Abegg affair

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The Abegg affair (more rarely also Diels-Abegg affair) is the process of a confidential conversation between the State Secretary in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, Wilhelm Abegg, and the Government Councilor Rudolf Diels on the one hand, and the KPD politicians Ernst Torgler (chairman of the parliamentary group in the Reichstag ) and Wilhelm Kasper (chairman of the parliamentary group in the Prussian state parliament ) on the other hand. Although it is certain that the meeting took place - probably on June 4, 1932 - it is not completely clear how and with what intentions it came about or what exactly the participants discussed and possibly agreed upon. Distorted rumors about the meeting reached the public at the end of June / beginning of July and provided the Papen government with an additional pretext for the dismissal of the Social Democratic government of Prussia on July 20, 1932 (cf. Preussenschlag ). Regardless of this, the unusual meeting stands for alternatives and options for action by anti-Nazi political forces in the final phase of the Weimar Republic , but also documents largely unprocessed connections between individual "relatively moderate" KPD parliamentarians and the state security apparatus, especially the Prussian political police . The latter must be taken into account when assessing the events - especially with a view to Torgler's later collaboration with the Gestapo and especially with Diels.

background

As a result of the state elections on April 24, 1932, the previous Prussian state government , led by the SPD (see Cabinet Braun III ), lost its parliamentary majority. However, she was able to continue to hold office as a manager, since shortly before it had been anchored in the rules of procedure of the state parliament that an absolute - and not as usual, a simple - majority of the MPs had to come together for the election of the new Prime Minister . The coalition government of the NSDAP , DNVP and smaller conservative parties planned by the right-wing extremist spectrum was thus prevented because nine mandates were missing. Attempts by the Prussian center to form a coalition with the NSDAP were suppressed by the objection of the party executive committee.

In this stalemate - and with a view to the Papen government that was formed on June 1 and was aiming for cooperation with the NSDAP and the "state reorganization" - the State Secretary Wilhelm Abegg , a member of the German State Party , attempted to persuade the KPD to tolerate one of the SPD or the center-led minority government in Prussia. It is unknown whether and with whom Abegg's approach was coordinated. It is known that Ernst Heilmann , the chairman of the SPD parliamentary group in the Prussian state parliament, developed similar thoughts. Abegg may have acted completely independently; What is certain is that he did not inform his immediate superior, Interior Minister Carl Severing . Abegg noted in 1948:

“It remains to be added that I did not inform Minister Severing because I knew his constant indecision, above all his complete lack of decisive energy; He would undoubtedly have welcomed a suggestion for such a negotiation with kind words, but with the restriction that he would have to wait for a suitable time, speak to his group beforehand and consider other things in the meantime, which would have brought the matter to fruition from the outset. "

To establish contact, Abegg consulted the later Gestapo chief, Government Councilor Rudolf Diels, who was involved in the observation of the KPD in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior and who apparently had connections to the party. According to Abegg, not only the organizational process, but also the specific suggestion for the meeting came from Diels. It is completely unclear what direct decisions and considerations on the part of the KPD formed the basis for participation in the meeting. Kasper and Torgler, who had no influence in the actual party leadership, will not have acted without the approval of the decision-makers in the Secretariat and Politburo. The move is clearly in line with the party's stronger orientation towards warding off the fascist threat and the associated weakening of the attacks on the SPD, which has been observed since the spring of 1932 (proclamation of the nominally non-partisan anti-fascist action at the end of May, demonstrative meeting of Ernst Thalmann at twenty SPD and Reichsbanner officials in July 1932). On June 2, Wilhelm Pieck had indicated in the Prussian state parliament that the KPD was also ready for parliamentary maneuvers to prevent the transfer of government power to a National Socialist-Conservative coalition. At the beginning of July, Thälmann identified the main political problem of the present with the question of how “the establishment of the fascist dictatorship in Germany could be prevented”. However, to this day, no documents from the party related to the conversation with Abegg have become known.

