Editing Walther Rathenau (section)

==Early life==
Rathenau was born in [[Berlin]] to [[Emil Rathenau]], a prominent Jewish businessman and founder of the [[AEG (German company)|Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft]] (AEG), a producer of electricity and electrical equipment, and Mathilde Nachmann.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last1=Albrecht |first1=Kai-Britt |last2=Eikenberg |first2=Gabriel |last3=Walther |first3=Lutz |date=14 September 2014 |title=Walther Rathenau 1867–1922 |url=https://www.dhm.de/lemo/Biografie/walther-rathenau |access-date=26 May 2024 |website=Deutsches Historisches Museum |language=de}}</ref>

=== Education and business experience ===
Rathenau studied physics, chemistry and philosophy in Berlin and [[Strasbourg]], and received a doctorate in physics in 1889 after studying under [[August Kundt]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Mendelsohn |first1=Ezra |url={{Google books|teYiAQAAQBAJ|page=106|plainurl=yes}} |title=Against the Grain: Jewish Intellectuals in Hard Times |last2=Cohen |first2=Richard I. |last3=Hoffman |first3=Stefani |publisher=Berghahn Books |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-782-38003-0 |location=Oxford; New York |page=106}}</ref> 

Rathenau worked as a technical engineer in a Swiss aluminium factory and then as a manager in a small electro-chemical firm in [[Bitterfeld]], where he conducted experiments in electrolysis. He returned to Berlin and joined the AEG board in 1899,<ref name=":0" /> becoming a leading industrialist in the late [[German Empire]] and early [[Weimar Republic]]. He set up power stations in [[Manchester]], [[Buenos Aires]] and [[Baku]]. AEG acquired ownership of a streetcar company in Madrid, and in East Africa he purchased a British firm. In total he was involved with 84 companies worldwide.{{sfn|Dallas|2000|p=303}} AEG was particularly praised for vertical integration methods and a strong emphasis on supply chain management. Rathenau developed an expertise in business restructuring and turning companies around. His strong organizational abilities made his company very successful. He made substantial profits from commercial lending on a wide industrial scale, which he then reinvested in capital and assets.

=== Visits to Germany's African colonies ===
During the same period, Rathenau was becoming interested in politics. He became close friends with the businessman [[Bernhard Dernburg]], who was appointed Germany's first [[Imperial_Colonial_Office#Reichskolonialamt_secretaries_of_state|colonial secretary]] in May 1907. Dernburg introduced Rathenau to Chancellor [[Bernhard von Bülow]], who agreed that at his own expense Rathenau could accompany Dernburg on official visits to the colonies of [[German East Africa]] in 1907 and [[German South West Africa|German Southwest Africa]] in 1908. Soon after returning from East Africa, Rathenau submitted a report to the German government which was influential in developing official policy towards the colony. Like Dernburg, Rathenau believed that African workers were the most valuable resource in the colony and that it was essential to care for their well-being. Rathenau also argued that the colonial justice system must treat Africans fairly.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Naranch |first=Bradley D. |date=September 2000 |title="Colonized Body", "Oriental Machine": Debating Race, Railroads, and the Politics of Reconstruction in Germany and East Africa, 1906–1910 |journal=Central European History |volume=33 |issue=3 |pages=299–338 |doi=10.1163/156916100746356 |via=Cambridge University Press}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last1=Dernberg |first1=Bernhard |author-link=Bernhard Dernburg |last2=Rathenau |first2=Walther |author-link2=Walther Rathenau |date=2019 |editor-last=East |editor-first=John W. |title=Dernburg and Rathenau on German East Africa: Official Reports on a Study-Tour through Colonial Tanzania in 1907 |url=https://www.academia.edu/40785015 |website=Academia}}</ref>

