❤️ DB Cargo 🐒

"DB Cargo (previously known as Railion and DB Schenker Rail) is an international transport and logistics company with a registered office in Mainz and a further administrative office in Frankfurt am Main. It was founded as part of the second stage of the reform of the German railway system (Bahnreform) in the 1990s. DB Cargo is now responsible for all of the rail freight transport activities of the German railway company Deutsche Bahn (the DB Group) in Germany and on a global level. Sigrid Evelyn Nikutta took on the role of CEO of DB Cargo in 2020. The services provided by DB Cargo include both block train and single wagonload transport services, the latter of which have been abandoned by many of the company's rivals. Based on the number of kilometres travelled, DB Cargo is the market leader in both Germany and Europe, although its transport services have been in decline for several years. Within the context of the battle against climate change, however, DB Cargo is becoming increasingly importantMatthias Arnold: Ach du meine Güter! Warum der Anteil des Gesamtgüterverkehrs auf der Schiene seit Jahren bei 19 Prozent stagniert. In: Rhein-Zeitung, 28. Dezember 2019, S. 8.Dorothee Torebko: DB Cargo: Güterbahn ist aus dem Takt. In: Märkische Oderzeitung, 18. Februar 2020, abgerufen am 15. April 2020. because it offers transport options that are entirely carbon neutral.DB Cargo steigert Anteil CO2-freier Beförderungen. In: Verkehrsrundschau, 14. November 2017, abgerufen am 13. Januar 2020. History = German rail reform = At the end of the 1990s, the operational business of Deutsche Bahn was reorganised into five legally independent joint-stock companies. This measure formed part of the second stage of the German rail reform. Within the scope of the reform, a precursor company was initially established in 1997 to facilitate a transformation of the rail freight transport division structured under public law into a private enterprise company before the company DB Cargo AG was ultimately founded on 1 January 1999. The headquarters of DB Cargo AG were established in Mainz. = European expansion = At first, DB Cargo solely focused on activities in Germany. The Deutsche Bahn Group planned to invest billions in its subsidiary in order to improve its position in the transport and logistics market. When the competitive environment with other European providers became increasingly tough, Deutsche Bahn (DB) and the Dutch state-owned rail company Nederlanse Spoorwegen (NS) announced plans to merge their rail freight transport activities in 1998. Together, DB Cargo and NS Cargo reached revenues of around 6.9 billion Deutsche Mark (3.5 billion euros) and had 50,000 employees. Their amalgamation was the first ever cross-border rail merger, in which Deutsche Bahn retained its majority share of 94%. A financial holding company was created for this new company and began operations under the name Railion in the year 2000. = Internationalisation = Railion laid the foundation for the establishment of a leading European transport and logistics company that was open to further partners right from the start. While the European Commission and European Parliament aimed to promote competition among providers, the providers themselves instead opted to foster cooperation. In 2001, the Danish state-owned rail company Danske Statsbaner (DSB) merged its rail freight transport activities into the joint venture as its third partner and received shares totalling 2% in Railion in return, thus causing the stake of Deutsche Bahn to decrease to 92%. The cooperation between DB, NS and DSB played an essential role in Deutsche Bahn's long-term strategy for expansion in other European countries. This strategy covered not only state-owned rail companies but also the acquisition of private rivals, for example in Italy (2004), Switzerland (2007) and Poland (2009). These were joined by a multitude of smaller acquisitions such as the transport and logistics divisions of RAG AG. In Sweden, where Deutsche Bahn was unable to acquire its chosen target, the company instead focused on collaborations. At the end of the 2000s, Railion was therefore able to not only offer connections from north to south but also reliably serve rail lines running from west to east. Despite this progress, the tough competition had a negative impact on the company's economic development. Deutsche Bahn responded to this by introducing strict cost-saving measures, which significantly improved the situation at Railion. In 2010, the rail freight transport crisis was initially deemed to have been largely resolved. = Linking rail and road = In 2003, Deutsche Bahn transferred its share in Railion to the (which later became DB Mobility Logistics). After the successful acquisition of the then-listed logistics company Stinnes, including its freight forwarding subsidiary Schenker AG, a restructuring of responsibilities took place within Deutsche Bahn. DB Cargo, NS Cargo and other Railion companies subsequently solely focused on freight forwarding while Stinnes and Schenker took on central tasks in the fields of rail freight transport and sales. By consolidating all of its transport and logistics activities, Deutsche Bahn also aimed to achieve growth in the freight transport domain. The company adjusted its image to reflect this aim and as a result, DB Cargo was renamed Railion Deutschland. At this point, the general objective pursued by Deutsche Bahn was to better cover the entire transport chain with all transportation means