German Foreign Institute

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The Haus des Deutschtums in Stuttgart had been the seat of the DAI since 1925

The German Foreign Institute ( DAI ) was founded on January 10, 1917 by the entrepreneur Theodor Wanner in Stuttgart as a “museum and institute for the customer of German abroad and for the promotion of German interests abroad” . In addition to its main task - the comprehensive documentation of all German ethnic groups abroad - it was dedicated to advising and supporting people who would like to emigrate. It was mainly financed by the Reich Ministry of the Interior, as well as by the Foreign Ministry, and to a lesser extent by the State of Württemberg and the City of Stuttgart. At the DAI, the magazines “Der Auslandsdeutsche. Half-monthly publication for German Abroad and Foreign Studies ”as well as a“ Series of publications by the German Institute for Foreign Affairs ”. Until the takeover by the National Socialists, the institute stood in the tradition of liberalism on the soil of the Weimar Republic.

time of the nationalsocialism

On March 8, 1933, the general secretary of the DAI, Fritz Wertheimer , who had been general secretary of the DAI since 1918, was denied access to the DAI by the local SA due to Wertheimer's Jewish descent. The chairman of the DAI, Theodor Wanner , who was also rejected by Nazi circles , was again attacked in his apartment on March 13, 1933. In the ten days that followed, Wertheimer was on a planned lecture tour during which he spoke routinely about Germanness , this time in Wilhelmshaven and Kiel to admirals of the Reichsmarine . Wertheimer was forced to take a vacation after his return.

Hans Steinacher , the Austrian National Socialist elected chairman of the Association for Germanness Abroad (VDA) in April 1933 , and Robert Ernst , chairman of the Association for the Protection of Border and Abroad Germans , were subsequently welcomed in mid-June by the Reich Ministry of the Interior , which mainly financed the DAI, entrusted with the reorganization of the DAI in Stuttgart. On June 21, 1933, Ernst reported to the Württemberg Prime Minister Christian Mergenthaler the successful, only temporary transfer of the management of the institute to Steinacher, Ernst and a "Dr. Krehl". From then on, the DAI was run by Richard Csaki, a Transylvanian Saxon who had proven themselves in the popular struggle, as General Secretary and the new Stuttgart Mayor and National Socialist Karl Strölin as President, who in 1936 won the NS honorary title City of Germans Abroad for the city .

The fields of activity of the DAI changed. Instead of the declining advice for emigrants, international contacts were increasingly established with “ ethnic German ” organizations and individuals. The DAI's budget rose sharply, especially from 1933 to 1938, when the DAI became more closely associated with the Volksdeutsche Forschungsgemeinschaften or the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle , which played a central role in the coordination of ethnicity research for National Socialism . From 1937 to 1944, the National Socialist Hans Joachim Beyer published the journal Auslandsdeutsche Volksforschung (from 1939: only Volksforschung ) as a quarterly of the DAI in Enke Verlag . 1942–1943 Heinz Kloß was published as a (co-) publisher. called in the journal Volksforschung . The value of these publications was highly valued by those in power, and there were high print runs of certain articles.

In 1941, the National Socialist Hermann Rüdiger , who had previously been the editor of the "Auslandsdeutscher", took over the management. Two years later, in 1943, the DAI, like all ethnicity research, was formally subordinated to the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle; thus the DAI finally placed itself under the direct influence of the SS .

The DAI participated in state-related activities during the National Socialist era . It carried out revisionist propaganda, passed on information about foreign countries and Germans living there to Nazi offices, participated in the "ethnic reorganization" of Eastern Europe and was involved in so-called clan studies . For "services to German abroad" it generously awarded honors, e.g. B. the “German Ring”, last in 1934 to Adolf Hitler , and gold and silver “honor plaques”.

After the war, the American occupation authorities classified the DAI as "contaminated" . However, this qualification did not prevent a reopening under the new title of Institute for Foreign Relations , nor did it damage a further career of the "folklore scientists" employed at the DAI.

literature

  • Katja Gesche: Culture as an instrument of foreign policy in totalitarian states. The German Foreign Institute 1933–1945. Dissertation. University of Stuttgart. Böhlau, Cologne [a. a.] 2006, ISBN 3-412-01206-8 .
  • Grant W. Grams: German Emigration to Canada and the Support of its Deutschtum during the Weimar Republic. The Role of the Deutsches Ausland-Institut, Verein für das Deutschtum abroad and German-Canadian Organizations. Dissertation. University of Marburg. Lang, Frankfurt am Main [a. a.] 2001, ISBN 3-631-37345-7 ( European university publications . Series 3: History and its auxiliary sciences 889).
  • Ernst Ritter: The German Foreign Institute in Stuttgart 1917–1945. An example of German Volkstumsarbeit between the world wars. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1976, ISBN 3-515-02361-5 ( Frankfurt historical treatises ; 14).
  • Andreas Rutz: Research on emigrants during National Socialism. Joseph Scheben and the German Foreign Institute. In: Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte , 105 (2018), pp. 34–63.
  • Martin Seckendorf: Cultural German culture in the transition from Weimar to Hitler using the example of the German Foreign Institute (DAI). A case study. In: Wolfgang Jacobeit , Hannjost Lixfeld , Olaf Bochkorn (Hrsg.): Völkische Wissenschaft. Forms and tendencies of German and Austrian folklore in the first half of the 20th century. Böhlau, Vienna [a. a.] 1994, ISBN 3-205-98208-8 , pp. 115-135.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The German Abroad. Communications from the German Foreign Institute. Stuttgart 1919-1938.
  2. ^ Rolf Wilhelm Brednich, Heinz Schmitt, Germany German Folklore Congress 30th Karlsruhe. Symbols . Münster / New York / Berlin (Waxmann) 1997, p. 413.
  3. ↑ Fritz Wertheimer in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)
  4. ^ Tammo Luther: Volkstumsppolitik des Deutschen Reiches 1933-1938 . Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2004. pp. 74-75.
  5. ↑ Wanner's assassins were never persecuted, see: Ernst Ritter: The German Foreign Institute in Stuttgart 1917 - 1945. An example of German nationality work between the world wars . Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden 1976, p. 55
  6. ^ Document from Hans-Adolf Jacobsen (Ed.): Hans Steinacher, Federal Director of the VDA 1933-1937. Memories and documents . Series: Schriften des Bundesarchivs, Vol. 19. Boldt, Boppard 1970, pp. 101f
  7. ^ As evidenced by the title page of Auslandsdeutsche Volksforschung, the publisher Beyer traded as the "head" of a "workstation for foreign German folk research" in Stuttgart. For the relationship between the two institutions, see Ritter, pp. 85–90. The association worked with the German Academy Munich , focusing on "Ostpolitik" and "population policy, the national biological and socio-hygienic conditions of expatriate Germans" and the umvolkung . Beyer wanted to hire doctors, economists, psychologists and educators who had so far had little to do with "Germans abroad". He wanted to observe certain relevant works from the point of view of "political Catholicism", so that his image of the enemy is determined. His "all-German folk science" should "be made available to the party divisions if possible." In Cologne, Hans von Haberer , Bruno Kuske and Martin Spahn worked with an "Institute for Spatial Policy" on similar projects with which Beyer was looking to join forces. Source: Thomas Müller, Imaginated West. The concept of the »German western area« in the national discourse between political romanticism and National Socialism. Transcript, Bielefeld 2009, ISBN 3-8376-1112-4 , p. 316 readable online.
  8. ↑ See also the other under web links.