During his time in [[German South West Africa]], Rathenau condemned the treatment of the [[Herero people]], referring to the [[Herero and Namaqua genocide]] as "the greatest atrocity that has ever been brought about by German military policy".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Evans |first=Richard J. |date=November 2012 |title=Prophet in a Tuxedo |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v34/n22/richard-j.-evans/prophet-in-a-tuxedo |journal=London Review of Books |volume=34 |issue=22}}</ref> He condemned the "system of deportation and concentration camps" and described the "present position of the native" as having the "outward appearance of slavery".{{Sfn|Volkov|2012|p=70}}

===Thoughts on German Jews===
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-L40010, Walter Rathenau.jpg|thumb|upright|Rathenau in 1921]]
Rathenau held a sense of inferiority in society due to his Jewishness, realising, in the words of [[Hans-Ulrich Wehler]], "that he had come into the world as a second-class citizen and that no amount of ability and merit could ever free him from the condition".{{Sfn|Wehler|1985|p=106}}

His [[German Jewish]] heritage and his accumulated wealth were both factors in establishing his deeply divisive reputation in German politics at a time of increasingly widespread [[antisemitism in Germany]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fink |first=Carole |date=Summer 1995 |title=The murder of Walther Rathenau |url=https://www.questia.com/magazine/1G1-17422958/the-murder-of-walter-rathenau |journal=Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought |volume=44 |issue=3|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402102422/https://www.questia.com/magazine/1G1-17422958/the-murder-of-walter-rathenau |archive-date=2 April 2015 }}</ref> In a 1918 book, he summed up his thoughts on growing up Jewish in Germany, writing that his patriotism and loyalty to his country were no different than that of any fellow German regardless of religion or ethnicity:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rathenau |first=Walther |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/23396/pg23396-images.html |title=An Deutschlands Jugend |publisher=S. Fischer Verlag |year=1918 |edition=Project Gutenberg |location=Berlin |pages=9 |language=de |trans-title=To Germany's Youth}}</ref>

<blockquote>I am a German of Jewish origin. My people are the German people, my homeland is Germany, my faith is German faith, which stands above denominations.</blockquote>At the time, there was a widespread belief in Germany that Jews could never put their country first. The idea that the Jews were "our misfortune", as the German nationalist historian [[Heinrich Treitschke]] wrote, led to the proliferation from the 1880s of antisemitic parties.{{efn|Antisemitic parties included the [[Christian Social Party (Germany)|Christian Social Party]], Antisemitic League, Social Empire Party, German People's Union, [[German Reform Party]], German Antisemitic Union, Antisemitic German Social Party, Antisemitic People's Party, United Association of Antisemitic Parties, [[German Fatherland Party]], and German Socialist Workers' Party.}} There were no Jewish officers in the Prussian Army – the ruling class in the Imperial Officer Corps was both outspokenly and latently antisemitic and eventually supported the [[Nazism|Nazis]]' antisemitic policies.<ref>Wehler, p. 160</ref> 

Rathenau was a strong proponent of full and radical assimilation of German Jews into German society. In his 1897 article {{Lang|de|Höre, Israel!}} ("Hear, O Israel!"), he wrote:<ref>{{Cite web |title=Walther Rathenau, "Hear, O Israel!" (1897) |url=https://ghdi.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=717&language=english |access-date=27 May 2024 |website=GHDI (German History in Documents and Images)}}</ref>

<blockquote>Strange sight! In the midst of German life an isolated, strange human tribe, resplendently and conspicuously adorned, hot-blooded and animated in its behaviour. An Asian horde on the soil of the [[March of Brandenburg]]. The forced cheerfulness of these people does not betray the amount of old, unquenched hatred that rests on their shoulders. Little do they know that only an age that keeps all natural forces in check is able to protect them from what their fathers would have suffered. In close association with each other, strictly closed off from the outside – thus they live in a semi-voluntary, invisible ghetto, not a living member of the people but a foreign organism in its body. ... What, then, must happen? An event without historical precedent: the conscious self-education of a race to assimilate to outside demands. ... Assimilation in the sense that tribal qualities – regardless of whether they are good or bad – that are demonstrably hateful to fellow Germans are cast off and replaced by more suitable ones. ... The goal of the processes should not be imitation Germans, but Jews who are German by nature and education.</blockquote>