and routes. Over the years that followed, however, this approach mainly resulted in a shift of its freight transport activities from the rail to the road. The company realised that it needed to improve the links between its rail and road transport in particular, and securing acquisitions was one way to do so. In 2009, Deutsche Bahn abandoned the Railion brand and instead chose to consolidate all of its rail freight transport activities under the name DB Schenker Rail. Its organisational structure initially remained unchanged. Media reports, however, already began to speculate about a stock market launch of the newly formed DB Schenker division. = Company restructuring = The business operations of DB Schenker Rail experienced a significant decline in the 2010s. One of the main factors behind this decline was the economic slump following the global economic and financial crisis. The company initially responded to this negative development by introducing a more flexible price structure. It aimed to use a combination of block trains for large clients and bookings of single wagons to establish a fixed timetable that would in turn increase the capacity utilisation of its trains. Other measures considered included closing freight railway stations in order to reduce fixed costs and making job cuts. These measures were met with sharp criticism by the trade unions, which demanded that the tough cost-cutting approach be stopped immediately. They even accused the company of mismanagement. After negotiations lasting several months, Deutsche Bahn Group and its works council finally agreed on a restructuring programme for DB Cargo that avoided across-the-board job cuts in 2017. The new approach instead aimed to gradually cut back on jobs over a period of several years. On the whole, however, the company wanted its freight transport activities to grow. To reflect the company's focus on its core business activities in the domain of rail freight transport, it was again renamed and designated as DB Cargo AG in 2016. The name was also readopted for its most important German and international subsidiaries and continues to apply in the present day. DB Cargo and DB Schenker are now equal sister companies within the integrated rail system of the DB Group. = Recent developments = According to media reports, DB Cargo reduced its fleet size by nearly a half in the 2000s and 2010s. The remaining locomotives were increasingly replaced by multi-system models that can also be used in the international rail network. The company additionally equipped its inventory of wagons with whisper brakes in order to halve the rolling sounds of its freight trains. On top of all this, it decided to focus on state-of-the-art sensors and telematics, which also improved its competitiveness. To progress its developments in this area, DB Cargo played a leading role in the "Innovative Freight Wagons" research project conducted on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BWVI) between 2016 and 2019. Although the wagons used by DB Cargo have generally become older in recent years, they have also increased in size so that they can transport larger quantities of goods. Given that the majority of freight is still transported by road, DB Cargo has recently attracted more attraction based on the fact that rail freight transport plays an essential role in achieving climate targets. Within this context and based on expert opinions, the German Federal Government announced plans to transfer millions of lorry trips from road to rail after similar attempts made little progress in previous years. One of the main measures planned to achieve this aim is to gradually optimise the productivity of train drivers. The current changes being implemented at DB Cargo form part of the strategy to strengthen Deutsche Bahn in its entirety that was launched in 2019. During the global outbreak of the novel respiratory disease COVID-19, which hindered cross-border logistics due to limitations in the area of passenger and goods transport, the company was able to secure its transport operations successfully. DB Cargo provided additional capacities for transporting supplies for the population, especially food and hygiene products. Large special transports such as the "Pasta Express" from Italy most notably attracted headlines. Organisational structure DB Cargo AG, a public limited company under German law, acts as a holding company for the operational entities. Its corporate purpose covers rail and road services for the transportation of all kinds of goods and the procurement and operation of stationary and mobile means of transport such as locomotives, railcars, wagons and other containers. Its articles of association also cover related services. The holding company is entitled to carry out all activities deemed to serve the specified business purpose either directly or indirectly. This includes the establishment and management of companies and the acquisition of other companies. = Owners = DB Cargo AG has a share capital of 256,007,000,000 euros, which is divided into 51,201,400 no-par value bearer shares. When it transferred the assets and liabilities of its former freight transport division as part of the spin-off for the establishment of a new company, Deutsche Bahn AG acquired all of the company's shares and is therefore the sole shareholder of DB Cargo AG. A control and profit-and-loss-transfer agreement is in place between the parent company and subsidiary. DB Cargo AG is included in the consolidated financial