Schwerin von Krosigk cabinet

Schwerin von Krosigk Cabinet
30th Cabinet of Germany
1945
File:JohannLudwigGrafSchwerinvonKrosigk26zl.jpg
Date formed	2 May 1945
Date dissolved	23 May 1945
People and organisations
Head of state	Karl Dönitz
Head of government	Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk
Member party	Nazi Party
History
Predecessor	Hitler Cabinet
Successor	Allied Control Council (from June 5, 1945) Cabinet Adenauer I (from September 20, 1949)

The Cabinet Schwerin von Krosigk formed the acting Flensburg Government of Nazi Germany after the suicide of Adolf Hitler on 30 April 1945 in Berlin.

Formation

Hitler, who had also assumed the office of head of state as Führer on 2 August 1934, in his political testament named Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz his successor as Reich President and Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels head of government as Reich Chancellor. While Goebbels also committed suicide in the Berlin Führerbunker on May 1, Dönitz accepted the office in a broadcast address. The remaining ministers of the Hitler Cabinet, who had fled from the Battle of Berlin to Wehrmacht barracks near Plön in Holstein, officially resigned the next day.

Dönitz assigned Finance Minister Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk with the formation of a Reich government. His cabinet first met in Eutin on May 2; immediately afterwards, it had to proceed to the Mürwik naval academy in Flensburg in view of advancing British Second Army forces, capturing the nearby city of Lübeck on the same day.

Dönitz' main task was the initiation of the German Instrument of Surrender, signed by the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) on May 8/9. Within Allied-occupied Germany, the Cabinet Schwerin von Krosigk officially resided at the Mürwik naval base until the arrestment of its ministers on May 23. The Allied Commission declared the government dissolved and by the Berlin Declaration of June 5, the supreme authority in the German Reich passed to the Allied Control Council.

Composition

Retaining some members from the previous Cabinet Hitler, Schwerin von Krosigk's government consisted of the following people:

Cabinet of Schwerin von Krosigk 2 May 1945 – 23 May 1945
Office	Incumbent	Party
Leading Minister	Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk	None
Minister for Foreign Affairs	Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk	None
Minister of the Interior	Wilhelm Stuckart	NSDAP
Minister of Justice	Otto Georg Thierack	NSDAP
Minister of Finance	Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk	None
Minister for Economics	Albert Speer	NSDAP
Minister for Food and Agriculture	Herbert Backe	NSDAP
Minister for Labour	Franz Seldte	NSDAP
Minister of War	President Karl Dönitz (as OKW Chief from May 1, 1945)	NSDAP
Minister of Transport	Julius Heinrich Dorpmüller	NSDAP
Minister for Postal Affairs	Julius Heinrich Dorpmüller	NSDAP
Minister for Armaments and War Production	Albert Speer	NSDAP