PEEBLES PROFILES
EPISODE 184
Wilhelm Cuno
EARLY YEARS
Wilhelm Carl Josef Cuno was born in Suhl (in Prussian Saxony, now Thuringia) on July 2, 1876. He was the son of August George Wilhelm Cuno and wife Catherina Elisabeth Theresia (née Daske).
Cuno studied law in Berlin and Heidelberg and was awarded a Juris Doctor degree. He was a member of Die Katholische Deutsche Studentenverbindung Arminia Heidelberg (K.D.St.V. Arminia Heidelberg), a Catholic student fraternity.
In 1906, Wilhelm married Martha Berta Wirtz, the daughter of Hamburg merchant Hugo Wirtz. The couple had three sons and two daughters.
The next year, Cuno began work with the Reichsschatzamt (Imperial Treasury), initially as Regierungsassessor (government assessor). In 1910, he was promoted to Regierungsrat (senior civil servant). Then in 1912, Cuno was promoted again to the Geheimer Regierungsrat (secret government council). His main tasks involved preparing parliamentary bills and presenting them to the Reichstag.
THE GREAT WAR
During the First World War, Cuno was involved in organizing food supplies for the Imperial German Army. He was the first director of the new Reichsgetreidestelle (Imperial Grain Site) in July 1916. By that time, the Allied naval blockade was causing a bit of belt-tightening on the German home front.
Cuno was then attached to the former governor of East Prussia, Adolf Tortilowicz von Batocki-Friebe. A member of the Prussian House of Lords, Batocki-Friebe became president of the Reichsernährungsamt (Imperial Nutrition Office), and he employed Cuno to aid in its organization. Later in 1916, Cuno was put in charge of the department on economic issues relating to the war at the Imperial Treasury.
But by 1917, the blockade was not broken, and extreme malnutrition had phased into starvation. The poor, sick, elderly, and children were most affected were hit hardest by this naval noose.
Before the war, Germany produced more than eighty percent of its dietary needs, but the chemical fertilizers used for farming came from abroad. The supply of chemicals from German plants and Scandinavia was inefficient… and nitrates were needed by the munitions facilities. So with the Allied blockade already choking the nation, the soil soon deteriorated, and the quality of the harvests fell off!
Fish, egg, and sugar consumption had fallen by half. Potatoes, butter, and vegetables also declined sharply. Coffee disappeared from the tables of all but the rich. White bread, cheeses, and meaty sausages became scarce. The winter of 1916-17 in Germany became known as the “turnip winter”.
The only solution the government had was substitute goods. Soon, ersatz products and food were flooding the German market:
– “meat” was made of vegetable flour, barley, and mushrooms
– “coffee” came from dandelion roots and barley
– raspberry-leaf “tea” was also sold
– “flour” was made from sawdust covered with chalk
– “bread” came from potato skins
Looted butcher shops and food riots became more common place, and in some cases, people took extreme measures in obtaining meat.
Vitamin deficiency was destroying the tooth and bone of the young generation. Many of the youth and old men were being called to serve their country on the war front. They became better fed in the army than at home!
THE NEGOTIATOR
In November 1917, Wilhelm Cuno left the civil service. At the request of shipping magnate Albert Ballin, Cuno joined the Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG or Hamburg-America Line shipping company) as a director. Exactly one year later, Germany was in the throes of revolution. Abandoned by the Kaiser and fearing the total destruction of his company, Ballin committed suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills. Cuno became the general director of HAPAG in December 1918.
As an economic expert, Cuno participated in negotiations on the November armistice, war reparations, and peace terms. Cuno also took part in other international talks, including the Genoa Conference which he left in protest after the signature of the Treaty of Rapallo with the Soviet Union. But Cuno was also an important negotiator between the German shipping firms and the Weimar government, especially with regard to compensation for merchant ships delivered to the Allies under the terms of Versailles in 1920 and 1921.
Around the same time, Cuno led HAPAG into an alliance with United American Lines. His goal was to reestablish HAPAG as a passenger line. Cuno also unofficially represented Germany’s foreign policy interests while traveling abroad.
THE CHANCELLOR
Wilhelm Cuno rejected several proposals to assume a number of posts, including (1) foreign minister in the autumn of 1922 and (2) finance minister after Matthias Erzberger’s resignation in 1920. However, he agreed to form a new government after the resignation of Joseph Wirth’s second cabinet.