statement of Deutsche Bahn. The company Deutsche Bahn AG is in turn wholly owned by the Federal Republic of Germany. = Management = Management board The Board of Management of DB Cargo AG is composed of at least two people, one of whom is responsible for staff-related and social matters in connection with employees. Otherwise, the Supervisory Board determines the number and identities of the members of the Board of Management The current Members of the DB Cargo AG Board of Management are Sigrid Evelyn Nikutta (Chairwoman), Ursula Biernert (Human Resources), Thorsten Dieter (Service), Ralf Günter Kloß (Production), Martina Niemann (Finance/Controlling) and Pierre Timmermans (Sales). The percentage of women on the board exceeds the average value of other German companies. Supervisory board The Supervisory Board of DB Cargo AG has 20 members. It is composed of shareholder and employee representatives in equal measure, who are elected according to the regulations of the and . The Supervisory Board currently has 6 female and 14 male members. Its Chairman is , who has been the CEO of Deutsche Bahn since 2017. The Vice-Chairman is Martin Burkert, a Member of the Board of the (EVG). Claus Weselsky, Chairman of the German Train Drivers' Union (GDL), is another member of the Supervisory Board, which therefore contains representatives from the two leading trade unions for the rail industry in Germany. = Companies = The business operations of DB Cargo are divided into three regions: Germany, Central Europe and Western & Eastern Europe. The German company DB Cargo AG is responsible for both operational services in the field of rail freight transport in Germany and central functions such as production, sales, finance and human resources for the entire DB Cargo Group. In 2010, Deutsche Bahn joined other rail companies in becoming a partner of the European , represented by its subsidiary DB Schenker Rail (now DB Cargo). Ever since it was first founded, the alliance has focused on the objective of making single wagonload transport, namely freight trains with wagons used by different clients, a more competitive alternative to lorry transport. Xrail also aims to achieve more customer- friendly service, efficiency and punctuality in cross-border transport, for example with its universal booking system, Xrail Capacity Booking (XCB). Rail freight transport Within the Deutsche Bahn Group, DB Cargo is mainly responsible for the following subsidiary and sister companies, all of which are directly involved in the domain of rail freight transport: * DB Cargo Belgium, Antwerp, Belgium * DB Cargo Bulgaria, Pirdop, BulgariaDB Cargo Bulgaria EOOD. In: Търговски регистър и регистър на ЮЛНЦ. МИНИСТЕРСТВО НА ПРАВОСЪДИЕТО, abgerufen am 8. Januar 2020 (bulgarisch). * DB Cargo Czechia, Ostrava, Czech Republic * DB Cargo Danmark, Taastrup, Denmark (formerly DSB Cargo) * DB Cargo Eurasia GmbH, Berlin, Germany (formerly Trans-Eurasia Logistics) * DB Cargo Hungária, Győr, Hungary * DB Cargo Italia, Novate Milanese, Italy (formerly SFM Strade Ferrate del Mediterraneo) * DB Cargo Nederland, Utrecht, Netherlands (formerly NS Cargo) * DB Cargo Polska, Zabrze, Poland (formerly PCC Rail) * DB Cargo Romania, Timișoara, Romania * DB Cargo Russija, Moscow, Russia * DB Cargo Schweiz, Basel, Switzerland (formerly BRS Brunner Railway Services) * DB Cargo UK, Doncaster, United Kingdom * Euro Cargo Rail, Paris, France * Transfesa (Transportes Ferroviarios Especiales), Madrid, Spain Service companies These are joined by further companies that have special responsibilities in areas such as sales, transporting dangerous goods and combining traffic flows: * DB Cargo BTT * DB Cargo Logistics * DB Intermodal Services * TFG Transfracht * Transa Spedition Services = Service catalogue = The service catalogue of DB Cargo consists of a wide variety of basic, additional and special services. The company's core products particularly include block train and single wagonload transport services, the combination of rail and road, and carbon-neutral transport, for example for Audi. The latter is becoming increasingly important given that rail transport currently has the lowest carbon emissions of all carriers and also achieved the largest savings in recent years (1995–2015). The company additionally offers a wide range of industry solutions, for example for the chemicals industry and the timber and building materials trades. DB Cargo is also active on an international level. Its global operations particularly focus on transport between Europe and Asia, where the company has an extensive network. Its service portfolio also includes related services such as the sale and rental of locomotives and wagons. = Key figures = In the 2018 business year, DB Cargo transported more than 255 million tonnes of goods in 2,686 traction units and 82,895 freight wagons. Leased or hired materials are factored into these totals. The company provided its services on around 4,200 sidings belonging to clients in Germany, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland. It transported goods along a route network covering a total of 33,000 kilometres in Germany and, according to calculations by the (BAG), achieved an average punctuality rate of 72.9% when providing these services. Criticism The company is currently generating a loss. Critics accuse Deutsche Bahn of having neglected the necessary maintenance work on and modernisation of the DB Cargo infrastructure and claim that the comparably high average age of its locomotives and wagons