Paul Pleiger (28 September 1899 – 22 July 1985) was a German entrepreneur and corporate executive who was involved in managing the war economy of Nazi Germany. He was the managing director of the Reichswerke Hermann Göring from 1937 and became chairman of its supervisory board in 1942. From 1941, he served as the Reich Delegate for Coal Supply and the chairman of the Reich Coal Association. He was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Nuremberg Military Tribunal and sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment.
Early life and career
Pleiger, the son of a
miner, was
apprenticed as a
locksmith and
lathe operator between 1913 and 1917 and then attended an engineering technical school in
Elberfeld. He then worked as an
engineer at the Harpen Mining Company in
Dortmund. In January 1925 he founded his own company in Sprockhövel,
Paul Pleiger Maschinenfabrik, a factory that manufactured machinery and equipment for mining. In March 1932 he joined the
Nazi Party and became the
Ortsgruppenleiter (Local Group Leader) in Sprockhövel. He later would be awarded the Golden Party Badge. In 1933, he was admitted to the Party's paramilitary wing, the
Sturmabteilung (SA), with the rank of SA-
Sturmfuhrer, and also became the Gau economic advisor in Gau Westphalia-South, headed by
Gauleiter Josef Wagner.
[ Paul Pleiger entry in the Deutsche Biographie]
Career in Nazi Germany
In November 1934, at the request of
Wilhelm Keppler, Hitler's advisor for economic affairs, Pleiger went to work for him in
Berlin, dealing with the promotion of ore mining. In October 1936, when the Four Year Plan was established under Hermann Göring, Pleiger headed its iron department in the office for raw materials. In July 1937, Göring made Pleiger the
general director of the newly founded
Reichswerke Hermann Göring, an ore mining and ironworks conglomerate. Under his leadership, it grew to be the largest such concern in Europe, expanding with the
Anschluss with Austria and the takeover of Czechoslovakia and Poland. By 1940, it employed over 600,000 workers. Pleiger served on the
Vorstand (management board) from 1939, becoming chairman in 1941. In May 1942, he succeeded Paul Körner as chairman of the
Aufsichtsrat (supervisory board) and served until the fall of the Nazi regime in May 1945. In January 1938 he was named a
Wehrwirtschaftsführer (War Economy Leader). After the conquest of
France and
Luxembourg, Pleiger was made
Treuhänder (Trustee) for the iron ore regions of
Lorraine and Luxembourg. He also sat on
Albert Speer's Armaments Council from 1941.
As general director of the Reichswerke Hermann Göring, Pleiger was one of the most influential economic functionaries and state entrepreneurs of Nazi Germany, also holding supervisory and executive board positions in numerous other corporations. He was the manager from August 1941 to 1943 and, from 1943 until 1945, the chairman of the management board of the Berg- und Hüttenwerksgesellschaft Ost (Mining and Metallurgical Company East). Following the attack on the Soviet Union, he was given responsibility for the coal and steel sector in the Wirtschaftsorganisation Ost (Economic Organization East) and was named Reich Representative for the Entire Economy of the East. On 25 March 1941, Pleiger became chairman of the new Reichsvereinigung Kohl (Reich Coal Association), consisting of representatives of fourteen coal producers, distributors and consumers. He was simultaneously named Reichsbeauftragter für die Kohlenversorgung (Reich Commissioner for Coal Supply), including for the occupied territories.
In 1943, Göring, in his capacity as Prussian Minister president, named Pleiger to the Prussian State Council. On 10 May 1943, Pleiger received the Knight's Cross of the War Merit Cross with Swords. Long a loyal protégé of Göring, on the occasion of the Reichsmarschall's fiftieth birthday in January 1943, Pleiger presented him with a gift of one million Reichsmarks, one hundred thousand from the Reichswerke Hermann Göring and the remainder from a fund controlled by the Reich Coal Association.
Postwar trial and subsequent life
In his numerous industrial management capacities, Pleiger bore responsibility for human and material exploitation of the occupied territories with all its associated coercive and repressive measures. In the
Ministries Trial, the last of the trials conducted by the International Military Tribunal in
Nuremberg, he was indicted for crimes against peace, wartime looting and utilization of forced labor. His defense team included
Robert Servatius, who had previously defended
Fritz Sauckel in the
Nuremberg trials and
Karl Brandt in the
Doctors Trial, and who also would go on to defend
Adolf Eichmann. Found guilty on the second and third counts, he was sentenced on 13 April 1949 to 15 years imprisonment. However, he was granted early release in March 1951 from
Landsberg Prison and returned to the board of directors of his company in Sprockhövel, the
Pleiger Gruppe. He devoted himself to rebuilding his company, which had been under trusteeship after the war.
After his retirement, operations continued under the direction of his son, Dr. Paul Pleiger, Jr. until his death in an automobile accident in 1983. Pleiger died two years later, on 22 July 1985 in
Hattingen. His company is still in business today and has expanded to China, South Korea and the United States.
See also
Sources
Further reading
-
Tanja Penter, (2010) Kohle für Stalin und Hitler. Arbeiten und Leben im Donbass 1929–1953. Klartext, Essen.
-
Tanja Penter, (2011) Kohle für Hitler. Der Donbass unter deutscher Besatzung. In Einsicht, Heft 6. Bulletin des Fritz-Bauer-Institut, pp. 40–47.
-
Matthias Riedel, (1973) Eisen und Kohle für das Dritte Reich. Paul Pleigers Stellung in der NS-Wirtschaft. Musterschmidt, Göttingen.
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