Naturalization of Adolf Hitler

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The naturalization of Adolf Hitler , who until 1925 was an Austrian citizen, into the German Reich took place on 25 February 1932 by the ruled by DNVP and NSDAP Free State of Brunswick . As early as 1925 at least seven attempts have been made from various quarters, the at this time at their own instigation stateless Adolf Hitler by naturalization are nationals of the member states of the Weimar Republic to gain (a common German nationality , there is only since the Regulation on the German citizenship of 5 February 1934 on the basis of the law on the reorganization of the empire , with the German states into line were).

Initially, these attempts were almost always made in secret, with the initiators leaving both the public and political decision-makers largely in the dark about the events or at least attempting to cover them up. This happened with the first attempt in Thuringia and Hildburghausen and most recently in Braunschweig , where it finally happened in February 1932 through massive influence on the part of Dietrich Klagges ( NSDAP ), the interior minister of the Free State of Braunschweig, and through support of the German People's Party (DVP) represented in the Braunschweigische Landtag succeeded in naturalizing Hitler shortly before the presidential election by appointing him to the government council. In some cases, the initiators or supporters of the naturalization attempts are still unknown today.

prehistory

Born in Braunau am Inn in 1889 , Hitler was an Austrian citizen due to his descent (see § 28 sentence 2 ABGB ). He grew up in Passau , Fischlham ( Rauschergut ), Leonding and Linz and moved to Vienna in 1907 , where he wanted to become a painter. Hitler twice applied for admission to the Vienna Art Academy because of a corresponding degree , but was rejected both times due to lack of talent. The director of the art academy then attested in a personal conversation that he was “unsuitable as a painter”. Due to an acute financial shortage, he had to live in a homeless asylum from 1909 , from early 1910 in the Meldemannstrasse men's dormitory , where he a. a. Rudolf Häusler got to know. With this he moved to Munich in 1913 , because he had a profound aversion to the Austro-Hungarian multi-ethnic state and wanted to evade conscription there . Arrived in Munich, Häusler and Hitler reported to the authorities. Häusler presented his complete papers, while Hitler pretended not to have any papers and to be stateless.

Attempted escape from the position (draft) in Austria

In Austria, Hitler's year of birth 1889 was asked in autumn 1909 to register for the main position in spring 1910. But Hitler did not respond to this call. In the Upper Austrian Provincial Archives (OÖLA) in Linz (at that time Hitler's official home community) there is a list of names on which it was noted three times up to 1913 that Hitler was "unjustifiably absent because the whereabouts could not be researched".

Hitler later stated that he had not surrendered in the autumn of 1909, but in February 1910 in the conscription office in the Vienna City Hall , where he was sent to the Brigittenau district , since the men's homeless shelter on Meldemannstrasse, where Hitler was then living, was there District belonged to. According to Hitler, he asked to be allowed to present himself in Vienna and was never contacted again. However, there is no written evidence for these statements. Hitler did not appear at the mandatory replicas in 1911 and 1912. It is unclear why he was not summoned: Since Hitler was reported to the police the whole time , the authorities could have tracked him down.

On May 24, 1913, Hitler de-registered with the police, but did not say where he was moving. On May 25th he took the train to Munich. There he described himself untruthfully as stateless when he registered with the police. The reason was probably that he was listed in the Austrian files as a "position refugee" and had to expect appropriate criminal prosecution.

In January 1914, however, Hitler could be located by the Austrian authorities in Bavaria and received an official summons dated January 12, 1914, according to which he immediately and under threat of imprisonment of four weeks to one year and a fine of up to 2,000 Kronen had to be found in Linz for inspection in the event of non-compliance. Hitler wrote a long letter to justify himself and asked that the examination be carried out in Salzburg instead of Linz for reasons of cost . This was approved, whereupon Hitler arrested on February 5, 1914 in Salzburg, declared unfit for military service due to physical weakness and the decision to be “unfit for weapons” was made. He then returned to Munich. After the outbreak of World War I , he volunteered for the Bavarian Army on August 3, 1914 .

