Blood order
The Order of Blood , officially the medal of 9 November 1923 , was a medal of the NSDAP . The occasion of the donation of the Blood Order and the Golden Decoration of Honor of the NSDAP by Adolf Hitler was the tenth anniversary of the " national uprising of November 9, 1923 ".
In the Federal Republic of Germany, the badge counts as a Nazi propaganda tool to the mark of unconstitutional organizations within the meaning of Section 86a of the Criminal Code , so that its production and public wear or distribution are prohibited.
In National Socialism
Official award requirements
Hitler awarded the Blood Order in the first year of the NSDAP's takeover on November 9, 1933. The swastika is depicted on it. The name Blood Order , which later became official, was based on that of the blood flag . It aimed at the cult of honor around the killed participants in the Hitler putsch.
Originally, the medal was only to be awarded as a badge of honor to particularly deserving party comrades who were already politically active in the interests of National Socialism many years before taking office on January 30, 1933 . In later years, the number of recipients was greatly expanded.
The naming also varied. The medal was u. a. Badge of honor on a ribbon or commemorative badge for active fighters called the 1923 national uprising .
Actual award practice and group of recipients
In the Third Reich, the bearers of the medal in memory of November 9, 1923 were considered "heroes of the movement" or " old fighters ". The group of recipients can be roughly divided into four categories:
- Category 1: Originally, the blood order was only intended for participants in the Hitler putsch on November 9, 1923 in Munich, if it was clearly established that the bearer had been on the National Socialist side. Direct participation was also assumed if the porter was put on the march, but for various reasons had not taken part directly in the fighting. The number of this first round of medal winners was around 1,500. However, not all Category 1 winners were party members at the time. Rather, 34% of the organizations belonged to a volunteer corps . Only 50% of the porters were actually members of the NSDAP in 1923. For example, active soldiers at that time were forbidden to participate in political meetings or to become a member of a political association or party under Section 36 of the Defense Act. However, the majority of the officers and officer cadets of the Central Infantry School of the Reichswehr in Munich were close to the German Combat League . It was created on the initiative of Adolf Hitler and Erich Ludendorff on the German Day on September 1 and 2, 1923 in Nuremberg through the unification of the Federal Oberland with the Bund Reichskriegsflagge under the leadership of the SA . As a result, the rebels succeeded in arresting the school commander on the evening of November 8, 1923, and recruited 20 regular officers and 80 officer candidates who were present as "Ludendorff storm column" for the attempted coup. The medal was later awarded to many participants in the Austrian July coup of 1934.
- Category 2: The "old fighters" who were party members of the NSDAP before January 1, 1932 and whose membership had existed without interruption until the day of the award. A dormant membership for military service did no harm. However, National Socialist convictions and “personal worthiness” were required.
- Category 3: From May 1938, the circle of medal winners was expanded to include party members who were sentenced to death in the struggle of the National Socialists for power in the state and finally pardoned to life imprisonment. In the end, the medal was even awarded to party members who had only served a term of imprisonment of at least one year or who had suffered a serious injury as a result of their political activities for National Socialism.
- Category 4: In some cases the award was posthumous . The last person to receive the medal retrospectively was Reinhard Heydrich on June 4, 1942 .
If one of these conditions was met, the award could also be given to women in accordance with an "order of the Deputy Leader of March 27, 1941". However, awards to women remained the exception. The most famous blood medalist was Eleonore Baur , known as "Sister Pia". Little known, however, are the 15 other women who received the award up to November 1942, all but one of whom came from Austria. One of these Austrian blood medals was Maria Theresia von Metnitz, an employee of the illegal Carinthian Gauleitung, who served two longer sentences between 1934 and 1936 and was sentenced again to three years' imprisonment in September 1946. Almost completely unknown is also the midwife Ludmilla Gaich from Stainz , who was the only woman in Styria who was sentenced to imprisonment by the military court in Graz in connection with the July coup . She received a two-year prison sentence for attempted induction to murder.
The blood medal was only awarded at the request of the applicant himself or the responsible party official. Awards were published in the Ordinance Gazette of the Reich leadership of the NSDAP. A total of around 4,000 medals had been awarded by the end of the war. The medals were numbered on the back and their bearers recorded in a register .
Today: Anti-Constitutional Badge
The "Blood Order" is one of those National Socialist decorations that are not permitted in any form in the Federal Republic of Germany under the 1957 Law on Titles, Orders and Decorations .
literature
- Hilde Kammer, Elisabet Bartsch: Youth Lexicon National Socialism. Terms from the period of tyranny 1933–1945. (= Rororo manual. 6288). Rowohlt, Reinbek 1982, ISBN 3-499-16288-1 , p. 39.
- Klaus D. Patzwall: The blood order of the NSDAP. Verlag Militaria-Archiv Klaus D. Patzwall, Hamburg 1985.
Web links
- Blood Order In: Verfassungsschutz.de: Right-wing extremism: symbols, signs and prohibited organizations. (PDF), p. 57.
Individual evidence
- ↑ On the use of the swastika from 1933. on: verassungsschutz.brandenburg.de, PDF (from p. 11) ( Memento of the original from January 16, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ↑ See also The Award of the Blood Order. Implementing regulations of the Reich Treasurer - application, examination and award. Published in the " Völkischer Beobachter " on September 1, 1938.
- ↑ cf. Kurt Pfeiffer: The leader of the old marchers Litzmannstädter Zeitung , November 9, 1941
- ↑ Defense Act of March 23, 1921.
- ↑ See also: Nobles as bearers of the badge of honor from November 9, 1923 at the Institute for German Aristocracy Research.
- ↑ Historical Lexicon Bavaria.
- ↑ See also Helena Micheu: The National Socialist Terror 1933/34 in Carinthia with its historical-political background. Thesis . University of Klagenfurt, 1999, pp. 62–81.
- ↑ See Heimo Halbrainer: "What is still happening today in Styria, we want to meet this issue". The July coup in 1934 before the military court in Styria. In: Herbert Blatnik, Hans Schafranek (Ed.): From the NS ban to the "Anschluss". Styrian National Socialists 1933–1938. Czernin Verlag, Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-7076-0554-9 , p. 316.
- ↑ See Hans Buchheim: Der "Blutorden" der NSDAP, May 29, 1955. In: Expert opinion of the Institute for Contemporary History. Self-published by the Institute for Contemporary History, 1958, pp. 322–323.
- ↑ See implementation regulations of the Reich Treasurer of the NSDAP from August 27, 1938.
- ^ Walter Ziegler: Hitler putsch, 8./9. November 1923. In: Historisches Lexikon Bayerns. Retrieved February 7, 2015. - In contrast, John R. mentions Angolia: For Führer and Fatherland. Vol. 2:. Political & civil awards of the Third Reich. Bender, San Jose (Calif.) 1978, p. 192, the number of around 6,000 awards.
