Johannes Popitz, as a civil servant and quasi-omnipotent state secretary in the Reich Ministry of Finance during the Weimar Republic, significantly shaped the tax laws that continue to define the structure of tax legislation today. As the Prussian Minister of Finance, he also contributed to the development of Nazi tax legislation during the Third Reich. Additionally, Popitz was a scholar and university lecturer, and he was among the tax jurists who established tax law as an independent field within legal studies. As a participant in the meetings of the Reich Cabinet under Hitler, he played a crucial role in Nazi legislation, which eradicated democratic and rule-of-law principles, as demonstrated for the first time in this book. Popitz was not only the father of value-added tax but also, alongside Göring, one of the founders of the secret state police. From 1938, he joined the resistance. He was sentenced to death after the assassination attempt by Count Stauffenberg on Hitler and was executed in February 1945.