Action against bad guys and criticism

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In the spring of 1934, the Reich Propaganda Management of the NSDAP attempted to counteract a change in mood in the population and to contain spontaneous expressions of discontent and loud criticism from disappointed national comrades and party members through an action against Miesmacher and criticism ( Miesmacher-Aktion for short ) . Presumably on the initiative of Adolf Hitler , Joseph Goebbels opened this “campaign against bad guys and criticism, against rumors and non-masters, against saboteurs and agitators” on May 11, 1934 with a speech in the Berlin Sports Palace . The campaign continued across the Reich until the end of June 1934.

background

In the spring of 1934, the initial high spirits after the “ seizure of power ” turned into disillusionment and disappointment: The raw material and currency crisis, deficiencies in the supply of fat , a hesitant middle-class policy, regulatory measures in agriculture and the lifestyle of many functionaries vilified as bigwigs left a feeling of dissatisfaction that grew noticeably in all regions. Dissatisfaction arose particularly in rural and medium-sized circles. The Germany-reports of Sopade found the "enthusiasm noise of previous months" was gone. It is true that the widespread dissatisfaction at this point did not threaten to turn into fundamental political opposition. However, the unmistakable low mood, which was revealed by numerous expressions of displeasure and blatant criticism, wanted to counteract the new rulers with a propaganda campaign. The initiative probably came from Hitler personally. In the course of the action against critics, conservatives, monarchists and Jews, warnings were also given of provocateurs who wanted to set a "second revolution" in motion. Under this slogan, the SA demanded a social transformation of society and military equality alongside the Reichswehr . Their elimination in the course of the Röhm murders also marks the end of the Miesmacher campaign.

In a situation report dated June 4, 1934, the Hanover state police station expressly warned that the legitimate fight against complainers and bad-mouthers should not open the door to spies and denunciations . On the other hand, legal provisions soon expanded the possibility of punishing publicly expressed criticism.

Actions

Two weeks before the start of the campaign, the speech in the Sports Palace, the local press was asked to report on the campaign on a daily basis. In Wiesbaden, for example, newspapers called for swastika badges to be purchased for RM 0.20 , which entitle them to enter the planned events. Banners were put up and slogans were painted on the sidewalks: “Badmakers are traitors!”, “Fight the reaction !”, “End the denominational agitators!” In Wiesbaden and the ten incorporated suburbs, four thousand posters were posted with stickers “Tonight only badmakers remain at home ”updated. A total of 38 mass rallies were held there on June 8, 1934. The campaigns were planned to run until June 30, 1934 throughout Germany. After the end of the “campaign against Miesmacher and criticism”, Goebbels ordered a vacation for all party and Gau speakers until the end of July.

Speeches by Joseph Goebbels

In the speech at the start of the campaign on May 11, 1934, Goebbels made contemptuous comments about "criticism", "badmaker", "agitator" and "rumor maker". The dispute with them should not be left to the authority of the state, but should be borne by the "ally people". It is downright criminal to discourage others. We know very well that the hidden boycott of goods abroad can be traced back to “our Jewish fellow citizens”. A final warning is given to them not to re-enter German stages, to appear in the editorial offices or to stroll along the Kurfürstendamm as if nothing had happened. Jews should behave like guests in Germany.

The hostile reaction tries to continue the fight against National Socialism via the churches. Goebbels rejected it as an allegation by the foreign press that the prestige of National Socialism had declined. The SA is not a war force, but a peace force, a force of order and discipline, which is a guarantee that internal and external tensions will be eliminated by the established German people.

In his diary Goebbels wrote about his speech in the Sportpalast: “A fighting meeting like in the old days. Against complainers and complainers. Roaring applause. I am in the best shape. [...] That was a heavy blow to sabotage. Now follow up! "

The speech was followed by other appearances throughout the empire. Goebbels' attacks especially against the conservative-bourgeois critics, who would have proven unsuitable for leadership in 1918, intensified and culminated in a speech at the solstice celebration on June 21, 1934: It would have been better to have all "these gentlemen" behind Schloss und To put the latch.

