The volunteer

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The volunteer

description Magazine for former members of the Waffen SS
publishing company Munin Publishing House
First edition 1956
Sold edition 5000 copies
ZDB 300296-2

The volunteer said it was a magazine for former members of the Waffen SS . The 36-page booklet was published by the extreme right-wing Munin-Verlag from Reinsfeld and was distributed via mail order companies from the right-wing spectrum such as the Levensboom by David Petereit . In 2014 the magazine was added to the three-monthly Munier magazine DMZ Zeitgeschichte .

The volunteer appeared from 1956 to 2014 as the central organ of the regional associations of the mutual aid community of soldiers of the former Waffen-SS (HIAG). SS Generals Felix Steiner , Kurt Meyer and Paul Hausser had a leading influence on HIAG and its mouthpiece .

history

Before the first publication of the volunteer in 1956, there were two earlier journals of the HIAG with Der Ausweg and Wiking-Ruf . The way out was published by the Hamburg regional association under Otto Kumm ; its appearance can be traced back to 1951. The way out stood for "a national socialism on a European basis"; In contrast, the Wiking-Ruf , which appeared for the first time in 1951, was strongly anti - communist and advocated the integration of the Federal Republic into a Western defense alliance. In addition, the magazine highlighted the “ Pan-Germanic ” character of the Waffen-SS and thus linked to National Socialist depictions of the last phase of the war. In particular in officer portraits and war reports, elements can be recognized in style, choice of words and presentation that were used in the SS magazine Das Schwarze Korps .

The editor of the Wiking-Ruf was Herbert Otto Gille , a former SS officer who organized veterans of the Waffen SS in southern Lower Saxony. Waldemar Schütz headed the Wiking-Ruf publishing house . Since January 1954, the magazine has appeared as the official publication of HIAG. In the dispute over organizational issues, Gille left HIAG around November 1955. There were ongoing conflicts between Gille and HIAG about the magazine Wiking-Ruf until it was discontinued in 1958, in the course of which Gille was accused of financial irregularities and commercial ineptitude.

As a competitor to Wiking-Ruf , HIAG published the magazine Der Freiwillige from January 1956 . The first editor was the right-wing extremist journalist Erich Kern , who had previously expressed skepticism about the magazine's prospects for success. In 1957 Der Freiwillige had a circulation of 6,000 copies. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution of North Rhine-Westphalia named a circulation of around 16,000 in 1963, which was significantly higher than the HIAG's number of 5,000 members at the time. The last HIAG national spokesman, Hubert Meyer , on the other hand, gave the maximum circulation of 11,500 copies in 1992. In 2006 the circulation should have been 5,000 copies.

The volunteer continued to appear after the HIAG Federal Association was dissolved in 1992; At the regional level, the HIAG divisions still exist today.

On February 19, 2014 published Anton Maegerle the " look right " the article revisionist fusion , in which he reported that the Waffen SS loyal bimonthly "The volunteer" now in the magazine "DMZ History" by Dietmar Munier will rise.

Topics and tendencies

The main theme of the magazine is the portrayal of the Waffen SS as a regular fighting force, sometimes also as an " elite force ", combined with a general military nostalgia . There are also historical revisionist articles that do not only concern the history of the Waffen SS. Basically, the Waffen-SS is portrayed as the champion of an “anti-communist unification of Europe”.

In the 1960s, the magazine promoted the rehabilitation of the Waffen SS and a denunciation of former resistance fighters against National Socialism . In the 8/1963 edition, an anonymous author wrote: But if you answer our unrest, our unease about the undoubtedly still incomplete democracy, by considering the debate among us as a threat to the state, if you consider our honorary service in front of the onslaught of communist partisan organizations as a threat to the state declares, then the justice and freedom of democracy is at stake, and may God have mercy on those who have not shied away from throwing us to the VVN and FIR (organizations of resistance fighters - note).