Conversation content

The meeting most likely took place on June 4, 1932 in the building of the Ministry of the Interior (however, in the minutes of the Ministerialrat Wienstein prepared on July 25 of the meeting with Diels on July 19, the time was "about two weeks ago" - hence the beginning of July - noted). The meeting is said to have lasted about four hours. Diels claims to have stayed in the background and only participated as a witness. According to the Wienstein Minutes, the main part of the conversation had the following content:

"State Secretary Dr. Abegg first emphasized that the bloody clashes had to stop, and then asked the communists mentioned why they directed such a sharp opposition to the Prussian State Ministry. The Prussian government did not object to the communists and was doing everything possible to avoid the appointment of a Reich Commissioner for Prussia. The communists must also show understanding for this situation. It could not matter to them that the National Socialists came to the helm or that a Reich Commissioner for Prussia was appointed. "

Abegg also let it be known that he could ensure that the police “seize” KPD documents that would make the party appear “more legal” - that is, more acceptable for the SPD and the center as a tolerance partner and at the same time less vulnerable in this role by the right-wing parties . He added "half jokingly" that the party could submit such documents to the Ministry of the Interior. These would "then be issued as confiscated." However, specific agreements in this or another direction were not made during the conversation.

This Dielsian account - which subsequently and deliberately overstated the Papen government as evidence of its claim that the Prussian government "conspired" in a "state-endangering manner" with Communists - is in the legal disputes before the Leipzig State Court in late summer and autumn 1932 was weakened by Abegg insofar as he denied having made the KPD representatives as suggested by von Diels an explicit or implicit offer of political cooperation. He only made it clear to Kasper and Torgler that the violent clashes on the streets had to end, otherwise there was a risk that the Papen government would use them as an excuse to intervene in Prussia. Nevertheless, he did not deny that he had asked the KPD representatives to support the candidacy of a center politician for the office of prime minister. In a private letter to Severing on May 31, 1947, Abegg described the goal and subject of the conversation as the much more far-reaching intention of creating a “ united front against National Socialism”.

Becoming aware of the meeting and political instrumentalization

The conversation, which apparently ended without any concrete result, might never have become known if Diels had not broken in a characteristic way the confidentiality expressly requested by Abegg. In a submission to the State Court on August 25, 1932, he justified the betrayal of official secrets to the political opponents of his superior with the "serious conflicts of conscience" into which his knowledge had plunged him. Diels himself admitted, however, that Severing found out about her a few days after the interview and that Abegg had “sharply reprimanded” for it, which - if you take the argument seriously - should have relieved his conscience. Nevertheless, Diels decided in a mixture of "at least an opportunistic and partially fundamentally anti-republic mentality" to let representatives of the right-wing party spectrum share his knowledge. Already on June 22nd, the DNVP MP Eldor Borck remarked casually in the state parliament:

"The State Secretary in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, Mr. Abegg, is now very eagerly conspiring with gentlemen on the left and is trying in this way to do very strange business behind the scenes for the Prussian government."

On July 9th, the Berliner Börsen-Zeitung reported on corresponding "conspiracies". Finally, Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm von Gayl asserted in the cabinet on July 12th that Abegg was conducting negotiations “because of a merger of the SPD with the KPD.” Although this lacked any factual basis, it already indicated in what sense the circle around Papen with the leaked information intended to deal with. The high point of Diels's informing activity was a meeting in his private apartment on the evening of July 19, in which, among other things, the Lord Mayor of Essen , Franz Bracht , who was designated as Reich Commissioner for Prussia, took part. The Wienstein Protocol mentioned above was created in the process. In his radio address on the evening of July 20, Papen then stated with interested accentuation of the statements made by Diels:

“If, for example, high functionaries of the Prussian state offer their hand to enable leaders of the Communist Party to conceal illegal terrorist intentions (...), then the authority of the state from above is undermined in a way that is intolerable for the security of the Reich is. "

This little concrete accusation was finally increased by the representatives of the Papen government in the process brought before the State Court by the deposed Prussian government, using renewed statements from Diels, to the charge of " high treason ".