Hitler was assigned to the Bavarian 16th Reserve Infantry Regiment and took part in the war mainly as a reporter until a few days before the armistice in November 1918. For this reason he did not have to obey the call to the kuk Landsturm . After a thorough examination in 1932 , the Austrian war archives and other government agencies came to the conclusion that Hitler could not be described as evicted.

"Hitler Putsch", Imprisonment and Consequences

Hitler's DAP membership card

After returning to Munich and still a soldier until his discharge from military service on March 31, 1920, Hitler was directly involved in the turmoil of the post-war period, such as the overthrow of the monarchy , the transformation into a revolutionary Soviet republic and finally the Weimar Republic . First, he was the later SA boss Ernst Roehm , access to money from the Army anti-Bolshevism funds had as a spy in the German Workers' Party introduced (DAP), because it was suspected of a left Labor Party to be. In September 1919 he joined the DAP, from which four months later, on February 24, 1920, the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) emerged on his initiative . From this point on, Hitler's influence also increased outside of Munich. On 8./9. November 1923 came the unsuccessful Hitler Ludendorff Putsch , as a result Hitler in a process for high treason condemned and on the Landsberg was imprisoned. Although Hitler was still an Austrian citizen at the time and the Republic Protection Act made expulsion mandatory in such a case , this did not happen. The Reich government was misinformed about Hitler's citizenship during the coup. In her appeal “To the German People!” Of November 9, 1923, she wrote:

"... In Munich an armed horde overthrew the Bavarian government ... and presumed ... to appoint Mr. Hitler, who only recently acquired German citizenship, as the head of the fortunes of Germany. … The Reich President: signed Ebert. The Reich Government: signed Dr. Stresemann, Chancellor. "

During his imprisonment in October 1924, he had publicly declared that he did not find the loss of Austrian citizenship “painful” because he “always felt like a German.” In Mein Kampf , Hitler wrote: “I did not want for the Habsburg State, but was ready to die for my people and the realm that embodies this . "

Deportation attempt by Bavaria

The Bavarian state government had known for a long time that Hitler was not, as he had always claimed, stateless, but was still an Austrian citizen. Even before Hitler was released from prison on December 20, 1924, she tried to deport the politically disliked agitator and traitor to his home country. In a letter dated March 28, 1924, the Munich police department officially asked the Upper Austrian provincial government in Linz whether it had any objections to deportation.

At first, there actually seemed to be nothing to prevent a deportation to Austria, until the Austrian Federal Chancellery under Chancellor Ignaz Seipel became aware of the matter on September 27, 1924, intervened and made the matter a political issue. After several correspondence between Linz and Vienna, the Vienna Federal Chancellery finally issued the Upper Austrian Provincial Government in Linz with official instructions on October 11th to refuse Hitler at the state border in the event of an attempt to enter Austria or to intern him if necessary, stating that the Federal Government should “ I do not "share the view of Adolf Hitler's nationality and homeland rights, as he" has been outside Austria for more than ten years and served in the German army ". This information could be found in the newspapers just a few days later.

This triggered hectic activity in the state government in Linz, as Vienna was now investigating whether Hitler had economic or social ties in Austria. For this purpose, letters were sent to Linz and Hitler's birthplace Braunau am Inn in order to obtain information about relatives or acquaintances who were still alive, as well as business partners or similar. to obtain. In addition, Vienna requested the results of the Salzburg muster of February 1914, as well as evidence of Hitler's political activities on Austrian soil. On December 13, 1924, the district authority from Braunau announced that the “well-known leader of the Bavarian National Socialists, writer, Adolf Hitler” had neither economic nor social ties there and that it was found out that he was “about 2-3 years ago “Appeared twice as a speaker at meetings of the local NSDAP - but this could obviously be kept secret by party members from the security authorities. With that, but above all with Hitler's request in April 1925 for dismissal from the Austrian state association, the matter for Vienna was settled. All files relating to Hitler's deportation are now stored in the Upper Austrian Provincial Archives in Linz. The then Provincial Councilor Jetzinger hid the documents before Austria was "annexed" to the German Reich and thus saved them from destruction.

