Karl Emil August Rasche (23 August 1892 – 13 September 1951) was an SS-Obersturmbannführer and a Ph.D. in

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

as well as a board member and banker, later spokesman, of the

Dresdner Bank Dresdner Bank AG () was a German bank, founded in 1872 in Dresden, then headquartered in Berlin from 1884 to 1945 and in Frankfurt from 1963 onwards after a postwar hiatus. Long Germany's second-largest bank behind Deutsche Bank, it was eventually ...

during the

Third Reich Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

. On 11 April 1949 he was sentenced in a Ministries Trial to seven years in prison for his activities under the

Nazis Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

Biography

Early career

Rasche studied economics and law in

Münster Münster (; ) is an independent city#Germany, independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a ...

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, and

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

. At the outbreak of the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, he joined the army and fought on the Western Front. After being wounded in 1917 he wrote a dissertation with the title "The police concept in today's Prussian law with special attention to special laws" whilst in hospital. After the war he became involved in the Baltische Landeswehr, fundraising and recruiting volunteers. From July 1919 Rasche served as a court clerk in Hamm, but moved in 1921 to work at the Barmer Bank Corporation, where he became a rehabilitation specialist. From the beginning of 1933 he was a board member of the Bochum Westfalenbank AG, where he worked with Paul Pleiger.

During the Nazi period

In 1934 Rasche was appointed a deputy, and from August 1935, a full board member of the

. His employment with Dresdner Bank had partly come through the intervention of Wilhelm Keppler. Together with another board member,

Emil Heinrich Meyer Emil Heinrich Meyer (6 May 1886 in Wiesbaden – 9 May 1945 in Berlin) was a German business executive. Meyer was a board member at the ITT Corporation's Germany-based subsidiaries Standard Elektrik Lorenz and Mix & Genest as well as AEG (German co ...

, Rasche was considered a trusted banker of the SS. Though Rasche joined the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

in May 1933, his membership was not considered valid, as no membership card was issued or any membership fees paid. In August 1939 Rasche was retroactively awarded party membership from May 1937 and was given membership number 2,207,508. From 1933, Rasche was also a member of the

German Labor Front The German Labour Front (, ; DAF) was the national labour organization of the Nazi Party, which replaced the various independent trade unions in Germany during the process of ''Gleichschaltung'' or Nazification. History As early as March 1933, ...

(DAF), the Rechtswahrerbund (Lawyer's association), and the Nationalsozialistischer Reichsbund für Leibesübungen, the umbrella organisation for sports. During the

1936 Summer Olympics The 1936 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XI Olympiad () and officially branded as Berlin 1936, were an international multi-sport event held from 1 to 16 August 1936 in Berlin, then capital of Nazi Germany. Berlin won the bid to ...

Rasche was deputy head of the Reich Office for professional athletics. Because of this role, he was introduced as a guest of honour to

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

, the leader of the

, and was introduced into the Freundeskreis Himmler by Fritz Kranefuss in the autumn of 1936. Rasche joined the SS (membership number 323,879) in May 1939 with membership retroactive to November 1938 as a

Hauptsturmführer __NOTOC__ (, ; short: ''Hstuf'') was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was used in several Nazi organizations such as the SS, NSKK and the NSFK. The rank of ''Hauptsturmführer'' was a mid-level commander and had equivalent seniority to a ...

(SS Captain). After the

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, ), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "German Question, Greater Germany") arose after t ...

of Austria in 1938, Rasche became involved in the expansion of the banking business in Austria and later in the

Sudetenland The Sudetenland ( , ; Czech and ) is a German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the border districts of Bohe ...

and

Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was a partially-annexation, annexed territory of Nazi Germany that was established on 16 March 1939 after the Occupation of Czechoslovakia (1938–1945), German occupation of the Czech lands. The protector ...

. From the mid-1930s, he served as Chairman or Board member in the war effort and also led the business departments of the subsidiaries Handelstrust West NV (Amsterdam) and Continentale Bank SA (Brussels). Towards the end of December 1942 he was promoted to CEO of the Dresdner Bank after a restructuring of the bank, together with . In December 1943, he joined the Executive Group West in

Bad Nauheim Bad Nauheim () is a town in the Wetteraukreis district of Hesse state of Germany. As of 2020, Bad Nauheim has a population of 32,493. The town is approximately north of Frankfurt am Main, on the east edge of the Taunus mountain range. It is a w ...

. Rasche was involved in the negotiation of credit to the SS, which operated Nazi forced labor camps and

concentration camp A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitati ...

s and financed the

Germanisation Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, people, and culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationalism went hand in hand. In l ...

programmes in occupied Eastern Europe. In banking, Rasche was also involved in

Aryanization Aryanization () was the Nazi term for the seizure of property from Jews and its transfer to non-Jews, and the forced expulsion of Jews from economic life in Nazi Germany, Axis powers, Axis-aligned states, and their occupied territories. It enta ...

in the Netherlands and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. His participation in the Nazi regime is also demonstrated in the transfer of Czech arms factories to the

Reichswerke Hermann Göring Reichswerke Hermann Göring ("Hermann Göring Reich Works") was an industrial Conglomerate (company), conglomerate in Nazi Germany from 1937 until 1945. It was established to extract and process domestic iron ores from Salzgitter that were deemed ...

