Baldur Springmann

Baldur Springmann (born May 31, 1912 in Hagen ; † October 24, 2003 in Lübeck ) was a German organic farmer , publicist and right-wing extremist politician with a ethnic background. The heir of an industrial family studied agriculture, built a farm in Schleswig-Holstein with biodynamic farming in the 1950s and was one of the pioneers of the ecological movement in Germany. Since the 1970s he was active in the Action Group of Independent Germans (AUD) and in the World Association for the Protection of Life (WSL), in 1978 a founding member of the Schleswig-Holstein Green List and in January 1980 of the Greens party . In June 1980 he resigned after disputes over direction, and in 1982 he participated in the constitution of the Ecological Democratic Party . In 1983 he also withdrew there and in the following years became increasingly involved in various groups with right-wing extremist connections and backgrounds.

Life

Springmann's father, the author and translator Theodor Springmann junior , was the heir of a factory owner in Hagen and had, among other things, translated the Hindu Bhagavad Gita into German. Baldur Springmann wanted to become a farmer after graduating from high school. He did an agricultural apprenticeship, studied agriculture and bought a 50-hectare property near Wismar in Mecklenburg with his inheritance . Later Springmann was a lieutenant in the Black Reichswehr , a member of the Stahlhelm and youth supervisor at the Reichsnährstand . He was also a member of the SA until March 1934, the SS and from 1939/40 the NSDAP with membership number 7433874. Springmann was married to Ilse Bünsow from 1942, who died in 1981.

During the Second World War , Springmann was in the rank of lieutenant captain and chief of an anti - aircraft battery in Kiel-Schilksee and in Swinoujscie . At the end of the war he managed to escape from the Red Army across the Baltic Sea. In 1950 he settled on the Springe farm in Geschendorf in Schleswig-Holstein . In 1954 Springmann converted his farm to biodynamic farming . Today his son runs the farm.

ideology

Springmann represented a völkisch-oriented pantheism and nature-worshiping paganism without a personal God and without dogmas , priests and sacraments . He referred to Sigrid Hunke and her work, Europe's own religion .

Baldur Springmann wrote neo-pagan esoteric things for the magazine We Ourselves - magazine for national identity . Among other things, Von der Heilsrune Hagal and the divine essence of light appeared there - Interview with Baldur Springmann (1/96), Baldur Springmann: Let's let our light shine! (3–4 / 1998), Baldur Springmann: Die Baldurgeschichte , Baldur Springmann: New German Myth (4/1999). In an interview with Junge Freiheit , Springmann combined esoteric with anti-church set pieces. As a member of the preliminary spokesman's council of the German structural organization (DAO) Alfred Mechtersheimer , Baldur Springmann campaigned for an agreement of the fragmented right-wing camp with the help of a racist neo-paganism. He warned against “the expulsion from our hereditary property and thus the destruction not only of our nation but of every nation”.

Springmann understood religiosity as something so “deep inside” that “there are basically as many different religions as different people”. According to his own account, he got to know the German Unitarian religious community in Lübeck in the mid-1950s at an event after he had become aware of them through a newspaper advertisement. For more than ten years he was the leader of a Unitarian community in Bad Segeberg which, after Springmann's resignation, separated from the German Unitarians under new leadership and joined the Association of German Unitarians . Springmann increasingly alienated himself from the German Unitarians and left them. As reasons, Springmann gave his ideas about conscientious objection , about ecological agriculture and his fight against the nuclear economy as well as, most recently, the exclusion of the emotional and the orientation of the German Unitarians to an intellectual philosophy . According to his own statements, he was influenced by the Unitarian Sigrid Hunke's book, Europe's Own Religion . Springmann described himself in his memoirs as an “unbeliever”.

In 2001 Springmann wrote in the Ostpreußenblatt : “Seldom has the actual ruler of our current, otherwise quite well camouflaged authoritarian system shown his true face so undisguised as [...] with the crusade proclaimed by the upper do- gooders and bravely embarked on by all the good do-gooders against 'right'. ”Springmann also maintained close contacts with Werner Georg Haverbeck and his wife, the Holocaust denier Ursula Haverbeck .

Politics and ecology

Baldur Springmann was a member of the SA from November 1933 to March 1934, and an SS applicant from November 1936. In a questionnaire for SS members from 1940 for the Race and Settlement Main Office of the SS, he describes himself as a believer in God . Springmann "stayed at a distance from the anthroposophists, whose teaching seemed too Christian to him". After 1945 Springmann became active in the German Unitarian Religious Community , "an association founded by ex-Nazi officials who were religious of nature" (quote: Peter Bierl ).

