    walther funk (18 august 1890&nbsp;â 31 may 1960) was an economist and prominent nazi official who served as reich minister for economic affairs from 1938 to 1945 and was tried as a major war criminal by the international military tribunal at nuremberg. ==early life== funk was born into a merchant family in 1890 in danzkehmen (present-day sosnowka in the russian kaliningrad oblast) near trakehnen in east prussia. he was the only one of the nuremberg defendants who was born in the former eastern territories of germany. he was the son of wiesenbaumeister walther funk the elder and his wife sophie (nÃ©e urbschat). he studied law, economics, and philosophy at the humboldt university of berlin and the university of leipzig. in world war i, he joined the infantry, but was discharged as unfit for service in 1916. in 1920, funk married luise schmidt-sieben. following the end of the first war, he worked as a journalist, and in 1924 he became the editor of the center-right financial newspaper the berliner bÃ¶rsenzeitung. ==political life==   [[file:kristallnacht example o
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