Scholz, Ernst

(1874-1932)

   politician; Economics Minister in 1920-1921 and chairman of the DVP in 1929-1930. Born to middle-class circum-stances in Berlin,* he earned a doctorate in law before launching a career in municipal government. He was a National Liberal member of Prussia's* Her-renhaus in 1912-1918 and was Oberburgermeister of Kassel in 1912. Charlot-tenburg elected him to the same office the following year; he retained it until the 1920 consolidation of Berlin's several districts. In 1918 he helped found the DVP.

   Scholz served in the Reichstag* from 1921 until his death in June 1932. His financial expertise brought appointment as Economics Minister under Konstantin Fehrenbach.* On the right wing of his Party, with ties to conservative business interests, he led the Reichstag faction from 1923 until his death. He often thwarted Gustav Stresemann's* left-leaning politics and diplomacy, and recur-ringly favored cooperation with the DNVP. In December 1929, two months after Stresemann's death, he became Party chairman. Earlier the same year he frus-trated a proposed compromise with the DDP that might have resulted in liberal unity. Ever ambivalent about bourgeois unity, he was outraged by the formation of the DStP in 1930. Although ill health led him to resign as DVP chairman in November 1930, his influence remained strong. In October 1931 he frustrated middle-class solidarity one last time by declaring that the DVP should aim to overthrow the cabinet of Heinrich Brüning.*

   REFERENCES:Larry Jones, German Liberalism; Kosch, Biographisches Staatshandbuch; Max Schwarz, MdR; Stachura, Political Leaders.