fritz Thyssen wrote a letter to Hermann Goering explaining why he had left Nazi Germany (1st October, 1939)
Germany is once more plunged into war, without any kind of reference to the parliament or the state council, I inform you quite definitely I am opposed to this policy, and shall maintain this opinion even though I am accused of being a traitor.
Even from the standpoint of practical politics this policy amounts to suicide, for the sole person to benefit from it is the Nazis' mortal enemy of yesterday, transformed into the friend of today - Russia.
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