Boxheimer documents

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Werner Best (1942)

The Boxheimer documents - sometimes in the literature Boxheimer document called - it was plans for a forcible seizure of power by members of the NSDAP . They were written on August 5, 1931 by the then 28-year-old court assessor and NSDAP functionary Werner Best . They were named after the Boxheimer Hof near Bürstadt / Lampertheim , where leading Hessian National Socialists held several consultations in the summer of 1931. Besides Best, the deputy Gauleiter Wahre , SA -Stabführer Stavinoga, economic advisor Wilhelm Schäfer and the tenant of the Boxheimer Hof, Richard Wagner, were involved . The publication of the documents caused quite a stir in the tense domestic and national political situation in autumn 1931.

Starting position

Heinrich Brüning, Chancellor 1930–1932

In autumn 1931, Germany was ruled by a minority government under Chancellor Heinrich Brüning ( German Center Party ) mainly with emergency ordinances under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution . Although they provided for draconian austerity measures and exacerbated the global economic crisis with their deflationary policy , the SPD tolerated Brüning and his cabinet by regularly voting against the repeal of the emergency ordinances requested by the NSDAP , DNVP or KPD at the increasingly rare sessions of the Reichstag . The repeal of an emergency ordinance would have led to the dissolution of the Reichstag under Article 25 of the Reich Constitution, and the subsequent new elections were to be feared that the NSDAP would gain more votes , surprisingly over 18% of the votes in the Reichstag elections of September 1930 .

In addition to the tolerance in the Reichstag, Brüning was dependent on the benevolence of Reich President Paul von Hindenburg , who increasingly urged him to break away from the Social Democrats and orient himself more to the right. For this purpose, the Chancellor had reshuffled his cabinet on October 10, 1931 and also entrusted Reichswehr Minister Wilhelm Groener with the interior department and Hermann Warmbold , supervisory board of IG Farben , with the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The very next day, however, the National Socialists, the German Nationalists and the anti-republican veterans organization Stahlhelm showed with a large demonstration in Bad Harzburg that the government's turn to the right would not dissuade them from their opposition to Brüning and Hindenburg.

In the medium term, Brüning sought to work with the NSDAP, because in the spring of 1932 the re-election of Hindenburg , who did not want to be elected with the votes of the Social Democrats. Rather, that should be done by the National Socialists, whom Brüning wanted to tame at the same time by increasing involvement in coalitions at the state level. The taming plan came from Reichswehr Minister Groener and his head of the ministerial office Kurt von Schleicher , who at the same time wanted to integrate the SA into a new militia to circumvent the arms restrictions of the Versailles Treaty . The prerequisite for these plans was that Hitler adhered to his legality course, which he had committed himself to under oath at the end of September 1930 in the so-called Ulm Reichswehr Trial: According to this, the National Socialists would only use legal means on their way to power. The situation in Hesse after the state elections of November 15, 1931 offered a first opportunity to explore the possibilities of such a taming. The ruling Weimar coalition under President Bernhard Adelung (SPD) had lost its majority, the National Socialists lost 37.1%. of votes even before the SPD. Since the communists had become the third strongest force in the country with 14.3% before the center, there was no possibility of forming a parliamentary majority with democratic parties alone. The central Hessian politicians therefore began coalition negotiations with the National Socialists with the approval of the Reich Chancellor.

The social democratic interior ministers of Prussia and Hesse, Carl Severing and Wilhelm Leuschner , resisted this taming course . They did not want to integrate the NSDAP and SA, but instead wanted to have them prosecuted with all the severity of the law as violent and treasonous and ultimately banned. The Republic Protection Act, which would have provided a suitable handle for this, was renewed in 1930 in only a weakened form; in 1932 the Brüning government let it expire completely. On November 17, 1931, at a conference of interior ministers, Leuschner and Severing clashed with Groener, who preferred to talk about the predominant violent acts on the communist side rather than about the street terror of the SA. He only mentioned the SA as a victim of the communist "murder epidemic" and had the Braunschweig Interior Minister Dietrich Klagges (NSDAP) on his side. Leuschner and Severing could not get their way with their demand to issue at least a general ban on uniforms by emergency ordinance. In order to be able to take action against the National Socialists at all, the Bavarian Minister of the Interior Karl Stützel also suggested introducing protective custody “against people who endanger the security of the Reich” and communist organizations like the Red Aid or the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition to forbid, but even he did not get through. Rather, the Reich Minister of the Interior declared on the following day that political radicalism had to be combated with “means ... intellectual and moral”. Brüning recalls in his memoirs:

"Groener was extremely accommodating to the National Socialists in order to create a favorable mood for the presidential election among the Nazis, just as I wanted."

Tradition and content

The originals of the Boxheim documents are not accessible; they have been in a Moscow special archive since the end of the Second World War . Best self-published it in May 1932 with justifying explanations. The research literature on the subject is mostly based on a documentary published in 1953 in the weekly newspaper Das Parlament , which evaluated the extensive press coverage of 1931 and 1932.

The Boxheim documents consisted of guidelines for emergency ordinances and the draft of a call to be issued in the event of a takeover. It was entitled:

"Draft of the first announcement of our leadership after the elimination of the supreme state authorities and after overcoming the municipality in an area suitable for uniform administration."

Best assumed in his plans a communist uprising that would overthrow the Reich government. This uprising is comparable to the November Revolution and would create “a new legal status”. In order to save the people, armed National Socialist groups, which Best vaguely described as " SA , Landwehr or similar", would have to seize power and declare a state of emergency. "SA, Landwehr, etc." should be given unrestricted enforcement powers. All political opponents should be brought to concentration camps to be set up immediately as a “precautionary measure”. "Resistance is generally punished with death", this also applied to non-compliance with the emergency ordinances intended for the "seizure of power" and in some cases already prepared. Anyone who did not surrender their weapons within 24 hours and all members of the public service who participated in strikes or sabotage would also be shot. Field courts should be set up for this purpose .

"Instead of the highest state authorities (ministries), the leadership of ... (SA, Landwehr, etc.) represented by me."

From the further course of the text it is not clear who exactly was meant by "me". In addition, the draft envisaged extensive expropriations. All food stocks should be recorded in lists and delivered on request, "every sale and every exchange of food is prohibited". All interest and rent payments and the foreclosures that have become very common during the economic crisis should be suspended, and a basic state right of access to all private assets should be introduced: “There is no more private income until otherwise regulated”. In addition, a general compulsory labor service should be introduced for all Germans: "The right to food ... depends on the fulfillment of the service obligation". Since Jews were excluded from the labor service, this implicitly meant that they would not receive any food. Best's formulations show parallels to the draft of an emergency constitution known to him, which Theodor von der Pfordten drafted in 1923, a National Socialist who was shot by the police during the Hitler coup .

publication

In August and September 1931, Best made the Hessian party bureaucracy and the Reich leadership of the NSDAP aware of his plans, but they met with little interest due to their lack of feasibility. Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess, for example, dismissed it as a “fool's prank”.

Wilhelm Schäfer , who had taken part in the deliberations in the Boxheimer Hof, had turned away from the NSDAP in the meantime. Since he had given false information in his curriculum vitae, Best had urged him to resign from his state parliament mandate, and his apartment had been searched by members of the SA. Schäfer then resigned from the party and handed the documents over to Frankfurt Police President Steinberg on November 25, 1931, allegedly to inform the responsible state authorities of the "economically nonsensical plans of Dr. Best ”.

Schäfer's information gave Interior Minister Leuschner the opportunity to finally prove the anti-state character of the Nazi movement. After consulting with his colleague Carlo Mierendorff and his Prussian counterpart Severing, on the afternoon of November 25th, he arranged for a house search of suspected Darmstadt National Socialists, which, among other things, uncovered a copy of the letter with which Best had sent the documents to the party leadership in Munich. This confirmed the authenticity of the material, and Leuschner passed it on to the press, which should earn him the lifelong hatred of the National Socialists.

