Wilhelm Meinberg (1 March 1898 – 8 February 1973) was a German Nazi Party politician and agricultural expert who served as the head of the Reichsnährstand and on the board of directors of the industrial conglomerate Reichswerke Hermann Göring during the Second World War. He was also an SS-Gruppenführer. After the war, he headed a neo-Nazi Party in West Germany.
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Early life
Meinberg was born in Wasserkurl (today, part of Methler). He attended the Realgymnasium in Unna, obtained his Abitur and completed an agricultural apprenticeship in Brandenburg and Mecklenburg before enlisting in the Imperial German Army in 1916 and serving with Pioneer Battalion 15 in the First World War. He was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class and was taken prisoner by the British near the war's end. Released from captivity in October 1919, in November he became a member of the Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund, the largest and most active antisemitic organization in the Weimar Republic. He also joined the conservative German National People's Party and, in 1923, became a farmer in Wasserkurl and founded a Stahlhelm group of war veterans, which took part in the fighting during the occupation of the Ruhr in the same year.
Nazi Party career
Meinberg joined the SA in 1929 and on 1 April 1930 he joined the Nazi Party (membership number 218,582), into which he brought his Stahlhelm group. As a relatively early member of the Party, he would later be awarded the Golden Party Badge. He became the agricultural policy expert for the Gaue of North and South Westphalia, as a representative of the Party's Office for Agricultural Policy, headquartered in Munich and headed by Walther Darré. Meinberg became a board member of the Westphalia Chamber of Agriculture in 1931 and was elected as a member of the Prussian Landtag in April 1932.