Alfred Toepfer

The following year he joined the Army as an infantryman, serving in World War I and participating in the Battle of Masurian, the Second Battle of Ypres, the Battle of the Somme, and the Fourth Battle of Ypres. He was wounded several times and in January 1919 was discharged a highly decorated lieutenant.[1]

The year Toepfer left the military he joined the Freikorps, led by General Georg Ludwig Rudolf Maercker. As the leader of a mounted machine gun unit, he was first deployed in Weimar to protect the Weimar National Assembly. In the following months the Freikorps was ordered to put down Bolshevik insurrections, including in Halle, Magdeburg, Brunswick, Gotha, Erfurt and Eisenach. With the integration of the country's fighter forces in the Reichswehr, Toepfer left the Korps by the end of the year.

The Hamburgische Staatsoper was reconstructed following World War II with the help of Toepfer's foundations.

From 1926 Toepfer began to support youth development projects guided by the idea of national renewal after years of demoralization following the defeat of World War I. He funded the construction of youth hostels for wayfarers. Founded in 1931, the Alfred Toepfer Foundation became a primary vehicle of his philanthropy promoting the concept of European unity as well as the arts, sciences, and nature conservation. The same year he also created the Goethe Institute in Switzerland and the Humboldt Foundation in New York City,[1] which awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award from 1974 to 2004.[4] He would also start the JWG Foundation, and in 1936 created the Hanseatic Scholarships, which allowed British students to study in Germany.

By 1973, his foundations awarded 30 cultural prizes and 75 scholarships.[1] His European Prize for Statesmanship was first awarded in 1973 to British Prime Minister Edward Heath.[1] Other notable awards include the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism, Shakespeare Prize and Herder Prize. Toepfer, a close friend of European Union founding father Robert Schuman, named a prize in his honor in 1966 called the Robert Schuman Prize.

In 1943, he commissioned Ernst Jünger's work "Peace", which was a manifest to the youth of Europe of how to proceed after the war.[1]

In 1952 his foundations oversaw the reconstruction of the Hamburg State Opera. In 1953 as head of the Verein Naturschutzpark (VNP), he organized protests against the occupying British forces at Lüneburg Heath. His foundations purchased the Hof Möhr for the VNP, which would house nature conservations.[5] As President of the Association of German Nature Parks, a particular concern was the preservation Lüneburg Heath and the creation of National Parks in Germany.[1]

In the 1970s, he commissioned the renovation of Hamburg's "Old Quarter."[1]

Toepfer was never a Nazi party member himself, and spent a period in 1937-1938 in confinement after being arrested.[1] A supporter of economic liberalism, he never aligned himself with any particular political ideology.[2] However, he financially supported individuals, objectives, and organisations within the National Socialist system through his businesses and foundations,[2] moving currency through exchanges in New York City, Amsterdam, London, and Liechtenstein while avoiding regulations. They were also used for covert actions.

In 1936 Joseph Goebbels praised Toepfer in his diaries, calling him a "clever, generous and enthusiastic patron." His extensive real estate portfolio throughout Germany and surrounding countries served to host leading Nazis, including Rudolf Hess, Paul Minke, Odilo Globocnik, Friedrich Rainer, Franz Hueber, Werner Best, Werner Lorenz, Franz Wehofsich, Konrad Henlein, and Hans Friedrich Blunck, while serving as cadres and bases for operations. Many served on Toepfer's board of directors at his foundations.

His brother Ernst Toepfer was a U.S. citizen, and operated the New York branch of Alfred's business while being involved with pro-Nazi organisations in the country. He resided in Switzerland, employing Eugen Wildi of the Swiss National Front as an agent in the country.

With the outbreak of World War II, Toepfer served with the Abwehr. In July 1940 he was transferred to the control center in Paris, established in the Hôtel Lutetia. In early summer 1941, Toepfer's unit issued the "French Report," which planned the reorganization of Europe under Nazi Germany in collaboration with the French. Toepfer had contacts with French separatists such as Hermann Bickler and Olier Mordrel, whom he already knew from before the war, and would serve to help undermine resistance groups.

Toepfer, a captain by July 1942, joined the economics unit with the military commanders in France, which would employ his market expertise using him as an agent. This office was used to control the black market in the country and to procure foreign exchange by selling goods from occupied France to neutral countries, as well as secret barter for the procurement of strategic raw materials from Spain and Portugal. He was also involved in generating foreign currency.[2]

He would use the contacts he made through these operation in the postwar period. He was able to open new branches for his company in Posen, Kraków, and Lemberg during this period. In August 1944, Toepfer left Paris shortly before the liberation by the Allies. In April 1945, Toepfer was released from military service and saw the end of the war in Hamburg as a civilian.

Toepfer was eventually captured and interned until 1947, when he was released primarily based on his arrest in 1937 by the Nazis, indicating his ability to be "de-Nazified."[2]

Toepfer aided Hartmann Lauterbacher's escape to Argentina through a letter of recommendation in 1950, and financed the legal defence of Werner Lorenz at his tribunal. He offered employment to Hermann Bickler to help him escape the death penalty, and Edmund Veesenmayer and Hans-Joachim Riecke worked at his companies well into the 1970s. During World War II Riecke was Staatssekretär of Herbert Backe in the German Ministry for Food and Agriculture and Backes assistant to carry out the Hunger Plan.[6]