classification

The political prospects of Abegg's advance, which in any case bore no fruit beyond the talks on June 4, were slim from the start. Even if the Prussian government had accepted a formal toleration by the KPD associated with political concessions - which is completely unlikely with a view to this bastion of the extreme right wing of the SPD - such a step would be more than a mere rumor of a related one The intention was sufficient to provoke the intervention of the Reich government, which was waiting for such a steep proposal. However, if the initial situation had changed in this way, the likelihood of joint defense measures by the two workers' parties would have been somewhat greater. The Abegg Initiative was ultimately used politically by the forces against which it was directed. Franz von Papen writes in his memoir that the "material about a collaboration that was intended between the Prussian government and the KPD" presented by Diels was particularly important. Hindenburg allegedly only signed the emergency ordinance on the basis of which the Prussian government was overthrown after Diels' testimony. Of course, it is doubtful whether reasonably well-informed politicians like Papen seriously believed in effective political cooperation between the SPD and KPD - after all, in its crackdown on Prussia on July 20, the Reich government firmly calculated that the SPD leadership would accept the expected ( and then carried out) general strike call of the KPD not followed. On the other hand, it is entirely possible that “clues” explained accordingly at Hindenburg had the desired effect.

In view of the role of what would later become the first Gestapo chief Rudolf Diels, the Abegg affair is also an example of the incipient orientation of senior officials of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior and the Political Police to the imminent dictatorial restructuring of the state expected in this well-informed milieu, and the resulting changes accompanying dissolution of the loyalty relationships that were in effect until then. Diels completed the change from the protégé of a left-liberal state secretary to a shop steward for right-wing conservative advocates of a corporate state and finally to head of the secret police of a right-wing extremist terror regime.

literature

  • Christoph Graf : Political police between democracy and dictatorship. The development of the Prussian Political Police from the state security organ of the Weimar Republic to the Secret State Police Office of the Third Reich , Berlin 1983.
  • Klaus Wallbaum : The defector. Rudolf Diels (1900–1957). The first Gestapo chief of the Hitler regime , Frankfurt am Main 2010.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Graf, Christoph, Political Police between Democracy and Dictatorship. The Development of the Prussian Political Police from the State Security Organ of the Weimar Republic to the Secret State Police Office of the Third Reich, Berlin 1983, p. 63.
  2. ↑ See Wallbaum, Klaus, Der Überläufer. Rudolf Diels (1900–1957). The first Gestapo chief of the Hitler regime, Frankfurt am Main 2010, p. 345ff.
  3. ↑ See Brüning, Heinrich, Memoiren 1918–1934, Stuttgart 1970, pp. 567f.
  4. ↑ See Wallbaum, Überläufer, pp. 66, 69.
  5. ↑ See Winkler, Heinrich August, Weimar 1918–1933. The history of the first German democracy, Frankfurt am Main-Wien 1993, p. 459.
  6. ↑ Quoted from Wallbaum, Überläufer, p. 70.
  7. ↑ On Diels see Graf, Politische Polizei, pp. 317–329.
  8. ^ See Graf, Politische Polizei, p. 58 and Wallbaum, Überläufer, p. 71.
  9. ↑ See Petzold, Joachim, SPD and KPD in the final phase of the Weimar Republic. Insurmountable obstacles or unused opportunities ?, in: Winkler, Heinrich August (Ed.), Die deutsche Staatskrise. Scope for action and alternatives, Munich 1992, p. 95.
  10. ↑ Quoted from Karl, Heinz, Kücklich, Erika (ed.), Die Antifaschistische Aktion. Documentation and chronicle May 1932 to January 1933, Berlin 1965, p. 167.
  11. ↑ a b See Graf, Politische Polizei, p. 407.
  12. ↑ a b c Quoted from Graf, Politische Polizei, p. 408.
  13. ↑ a b c See Graf, Politische Polizei, p. 59.
  14. ↑ Quoted from Graf, Politische Polizei, p. 61. Graf, however, attributes this formulation to a "radicalization and bitterness" that he believed to have occurred in the years that followed Abeggs and thus suggests that such a thing was not the intention of the State Secretary in 1932.
  15. ^ Graf, Politische Polizei, p. 64.
  16. ↑ a b Quoted from Graf, Politische Polizei, p. 55.
  17. ↑ See Dams, Carsten, Staatsschutz in der Weimarer Republik. The monitoring and fighting of the NSDAP by the Prussian political police from 1928 to 1932, Marburg 2002, p. 158 (footnote 40).
  18. ↑ Quoted from Graf, Politische Polizei, p. 57.
  19. ^ Papen, Franz von, From the failure of a democracy. 1930–1933, Mainz 1968, p. 233.
  20. ↑ See Wallbaum, Überläufer, p. 69.
  21. ↑ See Wallbaum, Überläufer, p. 350.