Background
Schwerin von Krosigk was born on 22 August 1887 at Rathmannsdorf (Anhalt) .
public official Reich Minister
Schwerin von Krosigk was born on 22 August 1887 at Rathmannsdorf (Anhalt) .
Educated at Rossleben, He studied law at Oxford and Lausanne, passing his first examination in 1909.
In 1910 he entered the civil service in Stettin and passed his final examination in 1914. He served with the Second Pomeranian Uhlans and was awarded the Iron Cross (First Class) for bravery during World War I.
In 1920 he was appointed a Regierungsrat and in 1929 Ministerial Director in the Reich Ministry of Finance.
From 2 June 1932 (when he joined von Papen's cabinet) until 1945, Schwerin von Krosigk remained Minister of Finance and a member of the cabinet. He supervised the financing of Germany's rearmament programme and, unlike the Minister of Economics, Hjalmar Schacht, he approved of Hitler's persecution of the Jews and efforts to drive them out of Germany. In May 1945 Admiral Doenitz, who had succeeded Hitler, appointed him Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs in place of von Ribbentrop, though the post had ceased to have any real meaning.
On 2 April 1949 the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal sentenced Schwerin von Krosigk to ten years’ imprisonment for war crimes.