is a prime example of this problem. In 2019, the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) responded to criticism by the German Federal Court of Auditors regarding the company's lack of investments by arguing that DB Cargo and other segments had yet to exhaust their full potential. Single wagonload transport plays a special role in the observation of the economic development of DB Cargo. Experts are currently demanding that the company subsidise its activities or shrink its business in this area in order to remain a strong competitive alternative to lorry transport. References See also * Transportation in Germany * Transportation in the Netherlands External links * Official website of DB Cargo * DB Cargo Business Unit at Deutsche Bahn (the DB Group) Category:Companies based in Mainz Category:Deutsche Bahn Category:Logistics companies of Germany Category:Rail freight companies in the United Kingdom Category:Railway companies established in 2009 Category:Railway companies of Belgium Category:Railway companies of Bulgaria Category:Railway companies of Denmark Category:Railway companies of France Category:Railway companies of Hungary Category:Railway companies of Italy Category:Railway companies of Poland Category:Railway companies of Romania Category:Railway companies of Russia Category:Railway companies of Spain Category:Railway companies of the Czech Republic Category:Railway companies of the Netherlands "

❤️ U.S. National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence 🐒

"The U.S. National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence (National Violence Commission) was formed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in on June 10, 1968, after the April 4 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the June 5 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Background The National Violence Commission established task forces on assassination, group violence, individual acts of violence, law enforcement, media and violence, firearms, and violence in American history. As reported by John Herbers in the New York Times, the Chairman of the Commission, Milton Eisenhower, stated that the Task Force Report on Individual Acts of Violence was "by all odds the most important" of the reports written for the Commission. The National Violence Commission was formed only a few months after release of the final report of the Kerner Commission, which assessed the big city protests of the 1960s. In its final report in December 1969, the Violence Commission, as the Kerner Commission, concluded that the most important policy issue was lack of employment and educational opportunity in inner city neighborhoods. The Commission framed lack of inner city opportunity within a larger American economy that prized material success and within a tradition of violence that the media transmitted particularly well: In one of its most important final report passages, the National Violence Commission observed: > To be a young, poor male; to be undereducated and without means of escape > from an oppressive urban environment; to want what the society claims is > available (but mostly to others); to see around oneself illegitimate and > often violent methods being used to achieve material success; and to observe > others using these means with impunity – all this is to be burdened with an > enormous set of influences that pull many toward crime and delinquency. To > be also a Negro, Mexican or Puerto Rican American and subject to > discrimination and segregation adds considerably to the pull of these other > criminogenic forces. The Violence Commission recommended new investments in jobs, training and education – totaling $20B per year in 1968 dollars. A long run "reordering of national priorities" was in order, said the Violence Commission, which shared the Kerner Commission’s moral vision that there could be no higher claim on the nation’s conscience. A majority of the members of the National Violence Commission, including both Republicans and Democrats, recommended confiscation of most handguns, restrictions on new handgun ownership to those who could demonstrate reasonable need, and identification of rifle and shotgun owners. "When in man's long history other great civilizations fell", concluded the Violence Commission, "it was less often from external assault than from internal decay…The greatness and durability of most civilizations has been finally determined by how they have responded to these challenges from within. Ours will be no exception." Continuation In 1981, the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation was formed as the private sector continuation of both the National Violence Commission and Kerner Commission. Founding and other early Eisenhower Foundation Trustees included: A. Leon Higginbotham, former Vice Chair of the National Violence Commission and federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals Judge; Fred Harris, former Member of the Kerner Riot Commission and former United States Senator; Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, former Chairman of the 1966 President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice and former Attorney General of the United States; David Ginsburg, former Executive Director of the Kerner Riot Commission and Counselor to the President during the Johnson Administration; Milton Eisenhower, former Chair of the National Violence Commission and President Emeritus of Johns Hopkins University; Patricia Roberts Harris, former Member