German men's club
The German Herrenklub ( DHK ) was an association of large landowners , large industrialists , bankers , high ministerial officials and other public figures during the Weimar Republic . During the time of National Socialism he renamed himself the German Club .
history
The club was founded in November 1924 by Heinrich von Gleichen-Rußwurm and Bodo von Alvensleben . Modeled on the great English clubs of London society, it was intended to be a political association that would give independent business, political, intellectual, administrative, and military leaders the opportunity to exchange ideas. De facto, however, he always saw himself as the “representative of the conservative political upper class”. His declared aim was also to prevent the "advance of Marxism " in Germany. Alvensleben functioned formally as the president of the men's club. As its driving force, however, both in organizational terms and in terms of political activities, the club secretary Gleichen was considered. The two were supported by a club board to which different people belonged.
In the second half of the 1920s, various regional branches of the men's club such as the Hamburg National Club , the Magdeburger Herrengesellschaft , the Herrengesellschaft Mecklenburg or the Schlesische Herrengesellschaft emerged .
In its public activities, the DHK referred in particular to the young conservative goals that Arthur Moeller van den Bruck had formulated in his book The Third Reich in 1923, and propagated them in public lectures on its Berlin premises and in its official organ, Der Ring . With the formation of the von Papen Presidential Cabinet in May 1932, of which Franz von Papen was a member of the gentlemen's club, the club - which at that time had around 5,000 members - gained considerable influence on German politics as Papen's “main contact point for political suggestions” . For example, Wilhelm Freiherr von Gayl , another prominent member of the club, was appointed to the Reich government as Reich Minister of the Interior .
On the one hand, Adolf Hitler sought contact with the members, but also repeatedly attacked them publicly in order to win over left voters. In the 1932 Reichstag election campaign, he polemicized the members of the gentlemen's club: "You speak against Marxism as a class phenomenon and are the worst class phenomenon yourself!"
In 1933 the association was renamed the "German Club". In the same year she set up the Dirksen Foundation , which was supposed to promote contacts between the traditional elites and the National Socialists . Nazi figures such as Heinrich Himmler and Ernst Röhm sat on the foundation's board of trustees .
Foreign media erroneously reported in 1934 that Gleichen and Alvensleben had been arrested or even executed in the course of the so-called Röhm Putsch . In fact, Alvensleben's younger brother, Werner von Alvensleben , was arrested for a few days on June 30, 1934. These circulating rumors prompted Gleichen to publish a denial in the club magazine Der Ring on July 7, 1934 , in which he announced that he and Alvensleben were healthy and were at large.
In left-liberal circles and by some anti-Nazi intellectuals as well as abroad, the club was mostly viewed as a reactionary alliance and its work was rated as ominous. The writer Thomas Mann described the leading men of the club as “pacemakers of misery”.
The club also included men such as Ulrich von Hassell , Carl von Jordans and Kurt von Plettenberg , who later became part of the conservative resistance against Hitler. In 1944 the club disbanded.
On May 30, 1946, the British military government in Germany decreed by ordinance No. 31 that the right to stand for election would be withdrawn from members of certain organizations named in the ordinance . The German gentlemen's club was one of the organizations listed in this ordinance. The former Berlin clubhouse was used after 1945 by the Kulturbund for the democratic renewal of Germany as a club for the cultural workers "Johannes R. Becher".
Fritz Günther von Tschirschky , former member of the gentlemen's club and founder of the Silesian gentlemen's society, judged after the Second World War that the club “had been given far too great importance in historiography”: “Until 1932 when the first Papen cabinet was formed, it was the general public is not aware of anything from the men's club. [And] in 1933 he lost [again] [...] of public interest. ”“ Decisive influence ”on politics, according to Tschirschky, the club“ was never able to win. ”
Members of the men's club
literature
- Manfred Schoeps: The German men's club. A contribution to the history of young conservatism in the Weimar Republic , Diss. Phil. Erlangen-Nuremberg 1974 (contains lists of members and representations of Heinrich von Gleichen-Rußwurm's association work )
Individual evidence
- ^ A denial , in: Pariser Tageblatt of July 8, 1934.
- ^ Fritz Günther von Tschirschky: Memories of a High Traitor , 1972, p. 59.
