Editing Walther Rathenau (section)

=== Postwar statesman ===
Rathenau was a moderate liberal in politics. After World War I, he joined the [[German Democratic Party]] (DDP) and moved to the left in the face of postwar chaos. Passionate about social equality, he rejected state ownership of industry and instead advocated greater worker participation in the management of companies.{{Sfn|Wehler|1985|p=235}} His ideas were influential in postwar governments, although in 1919 when his name was mentioned in the [[Weimar National Assembly]] as a candidate for president of Germany, there was a burst of laughter among the other members.{{Sfn|Volkov|2012|p=179}} Referring to the extreme right-wing organizations that arose within months of the communist-inspired [[Spartacist uprising]] in January 1919, he said in the [[Reichstag (Weimar Republic)|Reichstag]] that they were, "the product of a state in which for centuries no one has ruled who was not a member of, or a convert to, military feudalism".{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}} 

In 1920, he worked on the Socialisation Commission, a group of experts set up by the [[Council of the People's Deputies]] in November 1918 to examine ways of socialising parts of the German economy, and took part in the [[Spa Conference of 1920|Spa Conference]], at which German disarmament and reparations were discussed. Because of his international reputation and negotiating skills, he became [[Reich Ministry for Reconstruction|minister of reconstruction]] in Chancellor [[Joseph Wirth]]'s cabinet in May 1921. He supported Wirth's "fulfilment policy", which attempted to show that Germany was unable to meet the [[Allies of World War I|Entente]]'s reparations demands by making a good faith effort to fulfil them. In October he concluded the Wiesbaden Agreement with France on private-sector German deliveries of goods to French war victims. Rathenau resigned as minister at the end of October when the DDP withdrew from the governing coalition, but he continued to work for the government in London and at the Cannes Conference on reparations.<ref name=":0" />