Walther Funk (18 August 1890 – 31 May 1960) was Reich Minister of Economics under Nazi Germany from 5 February 1938 to 1 May 1945, succeeding Hermann Goering.
Biography[]
Walther Funk was born in Danzkehmen, East Prussia, German Empire (now Sosnowska, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia) in 1890. He was unfit for service in the Imperial German Army during World War I, and he became a journalist during the Interwar period, working for the conservative financial newspaper Berliner Boersenzeitung. Funk supported German nationalism and anti-communism, and he resigned from the newspaper in 1931 to join the Nazi Party, befriending Gregor Strasser. He was elected a Reichstag deputy in July 1932 due to his interest in economic policy, but he became a Chief Press Officer of Nazi Germany after the Nazis came to power in 1933. Funk worked in the propaganda department before replacing Hjalmar Schacht as Reich Minister of Economics in 1938, and he was involved in the confiscation of Jewish property and the taxation of emigrants. He was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946, but he was released from Spandau Prison in 1957 due to ill health. Funk died in Düsseldorf from diabetes in 1960.
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