Hans Schaeffer Papers

Hans Schaeffer was born in Breslau (then Germany, now Wroclaw, Poland) on April 11, 1886. He studied law and history at the Universities of Breslau and Geneva and got his Doctor of Law in 1907 at Breslau University. From 1912 onward he was a lawyer in Breslau, where he married Eva Heilberg, the daughter of a notable lawyer in Silesia.

After World War I, he worked in the German Ministry of Commerce, where he was concerned with the Constitution of the Weimar Republic and, in particular, problems of inflation and reparations. Hans Schaeffer was considered an expert on reparation problems.

From 1929 to 1932, he was senior official in the German Ministry of Finance. He worked there in a key position during the years of financial crisis, including the stock market crash of 1929 and the bank crisis of 1931.

Schaeffer became director of the Ullstein Verlag in 1932, which was a major publishing house in Germany in that time. He served there until his dismissal by the Nazis in 1933.

During the years of crisis he got in touch with the Swedish Match Company (S TAB) and with Allen Dulles, Marcus Wallenberg and Jean Monnet, oversaw the liquidation and reorganization of the company following the death of its owner, Ivar Kreuger.

He emigrated to Joenkoeping, Sweden, with his family in 1936. In Sweden, he worked as an investment advisor and lawyer for S TAB.

Schaeffer was also active in Jewish affairs. Among other engagements, he served as the president of the Council of Jews from Germany after 1957.

He also worked as an adviser for the Swedish government on international finance meetings. He also advised Germany after 1945 under Konrad Adenauer, especially in terms of regularization of foreign debts. In 1963 he received a so-called Grosse Bundesverdienstkreuz mit Stern, which is the only award of the Federal Republic of Germany and is given for special achievement in different fields, such as culture, politics or economics.

Hans Schaeffer died in Joenkoeping, Sweden, on March 20, 1967.