The Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich was a six-member ministerial council created in Nazi Germany by Adolf Hitler on 30 August 1939, in anticipation of the invasion of Poland – which provoked the beginning of World War II – with the purpose of allowing the continuation of the Nazi government, especially in relation to the war effort, while Hitler concentrated on prosecuting the war. The council has been described as functioning as a "war cabinet," although this assessment is disputed.

Walther Funk was a German economist and Nazi official who served as Reich Minister for Economic Affairs (1938–1945) and president of Reichsbank (1939–1945). During his incumbency, he oversaw the mobilization of the German economy for rearmament and arrangement of forced labor in concentration camps. After the war he was tried and convicted as a major war criminal by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Sentenced to life in prison, he remained incarcerated until he was released on health grounds in 1957. He died three years later.