RATHENAU, WALTHER (1867-1922), German states man and industrialist, was born in Berlin on Sept. 29, 1867, the son of Emil Rathenau, the founder of the Allgemeine Elektrizi tats-Gesellschaf t. After studying philosophy, physics and chem istry at Berlin and Strasbourg he graduated in 1889, and spent a year studying machine structure and chemistry at Munich. He was then engaged as a civil engineer by the Aluminium Industrie A.-G. of Neuhausen, Switzerland.
In 1893 he became a director of the Electrochemische Werke (Limited) at Bitterfeld for the utilization of a process for making chlorine and alkalis by electrolysis. He also built large works at Rheinfelden, in Russian Poland, and in France, and elaborated processes for the production of ferrosilicate, chrome, soda and magnesia. In 1899 Rathenau became a director of the Allgemeine Elektrizitats-Gesellschaft, and built central stations at Manchester, Amsterdam, Buenos Aires and Baku. In 19o2 he belonged to the board of directors of about Ioo enterprises. During 1907 Rath enau accompanied Dernburg, the Secretary of State of the Im perial Colonial Office, to German East and West Africa, and also visited the British Colonies in Africa. His Rellexionen (1908) contain his two final reports on those visits.
Even at the beginning of the World War Rathenau foresaw the threat to the German supply of raw materials involved by the British blockade. In an astoundingly short time, with the ac quiescence of the War Minister von Falkenhayn, he established a huge organization for the administration of the war raw materials then at Germany's disposal. This Board of the War Ministry, called the Kriegsrohsto ff -A bteilung, which he left in splendid work ing order to his successor on March 31, 1915, alone made it pos sible for Germany to hold out with raw material.
After his father's death in the summer of 1915 Rathenau was made president of the Allgemeine Elektrizitats-Gesellschaft. He published Von Kommenden Dingen (Eng. trans. In Days to Come), Eine Streitschrift vom Glauben and Vom Aktienwesen. In 1918 his collected works were published. After the War Rathenau endeavoured to found a middle-class Democratic Party which should bridge the gulf between the middle classes and labour caused by the revolution, and in this way to restore national unity. In 1919 he participated in the preliminary preparations in Berlin for the Conference of Versailles. From April 1920 to May
3o, 1921 Rathenau was a member of the so-called "Socializing Commission" convoked by the newly founded Reichswirtschaftsrat to discuss the question of nationalizing the coal-mines.
He was government expert at the Spa conference of July 192o, and in the spring of 1921 took part in the preliminaries to the London Conference. At the end of May 1921 he was asked by the chancellor 'Wirth to join the Government. The two leading men of the Cabinet thus formed, Wirth and Rathenau, were united by trust and friendship. The combination of the chancellor's original and impulsive nature, his courage and love of responsibility, was a happy blend with Rathenau's far-sighted and extraordinary capability. Rathenau co-operated in the final conclusion of the Peace Treaty with the United States of America in Aug. 1921. As Minister of Reconstruction he concluded with Loucheur, the French Minister of the Liberated Regions, the Wiesbaden agree ment, securing to France the privileged supply of deliveries in kind as reparation payment, which helped to relax the tension between France and Germany. But the disruption of the Upper Silesian coal and iron district, quite contrary to the German reading of the Versailles Treaty and to the result of the plebiscite, provoked Rathenau to resign from the Cabinet by way of protest: He did not withdraw his support from the Cabinet, however, and went, in Nov. and Dec. 1921 to London, to enlist England's interest and understanding, and to secure a British loan for the next repara tion instalment. This loan was refused on technical grounds. But in England Rathenau came in touch with members of the British Government. Under his influence arose the famous Lloyd George "Chequers scheme," which gave a practical form to the idea of a "United States of Europe" by proposing the reconstruc tion of Russia through the united economic forces of the other great European Powers, including Germany. The ideas underlying the later Pact of Locarno (1925) were also discussed. In Paris Rathenau found less support. Nevertheless, the project discussed at Chequers led to the conference of Cannes (Jan. 1922), where Rathenau, in an eloquent speech, exposed the impossibility of the London reparation demands and secured an essential diminution of the reparation payment of 1922.