Shortly after the seizure of power , Schäfer was murdered by four revolver shots on the night of July 17, 1933 in the Frankfurt city forest. It was obvious that Best was the client, but he was acquitted in July 1950 for lack of evidence.

Reactions

Press

The discovery of the documents provoked a storm of indignation among the democratic public and among the communists. From the communist newspapers to the party press of the conservative Bavarian People's Party , demands were made to bring the author to the Reichsgericht for high treason , as he had hardly covertly prepared the overthrow of the existing state order. The social democratic forward commented on November 26, 1931 under the heading "The blood plans of Hesse":

“To govern for these people means to have others shot. Her imagination is filled with execution scenes, for her lust for power is synonymous with lust for murder. "

The editor of the left-wing democratic world stage , Carl von Ossietzky , described the plans as the "hangman's fantasy of a Hessian court assessor" with which "the street of the hooligan and cutthroat army of the SA commanders [would] be handed over, who bloodily suppress any opposition as a 'commune'" wool.

foreign countries

Foreign countries also became aware. The British charge d'affaires in Berlin, Sir Basil Newton , reported to the Foreign Office in London that the Nazi movement obviously a dangerous revolutionary plane transformation. The French ambassador André François-Poncet initially linked the scandal caused by the publication of the documents with the hope that the dangerous policy of taming would now be ended, but soon doubted this prospect. On December 3, he summarized the situation for Foreign Minister Aristide Briand :

"The Boxheim affair made things more complicated, worsened, aggravated and added one element to the general perplexity and fear."

As early as November 26, 1931, he had feared that it would no longer be worthwhile to support Briining with concessions on reparations and disarmament issues , since Hindenburg would replace him with a man from the right at the next opportunity.

Imperial government

Nevertheless, the Reich government saw the case as less dramatic. One day after the documents were published, Oberreichanwalt Karl Werner played down the Boxheim documents in an interview with the Telegraphen-Union (a press agency owned by DNVP chairman Alfred Hugenberg ): The violent measures they described were not directed against the current government at all, but against possible communist insurgents, and emphasized that he had not initiated the house search. Brüning reports in his memoir that he had specifically instructed Werner to hang the matter lower. The Reich Ministry of Justice was also of the opinion that the documents did not fulfill the criminal offense of high treason, because it presupposed "the perpetrator's intention to violently overthrow the government", and not just communist putschists. The documents disrupted the coalition negotiations that the Hessian center chairman Friedrich August Bockius was conducting with Best, the leading Hessian National Socialist , of all people . The talks failed: On December 10, 1931, the center refused to form a government with the National Socialists, the Adelung government remained in office until 1933.

In addition, the documents threatened Brüning's own government. Because immediately after the documents became known, the KPD demanded that the Reichstag be convened. She saw in the scandal an opportunity to have the Third Ordinance of the Reich President to secure the economy and finances and to combat political riots of October 6, 1931, with which the Brüning government had lowered salaries and pensions. On November 26th, only the DNVP voted in the council of elders for the communist proposal. The NSDAP MPs were apparently so embarrassed that they did not appear.

NSDAP

The matter was particularly uncomfortable for the NSDAP, as their legality course was belied by the publication of the Boxheim documents. Initially, the party press claimed that the documents were forgeries. On November 27, 1931, Hermann Göring hastened to assert Groener on behalf of Hitler that the party leadership had "nothing to do with Best's plans" and was "still on its often enough expressed and invoked course of strictest legality" . In his private life, Hitler was friendly to Best and jokingly called him a “bad luck raven”, but in an interview with the foreign press on December 4, he publicly distanced himself from the documents, which he described as mere private work. With a view to the upcoming election of the Reich President next spring , he declared:

"A party that can count on 15 million does not even need to take an illegal step."

All party officials who had taken part in deliberations in the Boxheimer Hof were suspended at short notice and an internal party investigation under the direction of Hans Frank was initiated against them , which was unsuccessful. On December 9, Hitler thought it necessary to forbid any discussion of the possibilities and forms of a National Socialist seizure of power on the penalty of exclusion from the party.