Springmann has been involved in organic farming since the mid-1950s. Springmann was a member of the International of War Resisters 'International ( IDK), a German section of War Resisters' International (WRI). This gave rise to the idea of ​​community service in organic farming, for which, in cooperation with Wilhelm Ernst Barkhoff and the Bochumer Gemeinnützige Treuhandstelle ( GLS Treuhand ), the agricultural and social hygiene development company ASE Neuland eV was founded, which was recognized as an institution of the civil replacement service in 1970. As a result, conscientious objectors did their community service on the Springe farm. His involvement in organic agriculture developed into his involvement in the anti-nuclear and ecological movement, especially in the 1970s in the World Association for the Protection of Life (WSL-D), in which he was temporarily chairman of the Schleswig-Holstein state association Federal Association was excluded from the international WSL in 1985 due to right-wing extremist activities. With the WSL he fought a. a. against the construction of the Brokdorf nuclear power plant . He was politically active in the Action Group for Independent Germans (AUD), which had declared itself to be a party for the protection of life since 1973 and was the first party to explicitly address the issue of ecology. Springmann, who was at times state chairman, was invited to work on the new topic for the AUD in Schleswig-Holstein; In 1978 he resigned from the party. In addition, Springmann was involved in numerous environmental protection groups, anti-nuclear and citizens' initiatives and worked on the board of the Schleswig-Holstein environmental association. In 1978 Springmann was one of the founders of the Schleswig-Holstein Green List (GLSH) .

During the formation of the other political association / The Greens in 1979, Springmann was already known nationwide through the press and television and was asked to run as a speaker. According to his own statements, he refused on the grounds of avoiding the accumulation of offices. Springmann was nominated in fourth place for the European election list - after Petra Kelly , Herbert Gruhl , Roland Vogt and before Joseph Beuys . He shared this space with Manfred Siebker from the Club of Rome in accordance with a fixed rotation principle . In 1980 he participated in the founding of the party Die Grünen , but left the party after the Dortmund Federal Assembly in June 1980 because the left-wing parties prevailed in the appointment of the executive committee and key positions were filled by members from K groups . In 1982 he founded the Ecological Democratic Party (ÖDP) together with Herbert Gruhl , of which he was initially deputy chairman. In the following period he gave up active party politics. After Springmann had also been criticized in the ÖDP for his "sectarian" views, he left the party in 1983 without informing the press. In 1982 he published the book Partner Erde. Insights from an organic farmer in the far-right Arndt Verlag . In 1989 Springmann played a key role in founding the ÖDP spin-off Independent Ecologists in Germany (UÖD). He was also involved in the German Development Organization (DAO) of Alfred Mechtersheimer , in whose spokesperson he was elected. In 1998 he was a founding member of the “Alliance for Popular Vote” (BfV). As a member of the preliminary spokesman's council of the German structural organization, Baldur Springmann campaigned for an agreement of the fragmented camp on the right of the Union. He subsequently published in a large number of völkisch and right-wing organs.

Baldur Springmann became a pioneer of the völkisch direction in parts of the bioregionalism movement: “We now finally have to transform all the rudiments of blindly progressive believing, capitalism-obedient cheer patriotism into the love of motherland so bitterly necessary for our time. How lucky that there is a wand for this transformation. It's called bioregionalism. "

reception

According to Oliver Geden , Springmann's main field of activity was the connection of right-wing extremism, ecology and spirituality, which he practiced primarily as the community leader of the German Unitarian Religious Community (DUR) and in the Ecosophical Initiative in Kiel. Springmann's journalistic contributions can be found in right-wing extremist magazines such as Nation and Europa, but also in ethnically and religiously oriented journals such as Unitarian Blätter , seed or Faith and Work .

Monika Kirschner wrote in the information service against right-wing extremism : “Springmann describes himself as an ecosophist in a lifelong effort to promote the rural way of life. As such, he prepares a crude mixture of folk-esoteric religiosity and eco-romanticism, in which Christian set pieces can also be found ”. However, it is unproven whether Springmann called himself an ecosophist. Peter Nowak saw a development to become a right esoteric . Janet Biehl and Peter Staudenmaier classify Baldur Springmann with Holocaust deniers and the extreme right because of his commitment to the World Federation for the Protection of Life . Gerard Braunthal calls him “the nationalist ecology specialist”.

