Background
Albert Voegler was born in Borbeck, in the Ruhr, on 8 February 1877.
Albert Voegler was born in Borbeck, in the Ruhr, on 8 February 1877.
An engineer by training, Voegler was already a prominent figure in the German steel industry before 1914. From 1906 to 1912 he was Director of Union AG for Iron and Steel Industries at Dortmund and a close collaborator of Hugo Stinnes. In 1915 he was appointed General Director of German Luxemburg Mining AG, a position he held until 1926.
In 1920 he was elected to the National Assembly as a delegate of the German People’s Party, serving for four years. (He was elected again as a member for the electoral district of Westphalia South in 1933.) A member of the Dortmund Chamber of Commerce, Voegler succeeded Emil Kirdorf as Chairman of the Rhineland-Westphalian Coal Syndicate in 1925 and a year later he was appointed General Director of the largest German steel works, Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG, Düsseldorf, a post he continued to hold until 1935.
From 1930 to 1933 Voegler was one of the prime sources of funds from industrial circles to Hitler’s Nazi Party. He was present on 20 February 1933 at a secret meeting held in Goering's Reichstag Presidential Palace, hosted by Dr Schacht, where future Nazi policy was explained by Hitler to a group of leading businessmen who responded by contributing three million marks to Party coffers. Hitler promised to eliminate the Marxists, to restore the Wehrmacht, to rearm Germany and to end free elections, a programme that was enthusiastically received by Voegler and his colleagues in big business circles.
Under the Third Reich, although never a member of the Nazi Party, Voegler became President of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Science and Research and in 1934 he was appointed Reich Plenipotentiary for the socialization of Rhenish-Westphalian coal pits. He was Chairman and a member of several Boards of Directors in Nazi Germany, including the AG fur Energiewirtschaft (Berlin), Deutsche Röhrenwerke AG (Düsseldorf), Elektrizitats-AG (Nuremberg), Deutsche Edelstahlwerke AG (Krefeld), Ruhrstahl AG (Witten), Ruhrgas AG (Essen), Westfälische Union AG für Eisen und Drahtindustrie, Harpener Bergbau AG (Dortmund) and Rheinisch-Westfälische Elektrizitätswerk AG (Essen).
After the 20 July 1944 plot against Hitler's life, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the head of the security services, wanted to indict Voegler and two of his colleagues in heavy industry for ‘defeatist’ conversations, but the prominent industrialist was protected by the intercession of Albert Speer.
Voegler committed suicide in Dortmund on 13 April 1945 following his arrest by American troops.
