German leader letters

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The German Führerbriefe (subtitle: Political-Economic Private Correspondence) have been published in Cologne since 1928 and in Berlin from 1929 by Otto Meynen, private secretary of the influential coal industrialist Paul Silverberg , and the journalist Franz Reuter, confidante of Reichsbank President Hjalmar Schacht . They were not a publicly available information service and were only intended for the top decision-makers in industry, the state bureaucracy, the Reichswehr and for large-scale agrarians. In 1932 their circulation was 1,250 and they appeared twice a week. From 1933, the German Führerbriefe were renamed German Letters to avoid an obvious political association with Adolf Hitler . The publication was discontinued in 1935.

aims

Ever since it was founded, the Führer Letters have opposed strong state interference in the economy and, from the summer of 1932, repeatedly advocated participation by the NSDAP in government . On November 9, 1932, Dr. Scholz, the head of a press office financed by the industrialists Otto Wolff and Friedrich Flick , to the Reich Commissioner for Prussia Franz Bracht :

"The discontinuation of the well-known German Führer Letters as well as the confidential information of Dr. Silverberg against the Papen government attracted general attention at the time. For almost two weeks now, the aforementioned have been remarkably Hitler-friendly. This is explained by the fact that Dr. Reuter, the official head of correspondence, as well as Dr. Meynen, the Berlin private secretary of Silverberg, were introduced to Mr. Hitler and had a longer conversation with him. "

Many articles proved that the editors had informants within the leadership of the NSDAP. For example, publicly unknown details were often journalistically edited for those in power in business and the state and made accessible to this small, exclusive group. Because of their high informational value, they were highly valued by numerous large industrialists. Since September 1931, the editorial team in Berlin had shared an office with the Schacht office and the Central European Economic Conference (MWT), for which Reuter worked as head of the press and propaganda committee.

Quote

“ In addition to the 'gentlemen from the economy', their readership included the top Reichswehr leaders, cabinet members, leading large agrarians, the Hindenburg area, etc. The Fuehrer's letters were not press correspondence and journalists were excluded from reception. They appeared twice a week and all contributions, except for the editorials, were strictly anonymous. Franz Reuter was mainly connected with Schacht , to which he had free access and about whom he published a biography in 1933. "

- A. Sohn-Rethel , in: Kursbuch , No. 21, 1970

literature

  • Werner Müller and Jürgen Stockfisch: The Veltenbriefe. A new source on the role of monopoly capital in the destruction of the Weimar Republic . In: ZfG , (12) 1969, pp. 1565–1574, with subsequent documentation up to p. 1589.
    (The article also deals with the “Führerbriefe”, because they were published by the same publisher, both sheets were published by Reuter and the same, but had smaller customers.)
  • Friedhelm Großkurth: The political positions of the "German Führer Letters" in the final phase of the Weimar Republic. University of Marburg , 1975, state examination thesis, 186 pp.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Carl Freytag: Observer in the Middle Kingdom. In: Alfred Sohn-Rethel, Industry and National Socialism. Notes from the "Central European Business Day". Edited and introduced by C. Freytag. Wagenbach , Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-8031-2204-X , p. 31, fn. 30.
  2. ^ Information from Dr. Scholz to Franz Bracht, November 9, 1932, Bracht estate, Bundesarchiv Berlin, N / 2035 vol. 2, sheet 177. Quote n .: Karsten Heinz Schönbach: The German Corporations and National Socialism 1926 - 1943 . Berlin 2015, 280 f.
  3. ↑ "The best informed in Germany" ( Memento of 19 August 2008 at the Internet Archive ), studies of time questions
  4. ↑ Quoted by Reinhard Neebe: Großindustrie, Staat und NSDAP 1930-1933. (PDF; 6.9 MB) Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1981, dissertation