Speech by Rudolf Hess

The Fuehrer's deputy, Rudolf Hess , gave a speech on June 25, 1934, which was broadcast by the Reichsender Köln on all German radio stations. In it he forbade criticism of those who failed and did not stop the decline. The action should ensure “that neither 'tried and tested conservatives', nor 'hopeful monarchists', nor communists who rely on the success of the voles could gain importance”.

In the excerpt from the speech published in 1935, the "very special significance of the following statements" is emphasized. There, Hess urges “those idealistic gullible among my party comrades” to be particularly careful who “tend to turn to provocateurs, try to incite national comrades against each other and cover this criminal game with the honorific name of a 'second revolution'.” “The order of the Führer , the we swore loyalty, only has validity. Woe to him who breaks faith, believing that he is serving the revolution by revolt! Poor people who believe that they have been chosen to have to help the Führer in a revolutionary way through agitation from below. "

Reactions

The Sopade reports on Germany show that the meetings, demonstrations and rallies planned “right down to the last village” in almost all parts of the country had no momentum and remained a pitiful fiasco, partly because of the low number of visitors. Among party supporters, the opinion was allegedly widespread that one should have limited oneself to press actions, and that the whole bad-ass action was the first to create bad-minds.

In fact, some senior officials tried to curb action in their domain. The Silesian Gauleiter Helmuth Brückner considered the propaganda campaign "unnecessary and harmful". Gauleiter Wilhelm Kube from the Kurmark said the action only caused unrest.

The Jewish weekly newspaper Die Truth , published in Vienna , feared that the Miesmacher action would degenerate into a pogrom , and described the Röhm putsch as a surprising final effect of the campaign, which suddenly and unexpectedly turned against the propagators of revolutionary discontent. Victor Klemperer wrote that the speech was “excessive agitation and a 'final warning to the Jews'. Obvious threat of pogrom if the boycott does not stop. Promise not to harm them 'if they keep quiet in their apartments' and not claim to be 'full and equal'. [...] Behind the whole speech there is despair, a last attempt at distraction. The whole system whistles from the last hole ... "

Some party papers took the anti-Semitic passages in Goebbels' speech as a signal for a new campaign against the Jews, others limited themselves to the detailed reproduction of the speech. The Reich Representation of the German Jews took a position against the anti-Semitic allegations in a letter addressed to Goebbels. At the end of May 1934, a Berlin advisory center for emigrants recorded an unusual rush of Jewish visitors; it was believed that this could be traced back to the May 11 speech.

The "grumbling campaign" assumed such proportions that the Reich Ministry of Justice, the Reich Ministry of the Interior and the Secret State Police Office (Gestapa) tried to counteract the rampant denunciation.

Interpretations

The historian Norbert Frei noted a "strikingly defensive tone" in the speech on May 11, which showed Goebbels' own uncertainty about the future course. Goebbels put the blame for the phenomena of the crisis on “the reaction”, the Jews and the governments of the “ system time ”. On the other hand, he praised the SA as a force of order and discipline. According to Peter Longerich , it was “an almost complete surprise” for Goebbels that the blow he expected was not directed against “the reaction” but against the SA. Goebbels therefore escaped the complexity of the domestic political crisis situation; he was not involved in the previous decision-making process. Also Ralf Georg Reuth According to Goebbels was quite fixed on "the reaction," he that other signs overlooked and was completely taken aback when he was finally inaugurated.

Ian Kershaw and Norbert Frei agree that the action has clearly proven to be a failure. Immediately after the Röhm murders, “nagging” and “grumbling” ceased and the mood improved, but this did not have any lasting effect. According to Kershaw, only the subsequent elimination of the SA and the merger of the offices of Chancellor and President in the summer of 1934 were of major importance for the further development of the “Führer image”.

