Oskar Hergt

Oskar Hergt
Vice-Chancellor of Germany
In office 28 January 1927 – 12 June 1928
Chancellor	Wilhelm Marx
Preceded by	vacant
Succeeded by	vacant
Minister of Justice
In office 28 January 1927 – 12 June 1928
Preceded by	Johannes Bell
Succeeded by	Erich Koch-Weser
Chairman of the DNVP
In office 9 December 1918 – October 23, 1924
Preceded by	none
Succeeded by	Kuno von Westarp
Personal details
Born	22 October 1869
Died	9 May 1967 (aged 97)
Political party	FKP (1902-1918), DNVP (1918-1933).
Occupation	Lawyer

Oskar Gustav Rudolf Hergt (born 22 October 1869, Naumburg, died 9 May 1967, Göttingen) was a German nationalist politician, who served simultaneously as Minister of Justice and vice-chancellor from 28 January 1927 to 12 June 1928. Hergt attended the prestigious Domgymnasium Naumburg before reading law at Würzburg, Munich and Berlin. He worked as a Gerichtsassessor in Saxony, and also as a judge in Liebenwerda. Hergt held various senior offices at the Prussian Ministry of Finance from 1904 to 1914. Previously a member of the FKP, which was dissolved after the First World War, Hergt was a founding member of the right-wing monarchist DNVP and the first party chairman. First elected to the Reichstag in 1920, he was seen as one of the more moderate members of the party, and his support for the Dawes Plan in 1924 was seen as a betrayal of the party's line and led to his replacement with the more hardline conservative Kuno von Westarp. As vice-chancellor, Hergt was the most senior DNVP politician in Wilhelm Marx's coalition government, but after losing the DNVP's leadership election in October 1928 to Alfred Hugenberg, he became an increasingly minor figure in the radicalised DNVP. After the rise of the Nazi Party, Hergt retired from politics.

References

• Klaus-Peter Hoepke (1969), "Hergt, Oscar", Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB) (in German), 8, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 612–613