DR RATHENAU’S DEATH.

Grey River Argus, 3 July 1922, Page 8

DR RATHENAU’S DEATH.

MURDERERS’ TAXI-DRIVER. BERLIN, June 30. r Gunther was Ludendorff’s secretary .1 he Nationalist furnished him , with papers whereby i;e < mild use vari THE LATH GERMAN MINISTER. Dr. Waller Rathen,nu. who was born in .1867, was a son of Herr Emile Ratheirnu, ihe founder of the Allgemaine Elcktricitats Gcsselschaft. After studying mathematics, chemistry, and physic., at .he Berlin University, he went in for research work, and made some discoveries in electrotechnics that enabled him io start factories of his own. Latch 1 on he joined the A.E.G. The various undertakings that have grown out of the parent firm form to- ! uay a huge trust, of which he was man- f aging director, with ramifications on t many bruiwnos of industry. In 1908 Dr. Rathenau travelled the German AtHcati colonies with x Herr jtrrnburg, then Colonial Minister, and afterwards recorded his impressions in a memorandum advocating a more .enlightened policy than that of the Junker offshoot which had made Gerii'.'.n ,colonial :o.ministration a by-wo-'d. In the years before the war, Dr Rathejuiil was in clus-e touch with the Kaiser, who, it is said, was always ready to .isicn io his broad views, even though 1 he was never willing to act upon them. During the war Dr. Rathenau organised the supply of Germany’s raw materials on the lines necessary to cope with the demand for shells and other muni l ions that arose after ihe Marne. Rathenau was, next to Herr Hugo Stinnes, perhaps the best known industrialist in Germany. SinC’O the war he had taken a less active part in business, and an increasing part in economic politics, and he was rightly regarded as one of the new Germany’s strofigest and ablest organis•eis. On May 28th, .1921, Dr. Rathonau accepted the i>ost of Minister of Reconstruction in, the Wirth Cabinet. One of his first tasks was the negotiations with .1.1. Loucheur. French Minister for the liberated regions, at Wiesbaden, which resulted in the concluding of tin agreement for reparation in kind in supplying material for the restoration of the houses and other buildings, and other reconstruction work in till' devastated areas. Dr. Rathenau 1 also played a great part in the negotiations between Germany and the Allied Powers on the problem of reparations. He is also credited with an active share in the Rapallo negotiations which pro-duc-ed ll.e Treaty between Germany and Russia. Dr. Rathenau was the pruo ■ •ip;;! German delegate at the Genia Conference. In a review of his latest book “Von Kommenden Dingen,’’ published in Germany in 1917, and translated into •English last year, “The Times” said: ‘‘Dr Rathenau is by no means an or- ' ilinary business man and, still less, an i ordinary minister. True, he has been associated with, and has in reality been the soul of, some of th-o largest German industrial undertakings, but lie considers himself as much a seer and loader of thought as a leader in organisation and business enterprise. His book is a protest against, the imprisonment of the mind in a mechanically organised world. He regards tin' object of human progress not as a mere i m-ivase of inatenal well-being, but as the attainment of freedom from material restraints and the substitution of individual responsibility for I'liud regimentation through institutions ‘ Transtig;ir:!tioi ’ is the ultimate dest'::iv of man. neither fear nor hop.-, he exclaims, arc tin* driving forces, im.r calculated m: i\i;‘g a.fier a nn :-h:iiii<':i! l-daiice. but faith which spiinq-'. pom hive, fleppos: need, ar-d the d ol ’ God.’” ' ( The assassination of Dr Rathenau ' must lie held M have a sinister signicance, following as it does the murder .of the strong men of the new Ger- | many’ in August last year.