statelessness

In order to prevent a later threat of expulsion, Hitler applied to the High Magistrate of Linz on April 7, 1925, to be released from Austrian citizenship on the following grounds:

“I ask for my release from Austrian citizenship. Reasons: I have been in Germany since 1912, have served in the German army for almost 6 years , including 4½ years at the front, and now intend to acquire German citizenship . "

"As I currently do not know whether my Austrian citizenship has not already expired, but entering Austrian soil has been refused by an order of the federal government, I ask for a favorable decision on my application."

Thereupon the Vienna Federal Chancellery sent a confidential letter to the Linz governor on the same day , informing him of the request and at the same time instructing him: “I have no reservations about asking Herr Governor to ask Hitler to withdraw from the to certify the Austrian state association, but this order should be kept secret as far as possible. "

On April 30, 1925, Hitler's request was granted for a fee of 7.50 shillings. As a result, he lived as a stateless person on German soil from that point on - a circumstance which, according to his own statement from 1932, displeased him, since he was “the only German in a time when 200,000 to 300,000 East Galician Jews and sluggers were naturalized was not naturalized. ”However, Hitler kept his old Austrian passport.

Striving for a German nationality

Reasons for naturalization

The Weimar Constitution
("The Constitution of the German Reich")

From Hitler's point of view as well as from the point of view of his political supporters, there were good reasons for naturalization. On the one hand, Hitler was the " leader " of the NSDAP and was increasingly stylized as the "leader of the Germans" - without previously being a "German" according to the applicable nationality law. On the other hand, it was Hitler's declared aim to become President of the Reich . However, according to Article 41, Paragraph 2 of the Weimar Constitution, the election to this office was reserved for Germans.

Naturalization attempts

As early as the beginning of July 1925, shortly after his release from Austrian citizenship, Hitler apparently made his first attempt in Thuringia to obtain Thuringian citizenship, with which he would also have become a citizen of the Reich. After this was unsuccessful ( see below ), the next attempt did not follow until the end of 1929 in Bavaria . From this point on, there were further, partly amateurishly organized actions on the part of political friends to give the “Führer” the nationality he had longed for.

Thuringia: An anonymous letter

In July 1925, an anonymous letter dated July 4th was sent to “Mr. Adolf Hitler, Munich”, in which he was asked “that you send a personal application to the Thuringian Ministry to acquire citizenship, stating your personal details and proof of your previous ones Nationality. [...] Furthermore, it would be very useful to state that you do not intend to choose your place of residence here, but that you intend to stay in Munich as before; What matters most to you is to become a German citizen. "The letter ends with:" I can no longer answer and sign the letter myself. "The background of this ominous letter is still unclear today, it is not known what the trigger was who the author was, it is still known what followed this letter (from Hitler).

Bavaria: cancellation

Wilhelm Frick tried several times to obtain German nationality for Hitler

At the end of 1929, two NSDAP members of the Bavarian state parliament , Rudolf Buttmann , NSDAP faction leader in the state parliament, and Wilhelm Frick , NSDAP faction leader in the Reichstag and participant in the "Hitler putsch", made a first attempt at Karl Stützel ( BVP ), the Bavarian interior minister, to have Hitler naturalized in Bavaria. In December 1929, Stützel indicated that - after consulting the Bavarian Prime Minister Heinrich Held (BVP) and the Bavarian state government  - such an undertaking was doomed to failure in view of Hitler's political past.

Weimar: art professor

The “easiest” way to obtain German nationality was through an official , as this automatically resulted in naturalization in accordance with Section 14 (1) of the Reich and Citizenship Act of July 22, 1913.

