Edgar Jaffé
German economist and politician (1866–1921) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Edgar Jaffé (14 May 1866 – 29 April 1921) was a German economist and politician.
Edgar Jaffé | |
---|---|
Minister of Finance | |
In office 21 November 1918 – 17 March 1919 | |
Prime Minister | Kurt Eisner |
Personal details | |
Born | (1866-05-14)14 May 1866 Hamburg, North German Confederation |
Died | 29 April 1921(1921-04-29) (aged 54) Ebenhausen, Weimar Republic |
Political party | USPD |
Spouse | |
Children | 3 |
Born in Hamburg to a Jewish commercial family in 1866, Jaffé worked in his family business in Barcelona and Paris. He then moved to Manchester and worked at his family's textile mill. He became wealthy and eventually moved to Heidelberg in 1900 to become an academic. During that time, he met Else von Richthofen, who he married two years later. At this time, he became a professor at Heidelberg University. In 1903, he bought and renamed the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, which he coedited with Max Weber and Werner Sombart. Over the course of the next decade, his marriage fell apart due to a series of affairs that his wife was having, including with Otto Gross and Max and Alfred Weber. He moved to Munich and worked at a local university after they separated.
After the First World War began in 1914, he supported the German occupation of Belgium by serving as a banker in the occupied country. Originally interpreting the war as an ideological battle between Prussian authority and democracy, he became a socialist after it became apparent that Germany would lose the war in 1918. Jaffé participated in mass rallies with Kurt Eisner, who appointed him the minister of finance for the People's State of Bavaria. Eisner's support for the idea of German war guilt resulted in him losing an election and being assassinated in 1919. Jaffé continued to serve in a caretaker role until he resigned on 17 March. After the rise and fall of the Bavarian Soviet Republic in April, he made an attempt to preserve his reputation by writing a philosophical text. However, he experienced a psychological breakdown in June. He was institutionalised in Ebenhausen and died in 1921.