Kurt Weigelt

Kurt Weigelt (5 June 1884 – 5 August 1968)

From after World War I, Weigelt was in Deutsche Bank management becoming a deputy director in 1922. He was also involved in commercial aviation, he was instrumental in the founding of Deutsche Luft Hansa by the merger of several existing German airlines.

Weigelt officially was the head of the economic department of NSDAP Office of Colonial Policy. Unofficially, Weigelt was regarded as "secret minister of Colonies". He prepared the Wirtschaftspolitische Denkschrift des Kolonialpolitischen Amtes der NSDAP (Economic policy memorandum of the Colonial Political Office of the NSDAP) memorandum with plans on how to plunder Africa. Scholar Werner Ustorf describes Weigelt's colonial plans as amounting to compulsory labour and camp settlements.

After the end of the Second World War, he was placed on a list of 42 people from industry who were wanted as war criminals. He was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison and a fine of 50,000 Reichsmark. Weigelt was chairman of Lufthansa's supervisory board from its reestablishment in 1953 (as Luftag, renamed Lufthansa in 1954) and until 1960, and served as honorary president of Lufthansa until his death in 1968.