Frick, who in January 1930 had become Minister of the Interior and Minister of Education for the State of Thuringia , immediately staged the next attempt there, since he was now the first National Socialist minister in a German cabinet. This attempt consisted in getting Hitler a post at the State College for Crafts and Architecture , the successor institute of the Bauhaus in Weimar . Although Frick had assured those present in the Berlin Sportpalast on April 2, on behalf of his state government, that Hitler would be naturalized, this attempt soon failed too, as Minister of State Erwin Baum ( Landbund and Stahlhelm member) initially resisted this approach and finally withdrew The Thuringian state government also rejected them for constitutional and budgetary reasons.

Hildburghausen: Gendarmerie Commissioner

Only a few months later, in July 1930, Frick's next attempt followed - this time, he said on record in 1932 ( see below ), allegedly after prior consultation with the head of the Thuringian government Erwin Baum, who is said to have suggested to Frick: “In the summer, when Political calm would have returned, if the state parliament was no longer there, maybe the thing could be done. ”And so it happened: In Baums's absence, Frick took over his departmental tasks in accordance with the state parliament's rules of procedure , drew the head of the police department as well as Ministerialrat Guyet the departmental adviser Oberregierungsrat Haueisen and asked both of them whether there were legal or other regulations that would conflict with his plan. When both answered in the negative, Frick immediately took action by first imposing "a silence against everyone" on both of them and dictating Haueisen's certificate of appointment for Hitler. According to Haueisen's later testimony, the content referred to the fact that Hitler was to be appointed gendarmerie commissioner to a ten-person agency in the Thuringian district town of Hildburghausen , although it had already been agreed in advance that Hitler would waive both the start of the service and the associated pay. Frick himself kept the fair copy of the certificate and personally made sure that nothing of the process could be found in the service files, and that nothing was made public. Only Ministerialrat Guyet was informed that the chief sergeant, who had actually already been selected for the position in Hildburghausen, was to be informed that the position offered to him would be "immediately free", since Hitler would "immediately request his dismissal from civil service."

To what extent Frick's statement on the record can actually be believed that Baum gave political backing for this approach remains questionable. The historian Günter Neliba leads z. Assume, for example, that Baum strictly rejected Frick's intended appointment of Hitler to the civil service . Accordingly, Frick would have deliberately ignored Baum's instructions when he made the advance as Baum's deputy during his summer vacation.

Appointment as gendarmerie commissioner

In fact, Frick presented Hitler - unnoticed by the public - at the NSDAP Gautag on July 12, 1930 in Gera, with the certificate of appointment. However, the "Fuehrer" reacted completely differently than Frick had expected: Since Hitler was not informed of Frick's unauthorized advance, he reacted (according to his own statement, see below) with reserve, expressed concerns, but  nevertheless acknowledged - subject to possible subsequent revocation - with legal effect the confirmation of receipt for his certificate of appointment as police chief of a provincial village, with which he automatically became a formal German.

After Hitler returned to Munich, his doubts - nourished by similar advisors - seemed to intensify, which finally culminated in the fact that the subordinate position in the province did not appeal to him and he the certificate of appointment, also according to his own statement , tore up, whereupon Frick claims to have done the same thing in Weimar with the acknowledgment of receipt signed by Hitler. With that the matter seemed out of the world for all concerned.

Braunschweig: Professorship for Organic Society and Politics

Adolf Hitler and Anton Franzen on October 18, 1931 in front of the Brunswick Palace during the SA deployment
Braunschweig State Civil Service Act

Hildburghausen was followed in the summer of 1931 by the Free State of Braunschweig , in which a government with the participation of the NSDAP had been in office since October 1930. Unlike in the Free State, which was mostly in favor of the NSDAP, the political situation in the city of Braunschweig was reversed. The industrial metropolis had been mostly “red” for decades, so that the NSDAP did not play a decisive role in the city until March 1933. In contrast, the National Socialists had been very influential in the Free State since 1930. Their power was based primarily on agriculture and the middle class. Minister-President was Werner Küchenthal ( DNVP ), and the NSDAP member Dietrich Klagges had been Minister of the Interior since July 1931 . The latter received the order from the NSDAP party headquarters in Berlin to quickly and inconspicuously naturalize Hitler. Goebbels noted in his diary on February 4, 1932: "It is intended to appoint the Führer in Braunschweig as an associate professor."