Gunther Schmitz notes a direct line that led from the "Muckerer campaign" of 1934 to the open judicial terror of 1944. As essential characteristics of the criminal prosecution of political statements in the time of National Socialism, he names indefinite responsibilities and largely open facts that led to general legal uncertainty. The " Ordinance of the Reich President to ward off insidious attacks against the government of the national insurrection " of March 21, 1933, a preliminary stage of the so-called deceit law, had already made the dissemination of false or grossly distorted statements of fact a punishable offense. On December 29, 1934, a more stringent treachery law came into force, according to which value judgments could also serve as the basis for criminal proceedings if someone made “publicly hateful, inflammatory or low-minded statements about leading personalities of the state or the NSDAP, about their orders or the institutions created by them ”. Politically unpopular utterances that did not come to trial before the special courts as “insidiousness” could be charged as gross nonsense before the local courts.

literature

  • Critical Aaster. In: Cornelia Schmitz-Berning: Vocabulary of National Socialism. 2nd Edition. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2007, p. 359f.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Günter Morsch : Work and bread. Studies on the situation, mood, attitude and behavior of the German workforce, 1933–1936 / 37. Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3-631-42772-7 , p. 178.
  2. ↑ Ian Kershaw: Everyday and Extraordinary - Their Significance for Popular Opinion 1933–1939. In: Detlef Peukert, Jürgen Reulecke (Hrsg.): The ranks firmly closed = everyday life under National Socialism. Special edition for winners of the school competition, Wuppertal 1981, ISBN 3-87294-157-7 , p. 281.
  3. ^ Quoted from Michael Grüttner: The Third Reich 1933–1939. Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-608-60019-3 , p. 70 (= Gebhardt, Handbook of German History, Volume 19)
  4. ↑ Ian Kershaw: Hitler. 1889-1936. Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-421-05131-3 , p. 639.
  5. ↑ Norbert Frei: The Führer State. National Socialist rule 1933 to 1945 . Munich 2001, ISBN 3-423-30785-4 , p. 15.
  6. ↑ criticasters - contemptuous term for petty critics. See Cornelia Schmitz-Berning: Vocabulary of National Socialism. 2nd Edition. Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-019549-1 , p. 359.
  7. ↑ Gisela Diewald-Kerkmann: Political denunciation in the Nazi regime or the small power of the "Volksgenossen". Bonn 1995, ISBN 3-8012-5018-0 , p. 23.
  8. ↑ Kurt Pfeil: How we organized our campaign against bad guys and criticism. In: Our will and way. Official party propaganda magazine for the political leaders of the NSDAP 4, Issue 8, 1934, pp. 226–230 / see Peter Longerich: Joseph Goebbels. Biography. Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-88680-887-8 , p. 261.
  9. ↑ according to the announcement in the Völkischer Beobachter of May 4, 1934 - abr. in: Klaus Behnken (Hrsg.): Germany reports of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sopade) 1934–1940. 1st volume, Salzhausen / Frankfurt am Main 1980, p. 105.
  10. ↑ chroniknet.de: Daily entry for July 1, 1934 (accessed August 13, 2014)
  11. ↑ Speech excerpt of the Völkischer Beobachter as document VEJ 1/117 in: Wolf Gruner (edit.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 (source collection): Volume 1: German Reich 1933–1937. Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-486-58480-6 , pp. 337-339.
