Artur Mahraun

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Artur Mahraun, 1928

Artur Mahraun (born December 30, 1890 in Kassel , † March 27, 1950 in Gütersloh ; pseudonyms: Heinrich Meister , Dietrich Kärrner ) was a German political activist and writer. As the founder and "Grand Master" of the Young German Order , he is counted as part of the Conservative Revolution . He developed a concept of so-called "political neighborhoods" as a grassroots democratic alternative or supplement to the exclusive party state.

Life

Mahraun was a son of the secret government councilor in the agricultural administration in Kassel Hans Mahraun (1853–1944) and his wife Elisabeth born. Wohlgemuth from Danzig (1858–1940). Since 1917 Artur Mahraun was married to Charlotte Ullrich († 1977), with whom he had three daughters (Margret, Ulrike, Dorothee).

After attending the Wilhelm Gymnasium in Kassel, Mahraun joined the 83rd Infantry Regiment in 1908 as a flag junior (1910 lieutenant). Returning home from the First World War as a bearer of high honors, he was accepted into the Reichswehr , from which he retired as captain in 1920 .

At the beginning of 1919 he set up a free corps , the volunteer association of the Cassel Officers' Company (OKC), from which the " Young German Order " emerged in March 1920 . Mahraun was named its " Grand Master ".

Artur Mahraun, July 1930

In view of the growing radicalism in 1930 , Mahraun took part in the founding of the " German State Party ", which he understood less as a political party than as an instrument to implement urgently needed reforms in accordance with his ideas of building a true democratic state. When he was disappointed in his hopes for changes in the usual negative party mechanisms and the 1930 Reichstag election of the state party, which was weakened by the conflict between liberals (from the former DDP) and conservatives , brought a disappointing election result (only 20 MPs, opposite 107 of the National Socialists), he resigned from this party and devoted himself entirely to the work of the "Young German Order".

After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, the Young German Order was banned in all countries. Mahraun anticipated the ban in Prussia by liquidating himself on July 3, 1933.

Shortly afterwards (July 11), Mahraun was arrested in Berlin and exposed to severe abuse, which ultimately also led to health problems. Due to many efforts of his friends, he was released on September 8, 1933, but was not allowed to continue to be politically active. He survived the following years - always observed and endangered - with changing places of residence, partly with self-published books under a pseudonym and later, after the complete expropriation of his publisher, also as a sheep farmer in the Magdeburger Börde , the only profession at that time without official registration.

After 1945, Mahraun strictly rejected a revival of the Young German Order as it was no longer in keeping with the times. On the other hand, he called on his former JO supporters and new friends to create more “political neighborhoods”.

Mahraun died on March 27, 1950 in Gütersloh .

Political positions

Mahraun also advocated the repeal of the Versailles Treaty , but as early as 1925 he called for an understanding with France and a Franco-German economic alliance . On November 20, 1926, his work " National Peace on the Rhine " appeared, which brought him an indictment of " high treason ".

As a resolute opponent of the so-called “party nuisance”, in December 1927 he presented the draft of a “ people's state ” (subtitle: “People against caste and money - securing peace by building new states”) in the Young German Manifesto . In this work, the will formation of the people is presented in a pyramid-shaped structure, which leads up from the base of the neighborhood / residential area via intermediate level committees (commune - district / district - state - empire) to a head of state elected directly from below.

In the Great Depression , in the early 1930s with the high unemployment figures, he called for small rural settlements in the vast fallow areas and sparsely populated eastern provinces ("We are not a people without space, but a people without the right organization of our space and people!") And on top of that a voluntary labor service (FAD). After the introduction of the voluntary labor service by the Reich government Heinrich Brüning in 1931, the Young German Order organized 454 such communal, non-profit building and recultivation projects until June 1933 (until the order was banned or dissolved itself).

Mahraun's proposal, in conjunction with the FAD, to contribute to a stronger settlement of the eastern provinces and thus to the reduction of the high number of unemployed of over six million, primarily in the densely populated west, met with the greatest resistance from the large landowners of the time, the East Elbe Junkers . For the most part, they turned to National Socialism, which self-interestedly supported them in their “preservation of property”.

Mahraun represented anti-Semitic positions, but in this respect he was significantly more moderate than the regional associations of the Young German Order. In the Jungdeutsche Manifest (p. 22) he wrote in 1927 , he spoke out against “wild riot anti-Semitism”, primarily of the National Socialists. Although he retained the " Aryan Paragraph " in the statutes of the Young German Order, on the other hand he openly advocated civil equality for Jews.

After 1945, Mahraun moved away from his image of the state, as he had outlined it in the “Manifesto” in 1927, when he now envisaged the neighborhood and the tiered structure based on such a basis as an “additional facility” and thus the earlier demand for the elimination of the only gave up parliaments sent by the parties. He supported the idea of ​​a Federal Council as the second directly democratically elected People's Chamber.

Mahraun understood the concept of community as a neighborhood with a manageable number of people. The individual inserted into it is not expected to give up in this community; for him, “independent life” and “community life” should complement each other as two “spheres” or “semicircles”.