One of the first official acts of the coalition government of the DNVP and NSDAP in the Free State on November 30, 1930 was to reformulate the State Civil Service Act. The new version of § 5 I now read: "The State Ministry grants the state offices according to a free resolution and employs the state officials." - a self-issued license for the National Socialists.

A professorship vacated at the “Research Institute for Educational Sciences” through a de facto professional ban enforced by the NSDAP against the unpopular SPD member August Riekel should, according to the intention of the Nazi interior minister, through a newly created professorship for “organic social theory” constructed by Klagges und Politics ”would be given to Hitler so that he would finally get civil servant status and the associated German nationality. In a memo from mid-February 1932, Klagges wrote:

“With regard to the political education of the growing sex, I consider it urgently necessary that the students of the Technical University have the opportunity to inform themselves [...] about the basic questions of national politics, which will determine the future fate of our people. That is why I have been planning for a long time to appoint a person who has theoretically and practically proven himself in a leading political position to the local technical university and to give her a teaching position in organic social theory and politics. As I am informed, the writer Adolf Hitler, Munich, Prinzregentenplatz 16 / II, would be ready to accept such a call ... "

Furthermore, Klagges wrote: Hitler attaches importance to "that his appointment takes place in a form by which he is also granted German citizenship".

The NSDAP had planned to keep the whole action secret from the public, but it was exposed during the budget debate in the Braunschweig Landtag when SPD opposition leader Heinrich Jasper asked for an answer to rumors about a professorship for Hitler. At the same time, the management of the Technical University of Braunschweig and finally the press found out about Klagges' plans. Above all, the university management refused to approve - u. a. with reference to Hitler's non-existent academic qualifications and the overall intention that was perceived as “unreasonable”. Instead, Klagges had achieved what was to be avoided: Hitler was exposed to public ridicule and his reputation was damaged not only in Braunschweig.

Stadtoldendorf: acting mayor

The next plan for Hitler's naturalization came from the Prime Minister of Braunschweig, Werner Küchenthal , who suggested offering Hitler the position of acting mayor in Stadtoldendorf . Stadtoldendorf was a small town in the Free State of Braunschweig. The venture also failed immediately due to the refusal of the state parliament parties. Instead Otto Pieperbeck (NSDAP) received the position until May 1, 1933.

Follow-up: The Köpenickiade of Schildburghausen

A few months later, in January 1932, the hushed-up and forgotten incident in Hildburghausen, which had been believed to be forgotten, came to the public eye, not only in Germany but also abroad as the “ Köpenickiade ” of “ Schildburghausen ” for weeks . The newspaper Tempo wrote on February 3rd: "Europe has been laughing at Adolf Hitler since yesterday", the Berliner Tageblatt : "The joke papers from all over the world have been supplied with material for a long time" and Germania : "a comedy under constitutional law that will later lead the way will find the stage ”.

On February 1, 1932, a notice appeared in the Berlin NS press organ, Monday-Blatt , that Hitler had "already been naturalized in a German country by a National Socialist government [...]" and that the relevant document was being kept in the Brown House in Munich.

At that time there were only two German states that were governed with the participation of the NSDAP - the state of Thuringia and the Free State of Braunschweig. In general, Thuringia was held to be the responsible country, which is why the news caused an uproar among the Thuringian government, as they knew nothing. On February 4, the KPD faction brought a major inquiry "about Hitler's appointment as a state official ( Gendarmeriekommissar Hildburghausen) via secret secret routes " and thus triggered a heated parliamentary debate, which finally culminated in a parliamentary committee of inquiry , which investigated the matter and before which Hitler had to testify personally as a witness on his own behalf.

