Heinrich Brüning was a German Centre Party politician and academic, who served as Chancellor of Germany during the Weimar Republic from 1930 to 1932.
Background
Born in Münster in Westphalia, Brüning lost his father when he was one year old and thus his elder brother Hermann Joseph played a major part in his upbringing. Although brought up in a devoutly Roman Catholic family, Brüning was also influenced by Lutheranism's concept of duty, since the Münster region was home to both Catholics, who formed a majority, and Prussian-influenced Protestants.
Education
Brüning received his early training in law at the University of Munich, in history and literature at Strasburg, and in political science at Münster and Bonn universities.
Career
Brüning's first important post was that of secretary to Adam Stegerwald, the founder of the influential Federation of Christian Trade Unions movement. In 1921 when Stegerwald became the prime minister of Prussia, Brüning succeeded him in the management of the Catholic unions and retained that post until 1930. In 1921 also, Brüning founded the union daily, Der Deutsche.
The political career of Heinrich Brüning began with his election as member of the Reichstag in 1924. There he soon became a prominent member of the taxation committee and in 1925 promulgated the so-called "Lex Brüning" dealing with tax reforms. In 1929 he succeeded Stegerwald as head of the parliamentary Zentrums-Partei or Catholic Centrist Party. After the resignation of Müller in 1930, Brüning was appointed Reich chancellor and charged with forming a ministry that was not to be based upon a parliamentary coalition. When the Reichstag rejected his emergency measure he procured a dissolution and new elections in September 1930. In March 1931, when the need for drastic governmental economy became evident, Brüning assumed the power of governing Germany by emergency measures issued by the president of the Reich.
During 1931 Brüning conferred with foreign envoys on war debts, and visited London, Paris, and Rome in the interests of international cooperation to lessen economic difficulties. The proposed Austro-German customs pact found an advocate in the Reich chancellor, who held that it did not violate the Geneva Protocol of 1922 and was therefore no concern of the League of Nations. In 1932 Brüning headed the German delegation to the Disarmament Conference at Geneva. Ascetic and scholarly, lacking the fiery appeal of his chief opponent, the Nazi Führer Adolf Hitler, Dr. Brüning as a political figure nevertheless gained the confidence of the German moderate parties. Brüning failed because he could neither form a coalition of parties to support his labor and agricultural programs, nor control the Nazis, Communists, and Nationalists. He was overthrown by a conspiracy instigated by militarists, reactionaries, and opportunists. Von Hindenburg forced Brüning's ministry to resign May 30, 1932, to be followed first by Fritz von Papen and then by Hitler. Brüning for a time was leader of the Center Party, but later came to the United States and from 1939 to 1952 he taught government at Harvard University. In 1952 he returned to Germany and taught at Cologne University until he retired. He spent his last years at Norwich, Vt., where he died on Mar. 30, 1970.
Politics
In the international theatre, Brüning tried to alleviate the burden of reparation payments and to achieve German equality in the rearmament question. In 1930, he replied to Aristide Briand's initiative to form a "United States of Europe" by demanding full equality for Germany.
In 1931 plans for a customs union between Germany and Austria were shattered by French opposition. In the same year, the Hoover memorandum postponed reparation payments and in summer 1932, after Brüning's resignation, his successors would reap the fruits of his policy at the Lausanne conference, which reduced reparations to a final payment of 3 billion marks.
Negotiations over rearmament failed at the 1932 Geneva Conference shortly before his resignation, but in December the "Five powers agreement" accepted Germany's military equality.