On November 22, 1922, Cuno was appointed Reichskanzler (Chancellor of Germany) by presidential decree and without a vote in the Reichstag. He became the first chancellor in the Weimar Republic to represent no political party.
Politically speaking, the seventh Weimar chancellor was quite distant from President Friedrich Ebert, a Social Democrat. Cuno had a somewhat aloof position towards the Weimar government and its parliamentary system. He also held the Reichstag in fairly low esteem, because he felt the bickering between the parties was distasteful.
Cuno formed a government composed mainly of the following:
– non-party economists
– members of the German People’s Party
– members of the German Democratic Party
– members of the German Centre Party
– members of the Bavarian People’s Party
Cabinet Cuno was alternatively referred to as a Geschäftsministerium (Ministry of Business), Regierung der Wirtschaft (Government of the Economy), or Kabinett der Persönlichkeiten (Cabinet of Personalities). The emphasis was that Cuno’s chancellorship was not the result of an explicit coalition between the parliamentary parties. But hopes were high for this government of experts, led by a man with excellent connections abroad to make headway in the difficult talks with the victorious Allies.
However, these men were soon disappointed!
RUHRBEZETSUNG
Cuno’s plan to settle the reparations issue and to stabilize Germany currency in the foreign exchange market was rejected by the Allies at the urging of French Prime Minister (and former President) Raymond Poincaré. When Germany fell behind on its shipments of wood and coal (made as reparations in lieu of lacking gold currency), the French declared the delinquency to be a deliberate breach of the Versailles treaty. So on January 11, 1923, French (and later Belgian) troops were ordered to occupy the heavily-industrialized Ruhr Valley… also known as the Ruhrbezetsung.
This move, widely seen as illegal (even outside Germany), caused the outraged Cuno government to call for passive resistance: Reparation shipments to France and Belgium were stopped, the mines were told not to make any more deliveries, and civil servants (including Reichsbahn personnel) were told to disobey orders by the occupation authorities.
The truth of the matter was that the war debt was so tremendous that German factories were unable to keep up with the Allied demand for raw materials. As such, the German economy suffered, further damaging the country’s ability to pay. Meanwhile, France was also suffering from a high deficit accrued during the Great War, which resulted in a depreciation of the Franc. So the French increasingly looked towards the prospect of German reparation payments as a way of stabilizing THEIR economy.
France believed that the Cuno government had defaulted on the timber deliveries deliberately as a way of testing its will to enforce the treaty. After the Germans had defaulted on its coal delivery for the 34th time in thirty-six months, General Alphonse Caron’s 32nd Infantry Division (under the supervision of General Jean-Marie Degoutte) was ordered to carry out the operation, which led to the occupation.
The Ruhr was the industrial heartland of Germany, and because of the Franco-Belgian occupation, its economy almost came to a complete stop! Financial support payments by the government to the Ruhr inhabitants affected by firm closures, deportations, and arrests quickly added up to vast sums. In curing this malady, the government began printing money, which caused inflation to rapidly increase. It soon turned to hyperinflation, and the value of the Mark went into free fall!
Attempts by Cabinet Cuno to resume talks over reparations in May and June 1923 failed. Poincaré refused to negotiate unless passive resistance was ended. A wave of strikes against Cuno’s government began that summer. On August 12th, Cuno and his men resigned as a result of a vote of no-confidence initiated by Social Democrats in the Reichstag.
The Ruhrbezetsung would last another two years…
FINAL YEARS
During the spring 1925 election for Reichspräsident, Wilhelm Cuno was outspoken in his support for Paul von Hindenburg rather than the candidate from the Centre Party, Wilhelm Marx. By this time, Cuno had retired from politics… and the Dawes Plan of 1924 led to a more stable Germany and the end of the Ruhrbezetsung.
Cuno returned to serve at HAPAG, becoming its general director general once again in 1926. He was involved in negotiations over the release of German property impounded in the U.S. during the war. He also worked towards a merger with Norddeutsche Lloyd, which finally occurred in 1930.
At Aumühle near Hamburg, Wilhelm Cuno died on January 3, 1933 at the age of fifty-six.