Walther Funk
| Walther Funk | |
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Funk with Golden Party Badge, 1942
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Reich Minister of Economics Nazi Germany |
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In office 5 February 1938 – 1 May 1945 |
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| President |
Adolf Hitler Führer |
| Chancellor | Adolf Hitler |
| Preceded by | Hermann Göring |
| Succeeded by | Office abolished |
| President of the Reichsbank | |
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In office 19 January 1939 – 8 May 1945 |
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| Preceded by | Hjalmar Schacht |
| Succeeded by | Office abolished |
| Secretary of State in the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda | |
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In office 13 March 1933 – 26 November 1937 |
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| Appointed by | Adolf Hitler |
| Preceded by | Office created |
| Succeeded by | Otto Dietrich |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
18 August 1890 Danzkehmen, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire |
| Died |
31 May 1960 (aged 69) Düsseldorf, West Germany |
| Political party | National Socialist German Workers Party |
| Spouse(s) | Luise Schmidt-Sieben |
| Profession | Journalist |
| Religion | Protestantism |
Walther Funk (18 August 1890 – 31 May 1960) was an economist and prominent Nazi official who served as Reich Minister for Economic Affairs from 1938 to 1945 and was tried and convicted as a major war criminal by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.
Funk was born into a merchant family in 1890 in Danzkehmen (present-day Sosnowka in the Russian Kaliningrad Oblast) near Trakehnen in East Prussia. He was the only one of the Nuremberg defendants who was born in the former eastern territories of Germany. He was the son of Wiesenbaumeister Walther Funk the elder and his wife Sophie (née Urbschat). He studied law, economics, and philosophy at the Humboldt University of Berlin and the University of Leipzig. In World War I, he joined the infantry, but was discharged as unfit for service in 1916. In 1920, Funk married Luise Schmidt-Sieben. Following the end of the first war, he worked as a journalist, and in 1924 he became the editor of the centre-right financial newspaper the Berliner Börsenzeitung.
Funk, who was a nationalist and anti-Marxist, resigned from the newspaper in the summer of 1931 and joined the Nazi Party, becoming close to Gregor Strasser, who arranged his first meeting with Adolf Hitler. Partially because of his interest in economic policy, he was elected a Reichstag deputy in July 1932, and within the party, he was made chairman of the Committee on Economic Policy in December 1932, a post that he did not hold for long. After the Nazi Party came to power, he stepped down from his Reichstag position and was made Chief Press Officer of the Third Reich.
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