Reinhold Quaatz

Who was Reinhold Quaatz?

Reinhold Quaatz was a German conservative politician active during the Weimar Republic. Although associated with right-wing and völkisch tendencies Quaatz was half-Jewish in ancestry.

Quaatz was a member of the Reichstag, first being elected in 1920 for the German People's Party before switcihing to the German National People's Party and retaining his seat until the establishment of the Nazi regime. He had been a member of the Nationalliberale Vereinigung, a landowners group that was affialited to the DVP, and which also included the likes of Johann Becker, Moritz Klönne, Albert Vögler and Alfred Gildemeister, but then clashed with the leadership and switched to the DNVP in early 1924. As a result Quaatz ran on the DNVP ticket for the May 1924 election and from then on. As a DNVP member Quaatz was personally close to party leader Alfred Hugenberg. The industrialist frequently confided in his friend, a fact demonstrated when Quaatz's diaries were published in 1989. Despite his mother being Jewish Quaatz endorsed anti-Semitic policies during his time as a DNVP politician and even encouraged Hugenburg to work closely with Adolf Hitler as he feared both socialism and the political Catholicism of the Centre Party.