, which he carried out together with .

After the war

In April 1945 Rasche was arrested at Bad Nauheim and was placed in French captivity. He was questioned in Paris. Rasche was confined to the

French occupation zone The French occupation zone in Germany (, ) was one of the Allied-occupied areas in Germany after World War II. Background In the aftermath of the Second World War, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin met at the Yalta C ...

and his activity was limited to the "promotion of cross-border economic relations" for the French military government. In November 1945 Rasche was appointed to exchange information with the

Office of Military Government, United States The Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS; ) was the United States military-established government created shortly after the end of hostilities in Allied-occupied Germany, occupied Germany in World War II. Under General Lucius D. Cla ...

investigators in the American occupation zone. He was arrested immediately after his arrival in

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

. He was imprisoned in

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

after a stay in the prison in Frankfurt and in the 74th Ludwigsburg camp. From there he was transferred to the

Dachau concentration camp Dachau (, ; , ; ) was one of the first concentration camps built by Nazi Germany and the longest-running one, opening on 22 March 1933. The camp was initially intended to intern Hitler's political opponents, which consisted of communists, s ...

, and finally was called to trial in April 1947 in the

Nuremberg Trials #REDIRECT Nuremberg trials {{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from move ...

. As the only banker on trial from the private sector, Rasche was indicted on 4 November 1947 at the Ministries Trial, the eleventh set of trials to take place under the Nuremberg Trials. His counsel was . Regarding the seventh indictment of ''collaborating in slave labour'', the prosecution could not prove conclusively whether Rasche had visited concentration camps or taken loans to pay for their building. Rasche was released (early) in August 1950 from the

Landsberg Prison Landsberg Prison is a prison in the town of Landsberg am Lech in the southwest of the German state of Bavaria, about west-southwest of Munich and south of Augsburg. It is best known as the prison where Adolf Hitler was held in 1924, after the ...

for war criminals. In October/November 1950 Rasche was declared to have completed the

denazification Denazification () was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of the Nazi ideology following the Second World War. It was carried out by removing those who had been Nazi Par ...

process. He was unable to resume work at the Dresdner Bank. In May 1951 representatives of the Bank agreed on a settlement for compensation and pension claims. Rasche continued working as a consultant and died as a result of a heart attack on a commuter train to Basel in September 1951.

Work in supervisory boards

;Chairman of the Supervisory Board * 1938–1945: Perlmooser Cement AG, Vienna * 1939–1944: Bohemian Escompte Bank, Prague (banking subsidiary Dresdner Bank) * 1939–1944: Poldi Hütte AG, Prague * 1941–1945: Commercial Credit Bank Ltd., Riga * 1943–1945: West German Bodenkreditanstalt, Cologne * 1943–1945: Tatra Werke AG, Prague * Engelhardt-Brauerei AG Brewery, Berlin * Hardy & Co. Ltd. Bank, Berlin ;Vice-Chairman of the Supervisory Board * 1944 Allgemeine Versicherungs AG, Vienna * 1936–1945: Dyckerhoff Portland Cement AG, Mainz-Amöneburg * 1939–1945: Rheinische rayon AG, Krefeld ;Member of the Supervisory Board * 1936–1945: Mülheim mining association * 1936–1939: Junkers aircraft and engine plants AG * 1937–1945: Winter Hall AG, Kassel * 1937–1945: GEA Group AG, Frankfurt * 1938–1944: Gerling Group Life Insurance AG, Cologne * 1938–1945: Felten & Guillaume AG, Cologne * 1938–1945: Coal AG of Essen, Essen * 1938–1945: Country Bank Wien AG (subsidiary of Dresdner Bank) * 1938–1945: Iron and Steelworks AG, Cologne-Beckum * 1939–1945: Accumulatoren Factory AG, Hagen * 1939–1945: Brno Arms Factory AG, Prague * 1939–1944: Döhrener Werke AG, Hannover * 1940–1944: Coal-Benzin AG (

Brabag Brabag (Braunkohle Benzin AG) was a German firm, planned in 1933, and operating from 1934 until 1945, that distilled synthetic aviation fuel, diesel fuel, gasoline, lubricants, and paraffin wax from lignite. It was an industrial cartel firm closel ...

), Berlin * 1940–1945: Continental Oil AG, Berlin * 1940–1945:

Škoda Works The Škoda Works (, ) was one of the largest European industrial conglomerates of the 20th century. In 1859, Czech engineer Emil Škoda bought a foundry and machine factory in Plzeň, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary that had been established ten ye ...

AG, Hanover * 1940–1945:

Rheinmetall Rheinmetall AG () is a German automotive and arms manufacturer, headquartered in Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was promoted to the DAX, Germany's leading stock market index, in March 2023. It is the largest German and fifth largest Europe ...

AG, Düsseldorf

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rasche, Karl 1892 births 1951 deaths People from Iserlohn German bankers SS-Obersturmbannführer Nazi Party politicians German Army personnel of World War I German people convicted of crimes against humanity Jurists from North Rhine-Westphalia People convicted by the United States Nuremberg Military Tribunals People from the Province of Westphalia Lawyers in the Nazi Party 20th-century Freikorps personnel Dresdner Bank Nazis convicted of war crimes