Tobias Wilhelm Franz Seldte (29 June 1882 – 1 April 1947) was a German reactionary politician who served as the Reich Minister for Labour in Nazi Germany.

Born in Magdeburg in the Prussian province of Saxony, Seldte was the son of an owner of a factory producing chemical products and soda water.

In 1929 it united its forces with the DNVP under Alfred Hugenberg, the Pan-German League and the Nazi Party to initiate a German referendum against the Young Plan on World War I reparations.

[6] On the day of the Machtergreifung on 30 January 1933, Seldte joined the Hitler Cabinet as Reich Minister for Labour,[7] once again outdoing his long-time rival Duesterberg.

[8] On 27 April 1933 Seldte finally joined the Nazi Party and merged Der Stahlhelm into Ernst Röhm's Sturmabteilung (SA) militia – de facto placing it at the disposal of Hitler.

[9] In August 1933, he was awarded the rank of SA-Obergruppenführer and later was appointed Reichskommissar for the Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst employment program, but was soon superseded by his state secretary Konstantin Hierl as leader of the Reichsarbeitsdienst organization.

Even after Hitler's suicide and the nomination of Grand Admiral Dönitz as his successor, Seldte kept his post, being named Labour Minister in the Flensburg government.

[16] As Reich Minister for Labour, Franz Seldte was one of the signatories of the Work Order Act (Gesetz zur Ordnung der nationalen Arbeit) from 1934, which introduced the Führer principle (Führerprinzip) in factories and significantly restricted the rights of employees.