Paul Lejeune-Jung
Paul Lejeune-Jung completed the requirements for his secondary school certificate (Mittlere Reife), and following his mother's wishes, he then went to a humanistic Gymnasium, the Theodorianum in Paderborn, a town with a strong Catholic character.
In the latter discipline, Lejeune-Jung earned, under the mediaevalist Alois Schulte, a doctorate in philosophy whose theme was "Walther von Palearia, Chancellor of the Norman-Hohenstaufen Empire".
After Lejeune-Jung worked in the wartime raw materials department, wool unit, at the Prussian War Ministry, he found his definitive professional niche as managing director of the Association of German Pulp Makers (Verein Deutscher Zellstofffabrikanten).
Early on, Lejeune-Jung had connections with the German National People's Party (DNVP), for whom he was elected in 1924 as the only Catholic member of the Reichstag from Middle Silesia, representing the electoral district of Breslau.
The writers also explicitly distanced themselves from the Centre Party, "which denies the outcome of every force of God, and instead declares the disastrous heresy of the people's sovereignty."
In the analysis of German-French economic relationships, which Lejeune-Jung undertook in a chronicle under the title "Parisian Impressions, 30 March to 10 April 1930", his skill at precise observation and exact political reasoning became apparent.
He had not, however, overlooked the protectionist mindset that French economic leaders and politicians displayed during discussions about concrete measures, which only bore on a customs union limited to agricultural products, anyway.
Among them were the aforesaid Max Habermann, Hermann Kaiser, Wilhelm Leuschner and Julius Leber as well as Friedrich-Werner Graf von der Schulenburg, former ambassador to Moscow, and Josef Wirmer.
Although Lejeune-Jung's revolutionary politicoeconomic visions did not meet with every resistance member's approval, Goerdeler latched onto him as the future economics minister in his post-Hitler cabinet.
Like thousands of others who were to a greater or lesser extent involved in the 20 July resistance movement as a whole, Lejeune-Jung became a victim of the Nazi rulers' barbaric revenge operation, which was unparalleled in German history.
On 8 September 1944, the second day of the trial, the accused Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, Wilhelm Leuschner, Josef Wirmer, Ulrich von Hassel and Paul Lejeune-Jung were sentenced to death by hanging.