  12. ↑ Speech on the SA according to Norbert Frei: Der Führerstaat. National Socialist rule 1933 to 1945 . Munich 2001, ISBN 3-423-30785-4 , p. 16. - Frei also refers to the publication in the Völkischer Beobachter.
  13. ↑ Elke Fröhlich (ed.): The diaries of Joseph Goebbels. Volume 3 / I: April 1934-February 1936. Munich 2005, ISBN 3-598-23730-8 , p. 48. (Entry from May 14, 1934)
  14. ↑ Source reference : June 21, 1934 - Dr. Goebbels speaks at the solstice celebrations (Berlin) → Hamburg Foreign Journal
  15. ↑ So with Ralf Georg Reuth: Goebbels - a biography. Revised and expanded edition. Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-492-05557-4 , pp. 335/336.
  16. ↑ Gerd Rühle: The Third Reich. Documentary representation of the building of the nation. The second year - 1934. Hummelverlag, Berlin [1935], pp. 230–232.
  17. ↑ Klaus Behnken (Ed.): Germany reports of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sopade) 1934-1940. 1st year volume. Salzhausen / Frankfurt am Main 1980, pp. 105-106.
  18. ↑ Quoted from Der Spiegel. 25/1984
  19. ↑ "The Truth" of July 4, 1934 ( Memento of August 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  20. ↑ Victor Klemperer: I want to bear witness to the last - diaries 1933–1944. Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-351-02340-5 , Volume 1, p. 105.
  21. ↑ Peter Longerich: 'We didn't know anything about that!' The Germans and the Persecution of the Jews 1933–1945. Munich 2006, ISBN 3-88680-843-2 , p. 67 f.
  22. ↑ Shalom Adler-Rudel: Jewish self-help under the Nazi regime 1933-1939 as reflected in the reports of the Reich Representation of Jews in Germany . Tübingen 1974, ISBN 3-16-835232-2 , p. 72.
  23. ↑ Document VEJ 1/133 in: Wolf Gruner (Ed.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by Nazi Germany 1933-1945 (collection of sources): Volume 1: German Empire from 1933 to 1937. Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-486-58480-6 , pp. 367-368.
  24. ↑ Gunther Schmitz: Against the 'Miesmacher', 'Nörgler' and 'Criticism' - On the criminal prosecution of political statements in Hamburg 1933 to 1939. In: Hamburg Justice Authority (ed.): "For leaders, people and fatherland ..." - Hamburg justice in National Socialism. Hamburg 1992, ISBN 3-87916-016-3 , p. 290.
  25. ↑ Norbert Frei: The Führer State. National Socialist rule 1933 to 1945 . Munich 2001, ISBN 3-423-30785-4 , pp. 15-16.
  26. ↑ Norbert Frei: The Führer State. National Socialist rule 1933 to 1945 . Munich 2001, ISBN 3-423-30785-4 , p. 16.
  27. ↑ Peter Longerich: Joseph Goebbels. Biography. Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-88680-887-8 , pp. 267/268.
  28. ^ Ralf Georg Reuth: Goebbels - a biography. Revised and expanded edition. Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-492-05557-4 , p. 336.
  29. ↑ Norbert Frei: The Führer State. National Socialist rule 1933 to 1945 . Munich 2001, ISBN 3-423-30785-4 , pp. 15-17 / Ian Kershaw: Hitler. 1889-1936. Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-421-05131-3 , pp. 638/639.
  30. ^ Günter Morsch: Work and bread. Studies on the situation, mood, attitude and behavior of the German workforce, 1933–1936 / 37. Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3-631-42772-7 , p. 183.
  31. ↑ Ian Kershaw: The Hitler myth leader cult and popular opinion. Munich 2002, ISBN 3-423-30834-6 , p. 89.
  32. ↑ Gunther Schmitz: Against the "Miesmacher", "Nörgler" and "Criticism" ... In: Justice Authority Hamburg (Ed.): "For leaders, people and fatherland ..." ... Hamburg 1992, ISBN 3-87916-016-3 , p 330.
  33. ↑ Gunther Schmitz: Against the "Miesmacher", "Nörgler" and "Criticism" ... In: Justice Authority Hamburg (Ed.): "For leaders, people and fatherland ..." ... Hamburg 1992, ISBN 3-87916-016-3 , p 291.