of the National Violence Commission and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; Edward Brooke, former Member of the Kerner Riot Commission and former United States Senator; Marvin Wolfgang, former Co-Director of Research on the National Violence Commission and Professor of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania; Henry Cisneros, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and former Mayor of San Antonio; Lloyd Cutler, former Executive Director of the National Violence Commission and former Counselor to Presidents Carter and Clinton; Elmer Staats, former Comptroller General of the United States; James Rouse, President of the Rouse Corporation and Founder of the Enterprise Foundation; Frank Stanton, former President of CBS, Inc., and Chairman of the American Red Cross; and Alan Curtis, President of the Eisenhower Foundation. Mindful of the findings of the two Commissions, the Trustees of the Foundation focused on the inner city. As it evolved, the Foundation’s mission was to identify, finance, replicate, evaluate, communicate, advocate for and scale up politically feasible multiple solution inner city ventures. The priority was on wraparound and evidence based strategies that worked for the inner city and high risk racial minority youth. Over the decades, examples of evidence-based inner city Eisenhower Foundation successes have included the Quantum Opportunities Program, the Youth Safe Haven-Police Ministation Program, the Argus Learning for Living Program and Full Service Community Schools. Updates The Eisenhower Foundation has released two updates of the National Violence Commission, as well as updates of the Kerner Riot Commission. Eisenhower Foundation President Alan Curtis edited the Foundation’s 15 year update of the Violence Commission, published by Yale University Press in 1985. Curtis and Eisenhower Foundation Trustee Elliott Currie, Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California, Irvine, co-authored the Foundation’s 30 year update in 1999. The 1985 National Violence Commission update was featured on the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and presented in a forum at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, a forum at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, and a forum at the United States Senate at which Senator Edward Kennedy was keynote speaker. The Senate forum was published in a special issue of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science edited by Curtis and covered in a story in Foundation News. The Foundation News story concluded: > The policy message that emerged from the [Senate forum] participants was > clear. Using a public-private approach, efforts should be made to combine > employment, community involvement and family to prevent crime; move away > from a federal policy of increased incarceration; reverse the "trickle down" > policy of federal anti-crime programs affecting neighborhoods to a "bubble- > up" process emanating from the local level; and formulate a new cooperative > role for police as supporters, not strictly enforcers. Titled To Establish Justice, To Insure Domestic Tranquility, the 1999 update of the National Violence Commission was featured in a debate on the PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer. Curtis observed to reporter Ray Suarez: > The original Violence Commission predicted that we would have a city of the > future in which the middle class would escape to the suburbs, drive to work > in sanitized quarters, and work in buildings protected by high tech. That > city of the future has come true. An editorial in the Detroit Free Press > said that city was Detroit. Domestic tranquility is roughly the same [in > 1999 as in 1969] in spite of the increase in prison building. On the other > hand, we haven’t had an increase in justice. We have 25 percent of all our > young children living in poverty. We have the greatest inequality in terms > of wealth and income and wages in the world. One of every three African- > Americans is in prison, on probation or on parole at any one time – and one > out of every two in cities. That is a direct result of the racial bias in > our sentencing system and our mandatory minimum sentences. For example, > crack-cocaine sentences are longer, and crack cocaine is used more by > minorities. Powder cocaine sentences are shorter, and powder cocaine is used > more by whites. The result is that our prison populations are > disproportionately filled with racial minorities. Yet, at the same time, > prison building has become a kind of economic development policy for [white] > communities which send lobbyists to Washington. In addition, the National Violence Commission updates were covered by news stories in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek and USA Today, interviews on NPR, and editorials in the Detroit Free Press, Philadelphia Daily News and Chicago Tribune, among other media. For example, the 1999 Detroit Free Press editorial focused on the Violence Commission’s 1969 "city of the future" prediction of "suburban neighborhoods, increasingly far-removed from the central city, with homes fortified by an array of security devices; high-speed police-patrolled expressways becoming sterilized corridors connecting safe areas [and] urban streets that will be unsafe in differing degrees…That was in 1969. Sounds like any metropolitan area you know?" Firearms policy In 2012, after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, the Washington