Heinrich Aloysius Maria Elisabeth Brüning (; 26 November 1885 – 30 March 1970) was a German Centre Party politician and academic, who served as the chancellor of Germany during the Weimar Republic from 1930 to 1932.
A political scientist and Christian social activist, he entered politics in the 1920s and was elected to the Reichstag in 1924. In 1930, he was appointed interim chancellor, just as the Great Depression took hold. His austerity policies in response were unpopular, with most of the Reichstag opposed, so he governed by emergency decrees issued by President Paul von Hindenburg, overriding the Reichstag. This lasted until May 1932, when his land distribution policy offended Hindenburg, who refused to issue any more decrees, and Brüning resigned.
After Hitler took power, Brüning fled Germany in 1934. He eventually settled in the United States. From 1937 to 1952, he was a professor at Harvard University. He returned to Germany in 1951 to teach at the University of Cologne, but again moved to the United States in 1955 and lived out his days in retirement in Vermont.
Brüning remains a controversial figure in Germany's history, as historians debate whether he was the "last bulwark of the Weimar Republic" or the "Republic's undertaker", or both. Scholars are divided over how much room for manoeuvre he had during the Depression, in a period of great political instability. While he intended to protect the Republic's government, his policies, notably his use of emergency powers, also contributed to the gradual demise of the Weimar Republic during his chancellorship.
Early life and education
Born in Münster in Westphalia, Brüning lost his father when he was one year old, and thus his elder brother Hermann Joseph played a major part in his upbringing. Although brought up in a devoutly Roman Catholic family, Brüning was also influenced by Lutheranism's concept of duty, since the Münster region was home to both Catholics, who formed a majority, and Prussian-influenced Protestants.
After graduating from Gymnasium Paulinum he first leaned towards the legal profession but then studied Philosophy, History, German, and Political Science at Strasbourg, the London School of Economics, and Bonn, where in 1915 he received a doctorate for his thesis on the financial, economic, and legal implications of nationalizing the British railway system. Historian Friedrich Meinecke, one of his professors at Strasbourg, had a major influence on Brüning.
Volunteering for the infantry, he was accepted despite his shortsightedness and physical weakness, and served in World War I from 1915 to 1918. He rose to lieutenant in infantry regiment No. 30, Graf Werder, and company commander by the end of the war. He was cited for bravery and awarded both the second and first class Iron Cross.
Despite having been elected to a soldiers' council after the armistice of 11 November 1918, Brüning did not approve of the German Revolution of 1918–1919 which ended with the establishment of the Weimar Republic.
Rise in politics
Despite his reluctance to speak about his private life, it is assumed that his war experience and the war's aftermath persuaded him not to pursue his academic career, and he preferred to help former soldiers reintegrate into civilian life by assisting them finding employment or further their education.
He collaborated with the social reformer Carl Sonnenschein and worked in the "Secretariat for social student work". After six months he entered the Prussian welfare department and became a close associate of Adam Stegerwald, the minister. Stegerwald, also the leader of the Christian trade unions, made him chief executive of the unions in 1920, a post Brüning retained until 1930.
As the editor of the union newspaper Der Deutsche (The German), he advocated a "social popular state" and "Christian democracy," based on the ideas of Christian corporatism.
In 1923 Brüning was actively involved in organizing the passive resistance in the "Ruhrkampf".
Brüning joined the Centre Party and in 1924 was elected to the Reichstag, representing Breslau. In the Reichstag, he quickly made a name for himself as a financial expert and managed to push through the so-called Brüning Law, which restricted the workers' share of income taxes to no more than 1.2 billion Reichsmarks.
From 1928 to 1930, he served as a member of the Landtag of Prussia. In 1929, after his election as leader of the Centre Party group in the Reichstag, his party's agreement to the Young Plan was made conditional on a guarantee of tax increases that would ensure a balanced budget. This earned him President Paul von Hindenburg's attention.