Hans Schäffer: catalogue to diaries and other papers - no date

This collection consists of the copy archival catalogue to the diaries and other papers of Hans Schäffer, formerly ministerial official and finance expert during the Weimar era. The original diaries are owned by the Wiener Library and are on permanent loan at the archive of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte, München which produced the catalogue. In addition to the catalogue and related papers there are two additional items, the provenance of which is not known. These are a partial copy of an analysis of the economic crisis of the early 1930s (951/3) and unidentified material relating to German broadcasting (951/40). Hans Schäffer was born, the son of a Jewish industrialist in 1886 in Breslau, Germany, and died in Jönköping, Sweden. He studied law, politics and history in Breslau and Geneva. He fought on the western front during the First World War. After which he held a number of posts in the <em>Reichswirtschaftsamt</em> and <em>Reichswirtschaftsministerium</em>. He became an expert on the question of reparations, taking part in international conferences on the subject. He stopped working for the government after the Nazi seizure of power and worked for a short while as the General director of the publishers, Ullstein. At the same time he took an active interest in issues affecting Jews. He acted as an adviser in the founding of the <em>Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden</em>.<br /><br />In 1936 he emigrated with his wife to Jönköping, Sweden, where he worked as an adviser on the questions of international law and finance. He developed a close relationship with Konrad Adenauer after the war who offered him the post of Secretary of state in the <em>Bundeswirtschaftsministerium</em>.<br /> Open