Post published commentary by Curtis that reminded the nation of how, in 1969, a majority of National Violence Commission members, including both Republicans and Democrats, recommended confiscation of most handguns, restrictions on new handgun ownership to those who could demonstrate reasonable need, and identification of rifle and shotgun owners. Given that America is the only advanced industrialized nation in the world without effective firearms regulations and given that America, not surprisingly, therefore leads the industrialized world in firearms killings, the Foundation believes a new grassroots coalition against firearms in America should build on the recommendations of the National Violence Commission and better integrate the advocacy of, among others, the Brady Campaign, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the Children's Defense Fund, racial minorities, women, outraged parents, teachers, youthful voters, grandparents and voters who view firearms control as a key policy against terrorist acts and mass killings. Membership Members of the Commission were: *Milton Eisenhower, Chair – and President Emeritus of Johns Hopkins University *A. Leon Higginbotham, Vice Chair and U.S. Third Court of Appeals Judge *Hale Boggs, Congressman (D-LA) *Terrence Cardinal Cooke, Archbishop of New York *Philip A. Hart, Senator (D-MI) *Eric Hoffer, longshoreman, migratory worker and philosopher *Roman Hruska, Senator (R-NE) *Patricia Roberts Harris, Attorney and former Ambassador to Luxembourg *Leon Jaworski, Attorney *Albert Jenner, Attorney *William McCulloch, Congressman (R-OH) *Ernest McFarland, Arizona Supreme Court Justice *Walter Menninger, Psychiatrist, Menninger Foundation *Joseph R. Sahid, Attorney, University of Virginia School of Law, Cravath, Swaine & Moore, LLP References Causes and Prevention of Violence, U.S. National Commission on the Category:Violence in the United States Category:Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson "

❤️ Wilhelm Frick 🐒

"Wilhelm Frick (12 March 1877 – 16 October 1946) was a prominent German politician of the Nazi Party (NSDAP), who served as Reich Minister of the Interior in Adolf Hitler's cabinet from 1933 to 1943Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience, p 103, and as the last governor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. As the head of the Kriminalpolizei (criminal police) in Munich, Frick took part in Hitler's failed Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, for which he was convicted of high treason. He managed to avoid imprisonment and soon afterwards became a leading figure of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in the Reichstag. After Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Frick joined the new government and was named Reich Minister of the Interior. He was instrumental in formulating laws that consolidated the Nazi regime (Gleichschaltung), as well as laws that defined the Nazi racial policy, most notoriously the Nuremberg Laws. Following the rise of the SS, Frick gradually lost favour within the party, and in 1943 he was replaced by Heinrich Himmler as interior minister. Frick remained in the cabinet as a minister without portfolio until Hitler's death in 1945. After World War II, Frick was tried and convicted of war crimes at the Nuremberg trials and executed by hanging. Early life and family Frick was born in the Palatinate municipality of Alsenz, then part of the Kingdom of Bavaria, Germany, the last of four children of Protestant teacher Wilhelm Frick sen. (d. 1918) and his wife Henriette (née Schmidt). He attended the gymnasium in Kaiserslautern, passing his Abitur exams in 1896. He went on studying philology at the University of Munich, but soon after turned to study law in Heidelberg and Berlin, taking the Staatsexamen in 1900, followed by his doctorate the next year. Serving as a referendary from 1900, he joined the Bavarian civil service in 1903, working as an attorney at the Munich Police Department. He was appointed a Bezirksamtassessor in Pirmasens in 1907 and became acting district executive in 1914. Rejected as unfit, Frick did not serve in World War I. He was promoted to the official rank of a Regierungsassessor and, at his own request, re-assumed his post at the Munich Police Department in 1917. On 25 April 1910, Frick married Elisabetha Emilie Nagel (1890–1978) in Pirmasens. They had two sons and a daughter. The marriage ended in an ugly divorce in 1934. A few weeks later, on 12 March, Frick remarried in Münchberg Margarete Schultze-Naumburg (1896–1960), the former wife of the Nazi Reichstag MP Paul Schultze-Naumburg. Margarete gave birth to a son and a daughter. Nazi career Frick (3rd from left) among the defendants in the Munich Beer Hall Putsch trial, 1924. Adolf Hitler is 4th from the right. In Munich, Frick witnessed the end of the war and the German Revolution of 1918–1919. He sympathized with Freikorps paramilitary units fighting against the Bavarian government of Premier Kurt Eisner. Chief of Police Ernst Pöhner introduced him to Adolf Hitler, whom he helped willingly with obtaining permissions to hold political rallies and demonstrations. Elevated to the rank of an Oberamtmann and head of the Kriminalpolizei (criminal police) from 1923, he and Pöhner participated in Hitler's failed Beer Hall Putsch on 9 November. Frick tried to suppress the State Police's operation, wherefore he was arrested and imprisoned, and tried for aiding and abetting high treason by the People's Court in