Julius Curtius
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Julius Curtius (1877-1948) was Foreign Minister of Germany from October, 1929 to October 1931. Curtius was a member of the right-wing German People's Party and worked closely with Heinrich Brüning to revise the Treaty of Versailles in Germany's favor. However, Curtius was not a member of Brüning's inner circle. His notable achivement as Foreign Minister was in negotiating a customs union with Austria in March 1931, but opposition from France scuttled the proposed union. To halt the union, the French withdrew a number of short loans they had made to Austria; the withdrawal of the French loans helped to cause the collapse of Austria's largest bank in May, 1931, which in it's turn set a series of banking collapses all over Central Europe in the summer of 1931. Curtius was intimately involved in the negotiations that led to the issuing of the Hoover Moratorium by the U.S President Herbert Hoover that halted reparations payments by Germany in June 1931 as part of the effort to limit the financial fall-out of the banking collapse.
His dismissal as foreign minister was largely brought about by pressure from General Kurt von Schleicher and President Paul von Hindenberg. An somewhat mediocre man, Curtius owed his appointment more to the memory of his predecessor, Gustav Stresemann also of the German People's Party rather then because of his abilities.
| Preceded by: Gustav Stresemann | Minister of Foreign Affairs 1929-1931 | Succeeded by: Heinrich Brüning |