Disillusioned Democrat

General Electric of Germany is the sprawling Siemens concern, manufacturing all kinds of electrical equipment from huge hydro-electric plants to telephones. Head of the Siemens firms since 1919 has been the youngest son of their founder, tall, frank-faced Carl Friedrich von Siemens.

A liberal tycoon, Siemens wanted above all else a democratic Germany cooperating with other democracies. He helped Economist Dr. Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht form the Democratic Party of the Weimar Republic, served four years as a member of the Reichstag.

Unlike Schacht, Siemens quickly saw in the advent of Adolf Hitler only bankruptcy and war, visited Hitler again & again with reasoned economic arguments against his plans for Germany. For his pains, Hitler made a special point of insulting Siemens at a mass meeting of Siemens workers.

Disillusioned because democracy had not prevented Hitler's rise, Siemens lived unhappily in Berlin, a powerless trustee of his own great fortune. Last week, at 68, he died

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