A Wehrwirtschaftsführer was, during the time of Nazi Germany (1933–1945), an executive of a company or of a large factory. Wehrwirtschaftsführer were appointed, starting in 1935, by the Wehrwirtschafts und Rüstungsamt being a part of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), that was pushing the build-up of arms for the Wehrmacht. Appointments aimed to bind the Wehrwirtschaftsführer to the Wehrmacht and to give them a quasi-military status.
Albert Speer (right) congratulates Wehrwirtschaftsführer Edmund Geilenberg (left) on the bestowal of Ritterkreuz des Kriegsverdienstkreuzes (May 1944)
Willy Messerschmitt (1958)
Friedrich Gajewski was a Nazi German businessman with IG Farben and Wehrwirtschaftsführer during the Second World War. He was tried for war crimes for his role in the Holocaust and acquitted.
Gajewski after his arrest by the U.S. Army