Wilhelm Nowack (28 August 1897 – 31 July 1990) was a German economist who became a journalist and, more briefly, a radio producer. He was also politically engaged (DDP/DStP, FDP). A committed believer in democracy and supporter of the German republic, in 1924 he was a co-founder of the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold movement. Much later, between 1949 and 1952, he served as a member of the ”Bundestag” (West German parliament), based at that time in Bonn. In 1951 he accepted an appointment as State Minister for Finance and Reconstruction for Rhineland-Palatinate, and just over a year later he resigned his seat in the Bundestag.
Life and career Wilhelm Nowack was born at Altenburg, a small town at the eastern end of Thuringia in central-southern Germany After successfully completing his schooling he moved on to study Economics and Civil Law at the universities of Berlin and Innsbruck. It was at Innsbruck that in approximately 1920 he received his doctorate. His university studies had been interrupted by the war. Between 1914 and 1918 he served his country as a soldier.
Between 1920 and 1922 Nowack worked for the ”Technische Nothilfe ” ("Voluntary Emergency Response Service"), far to the west, in the industrialised Ruhr region, which was suffering particularly badly from the post-war austerity due, in part, to the importance of Ruhr coal deliveries in connection with the ambitious reparations package mandated by the French and their allies at Versailles. His move into journalism came almost by accident, as a result of a management position as “publishing director” which he briefly filled at the publishing business, “Die Hilfe ” during 1922/23. Between 1924 and 1929 he worked as Managing Editor on the “Illustrierte Reichsbanner-Zeitung”, a weekly illustrated magazine produced initially in Magdeburg and then, between 1926 and 1933, in Berlin. Circulation peaked in 1929 at slightly more than 100,000 copies.Börsenverein der Deutschen Buchhändler (production), Sperlings Zeitschriften- und Zeitungsadressbuch. 1928, Leipzig 1928, p. 368 As an official publication produced for the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold, the “Illustrierte Reichsbanner-Zeitung” was clearly political in its objectives and republican in its sympathies. Republicanism, in the context of Germany in the 1920s, meant support for democratic government and rejection of the widespread hankering after a return to all the traditional pomp and values of the empire years between 1871 and 1918. It also meant rejection of the political extremism of left and Nazi Party which was becoming increasingly mainstream across western Europe, and especially in Germany, during the 1920s. After the Hitler government took power in January 1933 Nowak continued to work as a journalist on a freelance basis, contributing to a number of newspapers including the Frankfurter Zeitung, which somehow managed to survive until 1943.
After the war, which the region that would become the state of Rhineland-Palatinate under French military administration between May 1945 and May 1949, Nowack was initially employed as a radio editor. There is a reference to his having worked for the National Broadcasting Corporation between 1940 and 1945, and he continued to work in the broadcasting sector for some months, now based at Bad Ems in the extreme north of the region. He soon switched back to print media, however, teaming up with the buioding engineer Peter Josef Stein to found the Koblenz-based Rhein-Zeitung (refional newspaper): the first edition was printed towards the end of April 1946. He moved on after just one year, selling his share in the newspaper enterprise to Walter Twer, a businessman from nearby Nassau. During the later 1940s he also headed up the Economics Section at the office of the “Oberpräsident” (head administrator) of Koblenz, before moving on in 1947 to a top advisory position as an “Oberregierungsrat” with the Economics Ministry for the newly configured state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
Politics Pre-war activism In 1924, during the republic years, Nowack was a co-founder of the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold movement, becoming its deputy chairman in the politically important Berlin-Brandenburg region. He also, as a young man, joined the Deutsche Demokratische Partei (German Democratic Party / DDP), a traditionalist centrist political party with roots in nineteenth century German liberalism. He stayed with the DDP after 1930 when the party rebranded and relaunched itself as the Deutsche Staatspartei in a desperate effort to dissuade voters, badly hit by the economic backwash from the Wall Street crash, from transferring their political support to populist politicians. However, during 1933 Germany transitioned to one-party dictatorship and political parties (with one exception) were banned and deprived of the right to operate legally. The Deutsche Staatspartei was dissolved on 28 June 1933, in anticipation of the "Law Against the Formation of Parties" of 14 July 1933.Law Against the Formation of Parties There is no indication that Wilhelm Nowack was involved in party politics between 1933 and 1945, but he was arrested on a number of occasions, apparently in connection with his activity as a freelance journalist.
