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Georg Gothein

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Georg Gothein
Minister of Treasury
In office
13 February 1919 – 20 June 1919
Prime MinisterPhilipp Scheidemann
Personal details
BornOtto Fürchtegott Georg Gothein
15 August 1857
Neumarkt in Schlesien, Kingdom of Prussia
Died22 March 1940(1940-03-22) (aged 82)
Berlin, Nazi Germany
Resting placeStahnsdorf South-Western Cemetery
Party

Georg Gothein (15 August 1857 – 22 March 1940) was a left-liberal German politician of Jewish origin. He was a member of the liberal political parties, including Progressive People's Party and German Democratic Party and served as the minister of the treasury between February and June 1919.

Early life

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Gothein was born in Neumarkt in Schlesien, Silesia, on 15 August 1857.[1] He hailed from a Jewish family.[2] He received a degree in engineering.[3]

Career

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Gothein had various waterway related business activities in Silesia.[4] He was a liberal politician and first became a member of the Progressive People's Party.[5]

From 1889 to 1892, Gothein was a city councilor in Waldenburg (today, Wałbrzych) and, from 1894 to 1906, he held the same position in Breslau (today, Wrocław). From 1904 to 1910, he was a member of the provincial parliament of Silesia and, from 1893 to 1903, a member of the Prussian House of Representatives. Between May 1901 and the collapse of the empire in November 1918, he was a member of the Reichstag, elected for the Greifswald-Grimmen constituency.[6]

Gothein was among the founders of the German Committee for the Promotion of Jewish Settlement in Palestine which was established in April 1918.[5] He was also a member of its central board, and the committee was dissolved in 1919.[5]

Gothein was a cofounder of the German Democratic Party, a liberal political party.[3][7] He served as minister of the treasury in the cabinet led by Philipp Scheidemann from February to June 1919.[8] He was a member of the Weimar National Assembly (1919–1920) and was elected to the first Reichstag of the Weimar Republic, serving from 1920 to 1924.[9] He was one of the leaders of the Mitteleuropäischer Wirtschaftstagung (German: Central European Economic Union) which had been established in 1928 to promote the economic development in Central Europe.[4] He was active in the organization until 1931 when Tilo von Wilmowsky replaced him in the post.[4]

Later years, personal life and death

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After retiring from politics Gothein worked as a journalist.[10] He was a follower of the Protestant church.[5]

Gothein was married and had four daughters.[1] He died in Berlin on 22 March 1940 and was buried at the Stahnsdorf South-Western Cemetery.[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Andrea Ditchen (2022). "Gothein, Otto Fürchtegott Georg". Deutsche Biographie (in German).
  2. ^ Eric Kurlander (Fall 2002). "Nationalism, Ethnic Preoccupation, and the Decline of German Liberalism: A Silesian Case Study, 1898–1933". The Historian. 65 (1): 109. doi:10.1111/1540-6563.651018. JSTOR 24450935. S2CID 143653617.
  3. ^ a b Steffen Kailitz; Sebastian Paul; Matthäus Wehowski (2020). "The Politics of Diversity in Disputed Border Regions during Times of Uncertainty: Upper Silesia, Teschen Silesia, and Orava (1918-19)". Studies on National Movements. 5 (29): 9.
  4. ^ a b c Jiří Janáč (2012). European Coasts of Bohemia. Negotiating the Danube-Oder-Elbe Canal in a Troubled Twentieth Century. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. pp. 39, 62. ISBN 978-90-4851-813-5. JSTOR j.ctt45kd2k.
  5. ^ a b c d Lucia Juliette Linares (2020). German Politics and the 'Jewish Question', 1914-1919 (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. pp. 60–61, 164. doi:10.17863/CAM.50099.
  6. ^ Georg Gothein biography in the Reichstag Members Database
  7. ^ Andreas Kunz (1986). Civil Servants and the Politics of Inflation in Germany, 1914–1924. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 170, 425. doi:10.1515/9783110852998. ISBN 978-3-11-085299-8.
  8. ^ "The first cabinet meeting of the Scheidemann Cabinet on February 1919". topfoto.co.uk. Retrieved 17 February 2023.
  9. ^ Georg Gothein entry in the Reichstag Members Database
  10. ^ "Georg Gothein. Aufstieg und Niedergang des deutschen Linksliberalismus" (in German). Droste Verlag. Retrieved 17 February 2023.
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  • Media related to Georg Gothein at Wikimedia Commons
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