Prosecution

The imperial court building in Leipzig

Best himself was suspended from civil service, and criminal proceedings against him for high treason were opened on November 30th. Leuschner urged in vain to allow the public to attend the negotiations, as he hoped the process would provide general information about the anti-state goals of the NSDAP. On October 12, 1932, Best was acquitted by the Reichsgericht in a closed session for lack of evidence because the judges did not consider it to be proven that the documents were a plan for overturning the state order. Best had always emphasized in court that the National Socialists would only strike in the event of a communist uprising. The fact that Best wanted to suspend the constitutional order, including all fundamental rights, after the NSDAP came to power, obviously played no role in the decision of the court or in the state reaction to the Boxheim documents.

meaning

The Boxheim documents were not a blueprint for the actual takeover of power by the National Socialists, which took place under completely different circumstances than those outlined by Best. Karl Dietrich Bracher sees in his 1955 study on the end of the Weimar Republic in Best's drafts nonetheless important evidence of the “radical totalitarian course” of subordinate National Socialist functionaries who disavowed the opportunistic statements of legality by the top party leadership. In his 1959 complete account of the Weimar Republic, Erich Eyck clearly considers the Boxheim documents to be a preparation for high treason and describes Best's argument in court that violence should at best be used against rebellious communists as a "long-worn trick ... even the political ABCs -Schützen had already expired on the soles of their shoes ”.

For Heinrich August Winkler , the importance of the documents does not lie in the National Socialist program or strategy, but in the reaction of the bourgeois elite to them. He compares the “nonchalance” that the Reich Government and Reich Attorney General displayed towards the National Socialist plans with their zeal in the persecution of left-wing critics, for example in the world stage process taking place at the same time, and comes to the conclusion:

"The events surrounding the Boxheim documents showed the extent to which parts of the judiciary and high bureaucracy had adjusted to the eventual victory of National Socialism long before Hitler's 'seizure of power'."

The historian Gerhard Schulz dismisses Best's draft as “a confused document which at best contained tangible ideas as a utopia of a total coercive order with low residual rights of the population”. Christian Striefler, on the other hand, follows Best's argument in court in his dissertation written by Ernst Nolte and considers the documents to be a mere “ preventive consideration for behavior after a successful communist uprising”, through which many National Socialists believed that they would “get there faster”. Best's biographer Ulrich Herbert, on the other hand, believes that the scenario of a left-wing coup depicted in the documents is merely an exaggeration. Rather, it "gave the right wing's fantasies of violence a legalistic garb in which it stylized the legal dictatorship as a defensive emergency measure and thus combined radical, brutal action and the observance of 'legal forms'".

