Hugo Schäffer

Hugo Schäffer (13 June 1875 - 25 August 1945) was a German politician. He was initially a non-partisan politician, as was then common, but joined the Nazi Party in 1933. He served as Reich Minister for Labour in Franz von Papen's cabinet for 163 days in 1932 when he was ousted after Papen could not secure the Reichstag following the November 1932 German federal election.

Before and after his service as minister, he served as President of the Reich Insurance Office (RVA) from 1924 to 1932 and again from 1933 to 1942. In this role, upon the Nazi rise to power, he was a Nazi collaborator, becoming co-editor of a Nazi journal and part of the Nazi student council. The cabinet of Papen in 1932, Schäffer was not in this picture.

Early life Schäffer was born on 13 June 1875 in Edelfingen, a village near Mergentheim. His father, Karl, was an evangelical pastor and his mother Karoline (née Öhm) was from an Old Frankish family who lived in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. He studied in a Latin school in Göppingen, and then he attended gymnasiums in Blaubeuren and Maulbronn. In 1893 he started studying theology in Tübingen and joined the student fraternity called the Tübingen Royal Society Roigel. He decided to switch to law and political science in 1895 and started attending the University of Tübingen and studied in Berlin, graduating in 1901 with a doctorate. In 1899 and 1901 he passed the higher Württemberg financial service examinations. He started working at the company Friedrich Krupp in Essen in 1901, and worked there until 1902.

He started working in the Württemberg administrative service in 1902, and worked as a bailiff in Öhringen and Oberamt Gmünd until 1905. from 1907 to 1909.

Political career

Reich Insurance Office

In 1924 he became President of the Reich Insurance Office for the first time. He left the office after he was appointed minister, but returned in 1933 alongside being appointed President of the Reich Supply Court.

Reich Minister of Labour On 6 June 1932 he was confirmed as Reich Minister of Labour as part of Papen's cabinet. Schäffer later told trade union representatives that he had reservations about accepting the offer, but accepted after Papen threatened to dissolve the ministry and merge it with the Federal Ministry for Economics.

He proposed Prussian Privy Councillor Ernst Kübler as State Secretary for his ministry, but it did not go through. Schäffer considered himself a "man of the industry" and so he fulfilled wishes from leading industries in the country. In an attempt to gain supporters, he stressed the government's unemployment relief plan before the Christian trade unions in Düsseldorf in September 1932.

He was dropped from the cabinet after the November 1932 German federal election alongside Papen himself.

Nazi collaboration

He joined the NSDAP on 1 May 1933. He was also in the National Socialist Association of Legal Professionals and the NS Student Council of the RVA. 1912 - 3rd Class Order of the Prussian Crown