After the war ended Nowack joined what became the Free Democratic Party (FDP), a new centrist political party committed to liberal social values and free-market economics. He later served as chairman of the party in Rhineland-Pfalz between 1953 and 1958. He was also a member of the FDP National Executive between 1954 and 1959 and deputy party chairman during 1955/56.
Parliamentarian Wilhelm Nowack served – not without breaks – as a member of the Rhineland-Palatinate State Parliament between its inception in 1947 and his exclusion from it in 1958. He was elected to serve as leader of the FDP parliamentary group between 1948 and 1951.
Nowack served as a member of the ”Bundestag” (West German parliament) between 1949 and his resignation from it which took effect on 30 September 1952.
Ministerial office On 13 June 1951 Wilhelm Nowack joined the co-alition Government of Rhineland-Palatinate as State Minister for Finance and Reconstruction, a post he retained until resigning from it on 11 November 1958. He was succeeded in the post by the lawyer-politician Hans Georg Dahlgrün, an emollient character who, importantly, was not formally a member of any political party, despite having served as a government official at the national Ministry of Finance between 1936 and 1945.
Early retirement Nowack's sudden retirement from parliament and from ministerial office towards the end of 1958 came in connection with a criminal investigation which concluded, in December 1961, with a conviction, a 2,000 Mark fine and a six-month suspended (i.e. probationary) prison sentence. The affair concerned allegations of what would today, in an Anglo-American jurisdiction, be termed insider trading. The prosecutor then launched a second investigation involving allegations of perjury. The prosecutor was a man named Leonhard Drach who had been employed as a "Head of civil administration" in occupied Luxembourg during the early 1940s. After 1941 he had combined his administrative job with work as the Luxembourg state prosecutor. Following the war Dracht had faced justice in a Luxembourg court and been convicted in connection with his wartime activities, receiving both a fifteen-year term of forced labour and a twenty-year jail term (to be served simultaneously). Following a grant of clemency he had been released, however, and returned to Rhineland Palatinate where he had found his way back into the justice service. Nowack had been appalled by this development and had shared his opinion. The case was controversial and became more so as investigative journalists disclosed more details on the background. The increasingly unambiguous and widely shared reports from Luxembourg that Drach was a convicted war criminal gained traction, and in the end Leonhard Drach was also persuaded to take early retirement. The two men had at least two things in common. They both lived well beyond their ninetieth birthdays, and to their dying day, each man insisted that he had done nothing wrong.
The affair of Prosecutor Drach In October 1958 Dr. Nowack resigned his office as regional Finance Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate. According to detailed and well researched press reports he had purchased 20 shares in a company called "Schnellpressenfabrik Frankenthal AG", which was 75% state owned, and of which Nowack, was the ex-officio chairman by virtue of his ministerial office. He had acquired his shares at a price equivalent to 120% of their par value. At around the same time the company had itself acquired shares from a private investor at roughly 200% of their par value. The conclusion to be inferred was that Nowack had acquired his shares for only 60% of their theoretical "true" value, causing an equal and opposite loss to the company. The total value at which Nowack had acquired his shares was 216,000 Marks, implying a loss to the company of 144,000 Marks. Coalition partners and opposition groups in the Rhineland-Palatinate State Parliament had held back from any immediate response to press reports of the matter in June 1958, giving them time to check carefully the extent to which any parliamentary colleagues might be vulnerable to similar accusations, in the event of launching an attack in parliament and/or through the media against Nowack; but during the later summer of 1958 the state premier Peter Altmeier had come under increasing pressure to persuade Nowack to resign. Regardless of speculation in respect of possible criminal implications, Nowack had clearly acted unwisely in defiance of an avoidable conflict of interest, and he appears never to have denied having enriched himself through the transaction. It should be stressed that Nowack always maintained that he had done nothing wrong in acquiring shares at a discount to which, as an "employee" of the company, he was entitled. The state prosecutor in the criminal investigation which ebnsured was the Frankenthal Chief District Prosecutor, Leonhard Drach.