The magazine also agitated against well-known writers and publicists from West Germany such as Günter Blöcker , Heinrich Böll , Christian Geissler , Günter Grass and Erich Kuby . Her writings were rejected and labeled "neglect".

The 1982 report on the protection of the constitution found on the contents of the magazine: “'Der Freiwillige' brings glorifying reports on acts of war and experiences at the front, without showing any distance from those politically responsible for the war.” The historian Martin Cüppers classifies the magazine as anti-Semitic and refers to positive reviews of Norman Finkelstein's “The Holocaust Industry” and comments on the Middle East conflict, in which Israel is accused of “warmongering” and “enslavement” of the Palestinians.

In 1999, the magazine called for pertinent information to be given that should lead to the discharge of the member of the Waffen-SS Friedrich Engel from Hamburg. He was charged with war crimes in Italy and sentenced in absentia by an Italian military court to life imprisonment for 249 murders. Angel thrust in Germany revision against the judgment. Three years later he went to court in Germany: The Hamburg district court sentenced Engel, then 93, to seven years in prison in July 2002. However, because of his old age, Engel remained at large until his death in 2006.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Anton Maegerle : Geschichtsrevisionistische Fusion , bnr.de, February 22, 2014
  2. ^ The right margin: Which sheet the publisher Dietmar Munier took over, News from the Waffen-SS , taz , March 27, 2014
  3. ↑ Karsten Wilke: The mutual aid community (HIAG) 1950–1990. Veterans of the Waffen SS in the Federal Republic . Schöningh, Paderborn / Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77235-0 , p. 38 (also dissertation, Bielefeld University, 2010).
  4. ↑ This assessment by Karsten Wilke: The mutual aid community (HIAG) 1950–1990. Veterans of the Waffen SS in the Federal Republic . Schöningh, Paderborn / Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77235-0 , p. 53 (also dissertation, Bielefeld University, 2010).
  5. ↑ Karsten Wilke: The mutual aid community (HIAG) 1950–1990. Veterans of the Waffen SS in the Federal Republic . Schöningh, Paderborn / Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77235-0 , p. 51–55, 84 (also dissertation, Bielefeld University, 2010).
  6. ↑ Karsten Wilke: The mutual aid community (HIAG) 1950–1990. Veterans of the Waffen SS in the Federal Republic . Schöningh, Paderborn / Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77235-0 , p. 56 (also dissertation, Bielefeld University, 2010).
  7. ↑ Karsten Wilke: The mutual aid community (HIAG) 1950–1990. Veterans of the Waffen SS in the Federal Republic . Schöningh, Paderborn / Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77235-0 , p. 58 (also dissertation, Bielefeld University, 2010).
  8. ↑ Extremism reports from the Interior Ministry of North Rhine-Westphalia to the state parliament or state authorities 1963 ( Memento from February 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) , p. 18 (PDF; 178 kB).
  9. ↑ Meyer's letter to a journalist for the daily newspaper dated July 21, 1992, see Martin Cüppers, pioneer of the Shoah. The Waffen-SS, the Reichsführer SS command staff and the extermination of the Jews 1939–1945. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2005, ISBN 3-534-16022-3 , p. 336.
  10. ↑ Archive link ( Memento from January 27, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ http://www.bnr.de/artikel/verbindungen/geschichtsrevisionistische-fusion
  12. ↑ a b quoted from braunbuch.dehttp: //www.braunbuch.de/7-03.shtml {{dead link | date = 2018-04 | archivebot = 2018-04-06 02:26:38 InternetArchiveBot | url = http : //www.braunbuch.de/7-03.shtml}} (Link no longer available, July 9, 2012).
  13. ^ Federal Constitutional Protection Report 1982, quoted in: Zoff at Zimmermann . In: Der Spiegel . No. 36 , 1983, pp. 15 ( online ).
  14. ↑ Cüppers, Wegbereiter , p. 338.
  15. ↑ Jan Raabe, Andreas Speit: Hiag anniversary: ​​Generation experience at haGalil (accessed on August 31, 2012).