Writing activity

Mahraun's literary oeuvre is extensive, but since he published his writings exclusively by himself, these were hardly noticed except by his followers and are largely unknown even today.

What appeared before 1933 relates mainly to current events; later he also wrote novels and published collections of his poems.

Against camouflaged violence (1928) and Political Reformation (1949) are of partly autobiographical importance . Mahraun carries out his doctrine of community in community as an educator (1934), Ordina, principles for community life (1935), the honest community (Ps. Dietrich Kärrner, 1939) and will and fate (Ps. Dietrich Kärrner, 1940).

After the end of World War II , Mahraun's Winkelried works were established in the Soviet occupation zone (SBZ) in 1946 . Young German thoughts on defense and armament issues (Jungdeutscher Verlag, Berlin 1931) as well as the writings Ordina , which arose during the Nazi era . Principles for community life (Neighborhood Publishing House, Berlin 1935) and Be Comrade (Neighborhood Publishing House, Berlin 1937) added to the list of literature to be sorted out. In 1953 another 13 works by Mahraun were placed on the list of literature to be sorted out in the GDR .

A modification of the image of the state shown in the Young German Manifesto (1927) can be found particularly in Der Protest des Individuums (1949). The extensive poetry Der honest Rebell, published in 1963 from the estate, is to be regarded as a legacy .

Fonts (selection)

  • The work of the Young German Order: The first task , Cassel: Jungdeutscher Verlag, 1924 (15 pages) (Second edition, 41. – 50,000, 1925)
  • The Young German Manifesto: People against caste and money; Securing Peace by Building New States , Berlin: Jungdeutscher Verlag, 1924, (204 pages)
  • Weapons, women and soldiers: Little stories from a great time , Berlin: Neighborhood Publishing House, 1937 (246 pages)
  • (as Dietrich Kärrner) Gösta Ring discovers Värnimöki. A future novel , Berlin: Neighborhood Publishing House, 1938 (312 pages)
  • (as Dietrich Kärrner) Lost in space. A future novel , Berlin: Neighborhood Publishing House, 1938 (304 pages)
  • (as Dietrich Kärrner) Per Krag and his star. A novel of the future , Berlin: Neighborhood Publishing House, 1939 (312 pages)
  • The neighborhood: a new idea for democratizing Germany under consideration. d. west-east. Opposites , Remscheid: Ziegler, 1948 (23 pages)
  • Political Reformation: On the Becoming of a New German Order , Gütersloh: Neighborhood Verlag, 1949 (215 pp.)
  • Germany is calling! , Gütersloh: Neighborhood Publishing, 1949 (37 pages)
  • The protest of the individual , Gütersloh: Nachbarschafts-Verlag, 1949 (47 pages)
  • Political Reformation: On the Becoming of a New German Order , Gütersloh: Neighborhood Publishing House, 1949 (215 pages)
  • Der honest Rebell , Giessen: Walltor-Verlag, 1963, (306 pages), a second edition appeared in the same year.

literature

  • Hans Mahraun: History of the Mahraun Family , 1926.
  • J. Hille: Mahraun, the Labor Service Pioneer , 1933.
  • Ernst Maste: The Republic of Neighbors. Artur Mahraun's neighborhood and the idea of ​​the state. Walltor-Verlag Brückel, Giessen 1957.
  • ders .: The state thinker Artur Mahraun , in: The Parliament , From Politics and Contemporary History No. 31, 1977.
  • K. Hornung: The Young German Order , 1958.
  • Heinrich Wolf u. Alexander Kessler: Contributions to the History of the Young German Order , 5 vol., 1970–78.
  • Robert Werner: The Young German Order in the Resistance 1933-45. Lohmüller, Munich 1980. ISBN 3-9800315-5-1 .
  • Helmut Kalkbrenner: Artur Mahraun's theory of the state, securing peace in freedom through direct democracy , 1986. ISBN 3-9800315-8-6 .
  • Ernst Maste:  Mahraun, Artur. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-00196-6 , p. 693 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Günter Bartsch: Artur Mahraun's last years 1945 to 1950 and the consequences. Lohmüller, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-9802647-0-X .
  • Wolfgang Zeihe: Artur Mahraun, Politics with Heart, Thiele and Schwarz, Kassel 1991. ISBN 3-87816-077-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Martin Liepach: The voting behavior of the Jewish population in the Weimar Republic . Mohr, Tübingen 1996, p. 123.
  2. ^ Gideon Botsch / Christoph Kopke: Young German Order. In: Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.): Handbuch des Antisemitismus , Vol. 5: Organizations, Institutions, Movements. De Gruyter Saur, Berlin / Boston 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-027878-1 , p. 343 f. (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  3. ^ List of literature to be sorted out 1946 .
  4. ^ List of the literature to be discarded 1953 .

Web links
personal data
SURNAME Mahraun, Artur
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meister, Heinrich (pseudonym); Kärrner, Dietrich (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Founder and "Grand Master" of the Young German Order
DATE OF BIRTH December 30, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH kassel
DATE OF DEATH March 27, 1950
Place of death Gutersloh