The chairman of the committee, the SPD MP Hermann Brill , summoned Adolf Hitler as a witness to clarify the matter. This appeared in the company of numerous NS figures such as Rudolf Hess , Joseph Goebbels , Baldur von Schirach , Gregor Strasser , Wilhelm Frick , Fritz Sauckel and Fritz Wächtler . During the questioning, which lasted only 30 minutes for Hitler and during which the witness “could no longer remember” most of the facts, Brill and other committee members enraged Hitler with their detailed questions to such an extent that Hitler and the Nazi party accompanying him Party members had to be called to order several times. Brill characterized the picture that the “Führer” and his Nazi entourage gave as follows: “In this scene I saw the hysterical Hitler without a mask. […] Goebbels had jumped on his chair like a schoolboy. [...] The picture resembled a rioting school class. ”The Thuringian regional newspaper Das Volk had the headline on March 16, 1932:“ Hitler - the prima donna with make-up ”.

However, after the survey was over, the investigative committee was unable to decide on a majority vote, so that further legal prosecution of the events surrounding Hitler due to a 4: 4 stalemate between the SPD and KPD on the one hand and the Landvolkspartei , DVP and economic party on the other ultimately did not occur.

Formal legal consequences

The procedure in Hildburghausen still raises several unresolved legal questions: For example, whether it was a kind of “ sham deal ” and, if so, what consequences this has for those involved. This is related to whether Hitler actually became a legally binding German and whether he made himself a criminal offense by tearing up the certificate of appointment . It also remains unclear whether the mutual destruction of all documents had a nullifying effect on the legal validity of the appointment. During the Weimar period, Walter Jellinek discussed the problem of “bogus appointment” in the Prussian administrative gazette .

Braunschweig: Government Council

Free State of Braunschweig (excluding Thedinghausen exclave )

The aim of the NSDAP leadership was to ensure that Hitler obtained German nationality in good time before the presidential elections on March 13, 1932 , so that a quick and, above all, discreet solution had to be found.

However, Klagges was only able to implement the matter quickly and inconspicuously in close cooperation with Küchenthal and the bourgeois coalition parties, including the DVP . Klagges immediately began exploratory talks with DVP members Gerhard Marquordt , Albert Brandes and Heinrich Wessel . Although the DVP board was generally positive about naturalization, it “under no circumstances wanted to take part in an apparent transfer of office, as was once attempted in Thuringia.” Brandes rejected a professorship at the Technical University as intolerable, as it immediately became a sham deal would be recognized. Alternatively, he suggested to the party leader of the DVP in the Reichstag , Eduard Dingeldey , that the DVP should introduce the motion there to “grant naturalization to every participant in the campaign [= First World War]”, which Dingeldey immediately rejected as impracticable. The behavior of the national-conservative DNVP ruling in Braunschweig evidently angered the National Socialists; So Goebbels noted in his diary on February 23: "Even here the German National People's Party in Braunschweig is causing difficulties."

Steinweg 22 : The " Café Lück ", where Heimbs, Zörner, Frank and probably Friedrich Alpers met on the evening of February 17, 1932.

From the Berlin NSDAP headquarters was Hitler's legal adviser already on February 17, 1932 Hans Frank arrived in Braunschweig, around 22:00 in the " Café Luck " with the Braunschweiger politicians Ernst Zörner , president of the Brunswick State Parliament and friend of Hitler, Carl Heimbs , board member of the DVP, and probably also Friedrich Alpers , Braunschweig minister and members of the SA and SS to discuss how Hitler could be naturalized. Together, the following solution was agreed: Hitler was to be given a job in the Braunschweig embassy to the Reichsrat in Berlin. Ulrich Menzel describes "the meeting at the Parkhotel [as] the key event that explains [sic!] Why, despite the many concerns and opposition, [Hitler] was granted naturalization in time." The historian and politician Ernst shared this assessment August Roloff , founder of the civil unity list (BEL).

Certificate of registration and de-registration of Hitler in Braunschweig from February 26, 1932 and September 16, 1933.

