Johann Ludwig Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, born Johann Ludwig von Krosigk and known as Lutz von Krosigk was a German senior government official who served as Minister of Finance of Germany from 1932 to 1945 and Leading Minister of the German Reich in May 1945. A non-partisan moderate conservative, he was appointed to the post by Franz von Papen in 1932. At the request of President Paul von Hindenburg, he continued in that office under Kurt von Schleicher and Adolf Hitler. During May 1945, after the suicides of Hitler and his designated successor Josef Goebbels, he also served in the historically unique position of Leading Minister of the German Reich, the equivalent of a Chancellorship, in the short-lived Flensburg government of President Karl Dönitz. Schwerin von Krosigk also held the essentially nominal offices of Foreign Minister and Finance Minister in the provisional government that controlled only a small, progressively shrinking portion of Germany, due to the rapid advance of the Allied forces who finally dissolved it and arrested its members.
Johann Ludwig Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, born Johann Ludwig von Krosigk and known as Lutz von Krosigk was a German senior government official who served as Minister of Finance of Germany from 1932 to 1945 and Leading Minister of the German Reich in May 1945. A non-partisan moderate conservative, he was appointed to the post by Franz von Papen in...