Today Baldur Springmann is received by the NPD , especially in the context of right-wing extremist settlement movements in the tradition of the Neo-Artamans , which thus underpins its ethnic-ecological propaganda. Toralf Staud calls Springmann an “extreme right-wing co-founder of the Greens”.

Publications

• Partner earth. Insights from an organic farmer. Arndt Verlag, Kiel 1982, ISBN 3-88741-005-X .
• Alma, the decent cow. And other animal stories. 1984, ISBN 3-89060-105-7 .
• (Co-author in :) Experience Christmas anew. Old customs - new forms. Ways and suggestions for celebrating. Neue Erde Verlags- und Naturwarenvertriebs GmbH, 1990, ISBN 3-89060-007-7 .
• Farmer with body and soul. Memoirs (2 volumes). Verlag Siegfried Bublies, Koblenz 1995, ISBN 3-926584-32-7 .

literature

• Silke Mende: "Not on the right, not on the left, but in front" - a story of the founding Greens. Munich 2011, pp. 244–250.

Web links

• Literature by and about Baldur Springmann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Baldur Springmann - biography and obituary , the daily newspaper , October 25, 2003

Individual evidence

1. ^ Battery boss Baldur Springmann in World War II , historical photographs
2. ↑ Stefanie von Schnurbein: God comfort in times of change. Munich 1993, p. 97.
3. ↑ Source: Young Freedom Questionnaire (1999)
4. ↑ Table of contents at Bublies-Verlag  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ↑ Source: Junge Freiheit (1999)
6. ↑ Baldur Springmann: Farmer with Body and Soul, Volume 2: Home from Light . P. 112
7. ↑ Baldur Springmann: Farmer with Body and Soul, Volume 2: Home from Light . P. 112 ff.
8. ↑ Baldur Springmann: Farmer with Body and Soul, Volume 2: Home from Light . P. 115 f.
9. ↑ Interview with Junge Freiheit (1999)
10. ↑ Baldur Springmann: Farmer with Body and Soul, Volume 2: Home from Light . P. 116
11. ↑ Andrea Röpke, Andreas Speit: Völkische Landnahme. Old clans, young settlers, right-wing ecos. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2019, p. 106 ff.
12. ↑ Peter Bierl : Racism in a new (?) Guise - brown esotericism, conspiracy theories, blood, soil and racial religions. (PDF; 3.0 MB)
13. ↑ The article was last published in 2012 in the documentation Racism in a New (?) Dress - Brown Esotericism, Conspiracy Theories, Blood, Ground and Racial Religions (PDF; 3.0 MB) and had previously appeared in various versions since 1993.
14. ^ Richard Stöss: From Nationalism to Environmental Protection: The German Community / Action Group of Independent Germans in the Party System of the Federal Republic. Springer, 1980, p. 264.
15. ↑ Jürgen Wüst: Conservatism and Ecological Movement: an investigation in the area of ​​tension between party, movement and ideology using the example of the Ecological Democratic Party (ÖDP). IKO, 1993, p. 90.
16. ↑ Springmann 1995 (Vol. II), p. 228
17. ↑ See Rudolf van Hüllen : Ideology and power struggle among the Greens. Bonn 1990, p. 179
18. ^ Franz Walter: Yellow or Green. Small party history of the higher earning middle in Germany. Bielefeld 2010, p. 72; Springmann 1995 (Vol. II)
19. ↑ Green founder Baldur Springmann dead, the organic farmer, folk and Germany dumpster, left the Greens in the early eighties . He died at the age of 91, dpa / taz.
20. ↑ The AK Bioregionalismus Sauerland refers to this quote from Springmann. Source: www.bioregionalismus.online.ms/
21. ↑ Oliver Geden, Right Ecology: Environmental Protection Between Emancipation and Fascism, Elefantenpress 1996, p. 223.
22. ↑ Quoted from Peter Nowak: Völkischer Ökologe. An original green with deep brown spots , look to the right , issue 23/2003
23. ↑ Peter Nowak: Blick nach rechts, 23/2003
24. ^ Janet Biehl, Peter Staudenmaier: Ecofascism: Lessons from the German experience. AK Press, Edinburgh 1995, p. 41.
25. ^ Gerard Braunthal: Right-Extremism in Germany: Recruitment of New Members. German Politics & Society 28.4 (2010), pp. 41–68.
26. ↑ Brown Ecologists (PDF; 3.7 MB), a publication by the Heinrich Böll Foundation 2012, p. 68ff.
27. ↑ Brown Ecologists (PDF; 3.7 MB), a publication by the Heinrich Böll Foundation 2012, p. 16.