literature

  • Bernt Engelmann : United against law and freedom. A German history book. Part 2, Steidl, Göttingen 1998, ISBN 3882433574 .
  • Ulrich Herbert : Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason 1903 to 1989 . JHW Dietz Nachf., Bonn 1996, ISBN 3-8012-5030-X .
  • Johannes Hürter : Wilhelm Groener. Reichswehr Minister at the end of the Weimar Republic (1928–1933) . R. Oldenbourg, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-486-55978-8 (= contributions to military history, edited by the Military History Research Office , vol. 39).
  • Gotthard Jasper : The failed taming. Paths to Hitler's seizure of power 1930–1934 . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-518-11270-8 (edition suhrkamp 1270, new series 270).
  • Martin Loiperdinger : The blood nest from the Boxheimer Hof. The anti-fascist agitation of the SPD in the Hessian treason affair . In: Eike Hennig (Hrsg.): Hessen under the swastika. Studies for the implementation of the NSDAP in Hessen . Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1983, pp. 433-486.
  • Gerhard Schulz : From Brüning to Hitler. The change in the political system in Germany 1930–1933 . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1992, ISBN 3-11-013525-6 (= Between Democracy and Dictatorship. Constitutional Policy and Reich Reform in the Weimar Republic, Vol. 3).
  • Thilo Vogelsang : Reichswehr, State and NSDAP. Contributions to German history 1930–1932 . Stuttgart 1962 (= sources on contemporary history, vol. 11).
  • Heinrich August Winkler : Weimar 1918–1933. The history of the first German democracy . CH Beck, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-406-37646-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gotthard Jasper: The failed taming. Paths to Hitler's seizure of power 1930–1934 . edition suhrkamp 1270, new follow 270, Frankfurt am Main 1986, pp. 63–72; Gerhard Schulz: From Brüning to Hitler. The change in the political system in Germany 1930–1933 (= Between Democracy and Dictatorship. Constitutional Policy and Imperial Reform in the Weimar Republic , Vol. 3). Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1992, pp. 608 f .; Johannes Hürter: Wilhelm Groener. Reichswehr Minister at the end of the Weimar Republic (1928–1933) . R. Oldenbourg Verlag Munich 1993, pp. 314-324.
  2. ^ Gerhard Schulz: From Brüning to Hitler. The change in the political system in Germany 1930–1933 (= Between Democracy and Dictatorship. Constitutional Policy and Reich Reform in the Weimar Republic , Vol. 3), Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1992, pp. 601 ff.
  3. ^ Johannes Hürter: Wilhelm Groener. Reichswehr Minister at the end of the Weimar Republic (1928–1933) , R. Oldenbourg Verlag Munich 1993, p. 317.
  4. ^ Heinrich Brüning: Memoirs 1918-1932 , DVA Stuttgart 1970, p. 463.
  5. ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical Studies on Radicalism, Weltanschauung and Reason 1903 to 1989 , Verlag JHW Dietz Nachf., Bonn 1996, p. 115.
  6. ↑ Werner Best: ... is shot. The Truth About the Boxheim Document , Mainz 1932
  7. ^ The Boxheimer documents , in: Das Parlament, Volume 3, Issue 3 of March 18, 1953, p. 2.
  8. ↑ Bernt Engelmann: Unity against law and freedom. A German history book. Part 2 , Steidl Verlag, Göttingen 1998, p. 165.
  9. ↑ Causes and consequences. From the German collapse in 1918 and 1945 to the state reorganization of Germany in the present. A certificate and collection of documents on contemporary history , ed. v. Herbert Michaelis and Ernst Schraepler, Vol. 7: The Weimar Republic. From the Kellogg Pact to the Great Depression 1928–30. The domestic political development , document publisher Dr. Herbert Wendler & Co., Berlin undated, p. 377 ff. Here are the quotations; see. Karl Dietrich Bracher : The dissolution of the Weimar Republic. A study on the problem of the decline in power in democracy , paperback edition, Droste Verlag Düsseldorf 1984, p. 381 f .; Gerhard Schulz: From Brüning to Hitler. The change in the political system in Germany 1930–1933 (= Between Democracy and Dictatorship. Constitutional Policy and Reich Reform in the Weimar Republic , Vol. 3), Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1992, p. 605.
  10. ↑ Susanne Meinl: "The entire movable and immovable property of the members of the Jewish nationality resident in Germany has been confiscated". Anti-Semitic economic propaganda and national dictatorship plans in the first years of the Weimar Republic , in: Irmtrud Wojak and Peter Hayes (eds.): “Aryanization” in National Socialism. Volksgemeinschaft, Robbery and Memory , Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt / Main and New York 2000, p. 46.
