Early career Rasche studied economics and law in
Münster,
Munich,
Leipzig,
Berlin, and
Bonn. At the outbreak of the
First World War, he joined the army and fought on the
Western Front. After being wounded in 1917 he wrote a dissertation with the title "The police concept in today's Prussian law with special attention to special laws" whilst in hospital. After the war he became involved in the
Baltische Landeswehr, fundraising and recruiting volunteers. From July 1919 Rasche served as a court clerk in
Hamm, but moved in 1921 to work at the Barmer Bank Corporation, where he became a rehabilitation specialist. From the beginning of 1933 he was a board member of the Bochum Westfalenbank AG, where he worked with
Paul Pleiger.
During the Nazi period In 1934 Rasche was appointed a deputy, and from August 1935, a full board member of the
Dresdner Bank. His employment with Dresdner Bank had partly come through the intervention of
Wilhelm Keppler. Together with another board member,
Emil Heinrich Meyer, Rasche was considered a trusted banker of the
SS. Though Rasche joined the
Nazi Party in May 1933, his membership was not considered valid, as no membership card was issued or any membership fees paid. In August 1939 Rasche was retroactively awarded party membership from May 1937 and was given membership number 2,207,508. From 1933, Rasche was also a member of the
German Labor Front (DAF), the Rechtswahrerbund (Lawyer's association), and the
Nationalsozialistischer Reichsbund für Leibesübungen, the umbrella organisation for sports. During the
1936 Summer Olympics Rasche was deputy head of the Reich Office for professional athletics. Because of this role, he was introduced as a guest of honour to
Adolf Hitler, the leader of the
Nazi Party, and was introduced into the
Freundeskreis Himmler by
Fritz Kranefuss in the autumn of 1936. Rasche joined the SS (membership number 323,879) in May 1939 with membership retroactive to November 1938 as a
Hauptsturmführer (SS Captain). After the
Anschluss of Austria in 1938, Rasche became involved in the expansion of the banking business in Austria and later in the
Sudetenland and
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. From the mid-1930s, he served as Chairman or Board member in the war effort and also led the business departments of the subsidiaries Handelstrust West NV (Amsterdam) and Continentale Bank SA (Brussels). Towards the end of December 1942 he was promoted to CEO of the Dresdner Bank after a restructuring of the bank, together with . In December 1943, he joined the Executive Group West in
Bad Nauheim. Rasche was involved in the negotiation of credit to the SS, which operated Nazi forced labor camps and
concentration camps and financed the
Germanisation programmes in occupied Eastern Europe. In banking, Rasche was also involved in
Aryanization in the Netherlands and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. His participation in the Nazi regime is also demonstrated in the transfer of Czech arms factories to the
Reichswerke Hermann Göring, which he carried out together with .
After the war In April 1945 Rasche was arrested at Bad Nauheim and was placed in French captivity. He was questioned in Paris. Rasche was confined to the
French occupation zone and his activity was limited to the "promotion of cross-border economic relations" for the French military government. In November 1945 Rasche was appointed to exchange information with the
Office of Military Government, United States investigators in the
American occupation zone. He was arrested immediately after his arrival in
Frankfurt. He was imprisoned in
Darmstadt after a stay in the prison in Frankfurt and in the 74th Ludwigsburg camp. From there he was transferred to the
Dachau concentration camp, and finally was called to trial in April 1947 in the
Nuremberg Trials. As the only banker on trial from the private sector, Rasche was indicted on 4 November 1947 at the
Ministries Trial, the eleventh set of trials to take place under the Nuremberg Trials. His counsel was . Regarding the seventh indictment of
collaborating in slave labour, the prosecution could not prove conclusively whether Rasche had visited concentration camps or taken loans to pay for their building. Rasche was released (early) in August 1950 from the
Landsberg Prison for war criminals. In October/November 1950 Rasche was declared to have completed the
denazification process. He was unable to resume work at the Dresdner Bank. In May 1951 representatives of the Bank agreed on a settlement for compensation and pension claims. Rasche continued working as a consultant and died as a result of a heart attack on a commuter train to Basel in September 1951. == Work in supervisory boards ==