Metadata: Estate of Eduard Schulte
Collection
- Country:
- Switzerland
- Holding institution:
- Archives of Contemporary History at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archiv für Zeitgeschichte der ETH Zürich
- Postal address:
- Hirschengraben 62, CH-8092 Zurich
- Phone number:
- +41 44 632 40 03
- Web address:
- https://www.afz.ethz.ch/
- Email:
- afz@history.gess.ethz.ch
- Reference number:
- NL Eduard Schulte
- Title:
- Estate of Eduard Schulte
- Title (official language):
- Einzelbestand Eduard Schulte
- Creator/accumulator:
- Schulte, Eduard
- Date(s):
- 1940/2006
- Language:
- German
- Extent:
- 0.1 shelf metres
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- The collection mainly contains correspondence, personal documents of Schulte’s son Ruprecht, documents and correspondence concerning Eduard Schulte’s forestry in Klein-Volkow, Belgard, as well as documents concerning the Association of German Forest Tree Nurseries and the Forest Office of the Reichsnährstand (Reich nutritional estate). It also includes manuscripts, such as an expert statement on the fundamental treatment of Germany's postwar economic problems. It also contains recordings of conversations and notes of the conversation with Jürg Coradi, former ICAD staff member and close confidant of J Rosenstein.
- Archival history:
- The collection was donated to the Archives of Contemporary History (AfZ) by Alfred Cattani in several deliveries between 1995 and 2006.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Eduard Schulte, a mining industrialist, was born in Düsseldorf on 4 January 1891 and died in Zurich on 6 January 1966. He studied law in Cologne, Bonn and Erlangen and earned his doctorate in commercial law in 1912. In 1913, he joined a trading company in Berlin. In 1916, he was responsible for German soap production in the War Ministry. In 1921, he became head of the German “Sunlicht” subsidiary in Mannheim and in 1925 chairman of “Georg von Giesches Erben” in Breslau, one of the largest German mining companies of the time, in German, American and Polish ownership. In February 1933, he was invited to Berlin for an industrialists' meeting with Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring, from which he returned to Breslau as a convinced anti-Nazi. In his function as head of the company, however, he was an important producer of raw materials important to the war effort, such as zinc. He was appointed as "Wehrwirtschaftsführer" (military economy leader). From autumn 1939, he was an important source of information for Switzerland and Allied intelligence services via the Polish agent Sczesny Chojnacki, who was active in Bern. At the end of July 1942, Schulte, through Isidor Koppelmann, Basel, Benjamin Sagalowitz, Zurich, and Gerhart Riegner, informed in Geneva about the beginning of the systematic extermination of the Jews in Europe. In November 1942, the news reached the world public. In December 1943, Schulte fled to Switzerland and in 1944 prepared an expert report on the economic situation and possibilities for the reconstruction of Germany on behalf of OSS Chief Allen Dulles. In August 1945, Schulte returned to Germany as an advisor to the American military government. Despite recommendations from Dulles and Field Marshal Montgomery, Schulte was not consulted in German reconstruction. In 1946, as a result of denazification proceedings initiated against him, he permanently relocated to Switzerland where he lived in seclusion.
- Access points: locations:
- Germany
- Switzerland
- Subject terms:
- Correspondence
- Personal records
- Access, restrictions:
- Partially restricted. Subject to application.
- Finding aids:
- An online finding aid is available.
- Links to finding aids:
- http://onlinearchives.ethz.ch/
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Museum Hohenems
- Author of the description:
- Severin Holzknecht; Jewish Museum of Hohenems; 2020