Hans von Kanitz

Hans Wilhelm Alexander Graf von Kanitz-Podangen (17 April 1841 – 30 June 1913) was a German politician and Junker.[1]

Kanitz was born in Mednicken, East Prussia (Drushnoye, Kaliningrad Oblast).[2] In 1894 he proposed the Kanitz Plan: an import monopoly for grain, whereby all grain imports would be made on the government's account and resold on the home market at a price calculated from the average price of the last 40 years.[3] If import prices were below this level, the profits would go into a reserve fund that would be used to subsidise imports when the price rose above the average.[3] As grain prices at that time were lower than they had been for most of the previous 40 years, the effect of the Kanitz Plan would been considerable price rises.[3]

The Chancellors Leo von Caprivi and Chlodwig, Prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst both opposed the scheme, with the latter condemning it as a dangerous step to socialism.[3] August Bebel, the Chairman of the Social Democrats, replied that a policy to make one class wealthier at the nation's expense, especially at the expense of the working class, was anything but social.[3]

The Kanitz Plan was adopted in modified form by the Nazis and by the Federal Republic.[4]

Notes
  1. Entry on geni.com, retrieved 19 July 2018.
  2. deutsche biographie (in German)
  3. Michael Tracy, Government and Agriculture in Western Europe, 1880–1988 (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989), p. 96.
  4. Tracy, p. 97, p. 191, p. 269.
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