In the meantime, there was heated debate in the state parliament as well as in public about whether Hitler would ever meet his obligations once he became a civil servant. Many sensed - as in Hildburghausen - a new bogus business. Interested parties around the NSDAP tried to counteract this with all kinds of assurances of the honesty of the request of the "Führer". On February 24th, one day before the appointment , two days before the swearing-in , Klagges stated in an official letter that “Mr. Hitler himself is completely remote from the idea of ​​being appointed as a sham official has expressly rejected this idea ”, he rather“ attaches great importance ”to“ actually filling the planned area of ​​activity ”.

For the purpose of being legal, Zörner even got Hitler a place of residence in Braunschweig as his subtenant (officially registered from February 26, 1932 to September 16, 1933), and so this second attempt in Braunschweig finally succeeded. Hitler was employed as a member of the government at the State Cultural and Land Surveying Office (dated February 25, 1932) with compulsory service as a clerk at the Braunschweigische Legation at Lützowplatz in Berlin.

On February 26, 1932, Hitler was sworn in and received at the same time the "citizenship in the Free State of Braunschweig", as can be seen from the "Citizenship Certificate" of the Free State and which at the same time made him a "Reich Citizen" under constitutional law . He was thus able to take part in the presidential election - even if he might have received it for the second time after the gendarmerie commissioner in Hildburghausen. On March 1, 1932, the state parliament approved the new government council office with the votes of the NSDAP, the civil unity list (BEL) and that of a national representative, thus formally completing the naturalization of Hitler.

Activity, leave of absence and dismissal

Nothing is known of any exercise or performance of his official duties towards the Free State of Braunschweig. Hitler himself commented on his duties in retrospect in a briefing on January 27, 1945. In response to his comment: “I was a member of the government in Braunschweig for a while”, Göring replied: “But not exercising,” to which Hitler replied: “Don't say that. I have brought the country great benefit. ”In fact, however, the efforts of Küchenthal and the ambassador of Braunschweig Friedrich Boden to induce Hitler to perform his official duties were unsuccessful. Hitler never worked in the Braunschweig embassy in Berlin.

Only two days after he was sworn in, on February 28, 1932, Hitler applied for leave in order to take part in the election campaign. This was granted to him on March 5th (as well as the retention of his residence in Munich).

Just seven months later, in October 1932, Hitler applied for an indefinite leave of absence from his official business, as "the ongoing political struggles" would not allow him to "fulfill [his] official duty in the near future." Since it was not clear to the public or to the opposition politicians in the Braunschweig Landtag which services Hitler had provided for the state, the opposition applied for work results to be submitted several times. Finally, it became known in public that on January 26, 1933, just four days before Hitler was appointed Chancellor , the Brunswick Chamber of Accounts had scheduled an audit of the remuneration paid to him and the services he had provided for it.

On February 16, 1933, not even a year after his naturalization, the now incumbent Chancellor Adolf Hitler requested in a short telegram to the government of the Free State of Braunschweig to be released from civil service, which was granted to him "with immediate effect".

2007: Discussion about the posthumous withdrawal of German citizenship

On the basis of a panel discussion held on February 23, 2007 on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of Hitler's naturalization by the Free State of Braunschweig, Isolde Saalmann , chairwoman of the SPD local association Braunschweig- Gliesmarode and member of the Lower Saxony state parliament , took up the suggestion of two discussion participants and brought up the The parliamentary group in the Lower Saxony state parliament submitted the motion to "have a legal check on how the state of Lower Saxony, as the legal successor of the state of Braunschweig, can revoke Hitler's German citizenship". In doing so, Saalmann sparked a week-long debate that went far beyond Germany , both on the legal possibility and on the (historical) meaningfulness of such a proposal.

Such an application had already been made by a private person at the end of 2005, but was rejected by the Ministry of the Interior.