April 1924. After several months in custody, he was given a suspended sentence of 15 months' imprisonment and was dismissed from his police job. Later during the disciplinary proceedings, the dismissal was declared unfair and revoked, on the basis that his treasonous intention had not been proven. Frick went on to work at the Munich social insurance office from 1926 onwards, in the rank of a Regierungsrat 1st class by 1933. In the aftermath of the putsch, Wilhelm Frick was elected a member of the German Reichstag parliament in the federal election of May 1924. He had been nominated by the National Socialist Freedom Movement, an electoral list of the far-right German Völkisch Freedom Party and then banned Nazi Party. On 1 September 1925, Frick joined the re-established Nazi Party. On 20 May 1928, he was one of the first 12 deputies elected to the Reichstag as Nazi Party members. He associated himself with the radical Gregor Strasser; making his name by aggressive anti-democratic and antisemitic Reichstag speeches, he climbed to the post of the Nazi parliamentary group leader (Fraktionsführer) in 1928. He would continue to be elected to the Reichstag in every subsequent election in the Weimar and Nazi regimes. In 1929, as the price for joining the coalition government of the Land (state) of Thuringia, the NSDAP received the state ministries of the Interior and Education. On 23 January 1930, Frick was appointed to these ministries, becoming the first Nazi to hold a ministerial-level post at any level in Germany (though he remained a member of the Reichstag). Frick used his position to dismiss Communist and Social Democratic officials and replace them with Nazi Party members, so Thuringia's federal subsidies were temporarily suspended by Reich Minister Carl Severing. Frick also appointed the eugenicist Hans F. K. Günther as a professor of social anthropology at the University of Jena, banned several newspapers, and banned pacifist drama and anti-war films such as All Quiet on the Western Front. He was removed from office by a Social Democratic motion of no confidence in the Thuringian Landtag parliament on 1 April 1931. Reich Minister Press session after the first meeting of Hitler's cabinet on 30 January 1933: Frick standing 4th from left When Reich president Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor on 30 January 1933, Frick joined his government as Reichsminister of the Interior. Together with Reichstag President Hermann Göring, he was one of only two Nazi Reichsministers in the original Hitler Cabinet, and the only one who actually had a portfolio; Göring served as minister without portfolio until 5 May. Though Frick held a key position, especially in organizing the federal elections of March 1933, he initially had far less power than his counterparts in the rest of Europe. Notably, he had no authority over the police; in Germany law enforcement has traditionally been a state and local matter. Indeed, the main reason that Hindenburg and Franz von Papen agreed to give the Interior Ministry to the Nazis was that it was almost powerless at the time. A mighty rival arose in the establishment of the Propaganda Ministry under Joseph Goebbels on 13 March. Frick's power dramatically increased as a result of the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of 1933. The provision of the Reichstag Fire Decree giving the cabinet the power to take over state governments on its own authority was actually his idea; he saw the fire as a chance to increase his power and begin the process of Nazifying the country. He was responsible for drafting many of the Gleichschaltung laws that consolidated the Nazi regime. Within a few days of the Enabling Act's passage, Frick helped draft a law appointing Reichskommissare to disempower the state governments. Under the Law for the Reconstruction of the Reich, which converted Germany into a highly centralized state, the newly implemented Reichsstatthalter (state governors) were directly responsible to him. On 10 October 1933, Hitler appointed him a Reichsleiter, the second highest political rank in the Nazi Party. In May 1934, he was appointed Prussian Minister of the Interior under Minister-President Göring, which gave him control over the police in Prussia. By 1935, he also had near-total control over local government. He had the sole power to appoint the mayors of all municipalities with populations greater than 100,000 (except for the city states of Berlin and Hamburg, where Hitler reserved the right to appoint the mayors himself if he deemed it necessary). He also had considerable influence over smaller towns as well; while their mayors were appointed by the state governors, as mentioned earlier the governors were responsible to him. Frick (2nd from left) with Konrad Henlein on visit in Sudetenland, 1938 Frick was instrumental in the racial policy of Nazi Germany drafting laws against Jewish citizens, like the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" and the notorious Nuremberg Laws in September 1935. Already in July 1933, he had implemented the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring including forced sterilizations, which later culminated in the killings of the Action T4 "euthanasia" programme supported by his ministry. Frick also took a leading part in Germany's re-armament in violation of the 1919 Versailles Treaty. He drafted laws introducing universal military conscription and extending the Wehrmacht service law to Austria after the 1938 Anschluss, as well as to the "Sudetenland" territories of the First Czechoslovak Republic annexed according to the Munich Agreement. In the summer of 1938 Frick was named the patron (Schirmherr) of the Deutsches Turn- und Sportfest in Breslau, a patriotic sports festival attended by Hitler and much of the Nazi leadership. In this event he presided the ceremony of "handing over" the new Nazi Reich Sports League (NSRL) standard to Reichssportführer Hans von Tschammer und Osten, marking the further nazification of sports in Germany.Dr. Frick presiding the Breslau Games On 11 November 1938, Frick promulgated the Regulations Against Jews' Possession of Weapons. From the mid-to-late 1930s Frick lost favour irreversibly within the Nazi Party after a power struggle involving attempts to resolve the lack of coordination within the Reich government.A legalistic follower, rather than an initiator, Frick the servant increasingly lost favour with his master, apparently because he misunderstood the basic nature of the Fuhrer's governance. Whereas the Third Reich thrived on inconsistencies, rivalries, and constant evolutionary change, Frick's juristic mind longed for order and legal stabilization. The incongruity was insuperable and it was thus logical enough that in 1943 the minister, whose share of practical power had rapidly diminished in the second half of the 1930s, ultimately even lost his official post.Udo Sautter, Canadian Journal of History For example, in 1933 he tried to restrict the widespread use of "protective custody" orders that were used to send people to concentration camps, only to be begged off by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. His power was greatly reduced in June 1936 when Hitler named Himmler the Chief of German Police, which effectively united the police with the SS. On paper, Frick was Himmler's immediate superior. In fact, the police were now independent of Frick's control, since the SS was responsible only to Hitler.Longerich, Peter (2012). Heinrich Himmler: A Life, Oxford University Press, p. 204.Williams, Max (2001). Reinhard Heydrich: The Biography: Volume 1, Ulric, p. 77. A long- running power struggle between the two culminated in Frick's being replaced by Himmler as Reichsminister of the Interior in August 1943. However, he remained in the cabinet as a Reichsminister without portfolio. Besides Hitler, he and Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk were the only members of the Third Reich's cabinet to serve continuously from Hitler's appointment as Chancellor until his death. Frick's replacement as Reichsminister of the Interior did not reduce the growing administrative chaos and infighting between party and state agencies.Hans Mommsen, The Dissolution of the Third Reich (1943–1945) Frick was then appointed as Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, making him Hitler's personal representative in the Czech Lands. Its capital Prague, where Frick used ruthless methods to counter dissent, was one of the last Axis-held cities to fall at the end of World War II in Europe.Trial:Wilhelm Frick Trial and execution Frick in his cell, November 1945 The corpse of Frick after his execution at Nuremberg, 1946 Frick was arrested and tried before the Nuremberg trials, where he was the only defendant besides Rudolf Hess who refused to testify on his own behalf. Frick was convicted of planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity, and for his role in formulating the Enabling Act as Minister of the Interior and the Nuremberg Laws – under these laws people were deported to concentration camps, and many of those were murdered there. Frick was also accused of being one of the highest persons responsible for the existence of the concentration camps. Frick was sentenced to death on 1 October 1946, and was hanged at Nuremberg Prison on 16 October. Of his execution, journalist Joseph Kingsbury-Smith wrote: His body, as those of the other nine executed men and the corpse of Hermann Göring, was cremated at Ostfriedhof (Munich) and the ashes were scattered in the river Isar. See also * Glossary of Nazi Germany * List of Nazi Party leaders and officials Notes and referencesFurther reading * Sautter, Wilhelm Frick: Der Legalist des Unrechtsstaates: Eine politische Biographie, Canadian Journal of History, April 1993 External links * Category:1877 births Category:1946 deaths Category:People from Donnersbergkreis Category:Christian fascists Category:German Protestants Category:German Völkisch Freedom Party politicians Category:National Socialist Freedom Movement politicians Category:Nazi Party politicians Category:Nazis who participated in the Beer Hall Putsch Category:Nazi Germany ministers Category:People executed by the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg Category:People from the Palatinate (region) Category:People from the Kingdom of Bavaria Category:Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia Category:Heidelberg University alumni Category:German people convicted of the international crime of aggression Category:German people convicted of crimes against humanity Category:Executed people from Rhineland-Palatinate Category:Holocaust perpetrators in Germany Category:Thule Society members Category:Jurists from Rhineland-Palatinate Category:Lawyers in the Nazi Party Category:Nazi Party officials Category:Members of the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic Category:Members of the Reichstag of Nazi Germany Category:German nationalists Category:People executed for crimes against humanity "