  11. ↑ Jürgen Matthäus : Boxheimer documents. In: Encyclopedia of National Socialism , ed. v. Wolfgang Benz , Hermann Graml , Hermann Weiß , Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1997, p. 400.
  12. ↑ Martin Loiperdinger: The blood nest from the Boxheimer Hof. The anti-fascist agitation of the SPD in the Hessian treason affair . In: Eike Hennig (Ed.), Hessen under the Hakenkreuz , Frankfurt am Main 1983, p. 434.
  13. ↑ Deutsche Zeitung of November 27, 1931, quoted in with Tilman Koops (ed.): files of the Reich Chancellery . Weimar Republic. Die Kabinette Brüning I and II , Boldt Verlag, Boppard 1982/1990, no. 572, note 3 online
  14. ↑ Cuno Horkenbach (Ed.): The German Reich from 1918 to today , Vol. 2, Verlag für Presse, Wirtschaft und Politik, Berlin 1934, p. 292.
  15. ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical Studies on Radicalism, Weltanschauung and Reason 1903 to 1989 , Verlag JHW Dietz Nachf., Bonn 1996, p. 449.
  16. ↑ Erich Eyck: History of the Weimar Republic , Stuttgart 1959 Vol. 2, p. 418.
  17. ^ Heinrich August Winkler : The way into the disaster. Workers and labor movement in the Weimar Republic 1930–1933 , Verlag JHW Dietz Nachf., Bonn 1990, p. 448.
  18. ↑ Carl von Ossietzky , "The world stage process", in: Die Weltbühne, December 1, 1931, pp. 803–811.
  19. ^ Hermann Graml: Between Stresemann and Hitler. The foreign policy of the presidential cabinets Brüning, Papen and Schleicher (= series of the quarterly books for contemporary history, vol. 83), Oldenbourg Verlag Munich 2001, p. 180.
  20. ^ Claus W. Schäfer: André François-Poncet as Ambassador in Berlin (1931–1938) , Oldenbourg Verlag 2004, p. 154.
  21. ^ Philipp Heyde: France and the end of the reparations 1930-1932 , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 1 (2000), p. 59.
  22. ^ Tilman Koops (Ed.): Files of the Reich Chancellery. Weimar Republic. Die Kabinette Brüning I and II , Boldt Verlag, Boppard 1982/1990, no. 574, note 15 online
  23. ^ A b Heinrich Brüning: Memoirs 1918-1932 , DVA Stuttgart 1970, p. 463 f.
  24. ^ Gerhard Schulz: From Brüning to Hitler. The change in the political system in Germany 1930–1933 (= Between Democracy and Dictatorship. Constitutional Policy and Reich Reform in the Weimar Republic , Vol. 3), Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1992, pp. 606 f.
  25. ^ Johannes Hürter: Wilhelm Groener. Reichswehr Minister at the end of the Weimar Republic (1928–1933) , R. Oldenbourg Verlag Munich 1993, p. 318.
  26. ↑ Hubert Beckers: The Boxheim Document from November 1931 ( Memento of the original from June 26, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , on Zukunft-bendet-erinnerung.de (accessed on August 21, 2012).  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zukunft-blassung-erinnerung.de
  27. ^ Gerhard Schulz: From Brüning to Hitler. The change in the political system in Germany 1930–1933 (= Between Democracy and Dictatorship. Constitutional Policy and Reich Reform in the Weimar Republic , Vol. 3), Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1992, p. 608.
  28. ^ State and NSDAP 1930-1932. Sources for the Brüning era , arr. v. Ilse Maurer and Udo Wengst, Düsseldorf 1977, (= sources on the history of parliamentarism and political parties , Series III, Vol. 3), Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1977, p, 258
  29. ↑ Christian Striefler: Struggle for power. Communists and National Socialists at the end of the Weimar Republic , Propylaen Verlag, Berlin 1993, p. 298.
  30. ^ Karl Dietrich Bracher: The dissolution of the Weimar Republic. A study on the problem of the decline in power in democracy , paperback edition, Droste Verlag Düsseldorf 1984, p. 381 f.
  31. ↑ Erich Eyck: History of the Weimar Republic , Stuttgart 1959 Vol. 2, p. 418.
  32. ^ Heinrich August Winkler: The way into the disaster. Workers and labor movement in the Weimar Republic 1930–1933 , Verlag JHW Dietz Nachf., Bonn 1990, p. 449.
  33. ^ Gerhard Schulz: From Brüning to Hitler. The change of the political system in Germany 1930–1933 (= Between Democracy and Dictatorship. Constitutional Policy and Reich Reform in the Weimar Republic , Vol. 3), Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1992, p. 606.
  34. ↑ Christian Striefler: Struggle for power. Communists and National Socialists at the end of the Weimar Republic , Propylaen Verlag, Berlin 1993, p. 298.
  35. ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical Studies on Radicalism, Weltanschauung and Reason 1903 to 1989 , Verlag JHW Dietz Nachf., Bonn 1996, p. 115.
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on March 31, 2006 .