Formal legal impossibility

According to a statement by the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior in March 2007, such a withdrawal is formally not possible because "the civil servant is dead", so that the civil servant relationship has expired and a dead person cannot be a bearer of rights (they cannot be withdrawn again afterwards) . In addition, the withdrawal of citizenship would result in Hitler becoming stateless again, which the Basic Law for the Protection of Germans against Expatriation prohibits. According to Art. 16 (1) sentence 2 GG, a loss would only be permissible "if the person concerned does not become stateless as a result".

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The the citizenship of the Reich mediating citizenship in the states - since the Weimar Constitution in the German states - is by § 1  Regulation v. February 5, 1934 ( RGBl. 1934 I, p. 85) was eliminated.
  2. ↑ a b Manfred Overesch: Die Einbürgerung Hitler 1930 , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 40th vol., No. 4, Munich 1992, p. 544 f. Fn. 8.
  3. ↑ Joachim C. Fest: Hitler - a biography , Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart, 1973, p. 49.
  4. ↑ a b Braunschweiger Zeitung (ed.): Braunschweiger Zeitung Special: How Hitler became German , No. 1 (2007), Braunschweig 2007, p. 11.
  5. ↑ Quoted from: Fritz Poetzsch : Vom Staatsleben under the Weimar Constitution (1920-1924). In: Yearbook of Public Law of the Present. 13 (1925), pp. 1-248 (p. 24).
  6. ↑ Braunschweiger Zeitung (ed.): Braunschweiger Zeitung Special: How Hitler Became German , No. 1 (2007), Braunschweig 2007, p. 12.
  7. ↑ a b Braunschweiger Zeitung (ed.): Braunschweiger Zeitung Special: How Hitler became German , No. 1 (2007), Braunschweig 2007, p. 13.
  8. ^ National Socialist Archives: Documents on National Socialism
  9. ↑ Braunschweiger Zeitung (ed.): Braunschweiger Zeitung Special: How Hitler became German , No. 1 (2007), Braunschweig 2007, p. 14.
  10. ↑ a b c d e Manfred Overesch: Die Einbürgerung Hitler 1930 , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 40th vol., No. 4, Munich 1992, p. 547.
  11. ↑ Manfred Overesch: Die Einbürgerung Hitler 1930 , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 40th vol., No. 4, Munich 1992, p. 558.
  12. ↑ Manfred Overesch: Die Einbürgerung Hitler 1930 , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 40th Jg., H. 4, Munich 1992, p. 545.
  13. ↑ a b c Manfred Overesch: Die Einbürgerung Hitler 1930 , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 40th vol., No. 4, Munich 1992, p. 543.
  14. ↑ a b Manfred Overesch: Die Einbürgerung Hitler 1930 , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 40th vol., No. 4, Munich 1992, p. 546.
  15. ↑ Manfred Overesch: Die Einbürgerung Hitler 1930 , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 40th Jg., H. 4, Munich 1992, S. 548 f.
  16. ^ Günter Neliba: Wilhelm Frick: The Legalist des Unrechtsstaates , Schöningh, Paderborn [u. a.] 1992, p. 61.
  17. ↑ Ernst-August Roloff, in: Braunschweiger Zeitung (ed.): How brown was Braunschweig? Hitler and the Free State of Braunschweig , Braunschweig 2003, p. 7.
  18. ↑ a b Ernst-August Roloff: Bourgeoisie and National Socialism 1930-1933. Braunschweig's way into the Third Reich , Hanover 1961, p. 89.
  19. ↑ a b Ernst-August Roloff, in: Braunschweiger Zeitung (ed.): How brown was Braunschweig? Hitler and the Free State of Braunschweig , Braunschweig 2003, p. 23.
  20. ^ Ernst-August Roloff: Bourgeoisie and National Socialism 1930–1933. Braunschweig's way into the Third Reich , Hanover 1961, p. 91 f.
  21. ^ Ernst-August Roloff: Bourgeoisie and National Socialism 1930–1933. Braunschweig's way into the Third Reich , Hanover 1961, p. 92.
  22. ^ Ernst-August Roloff: Bourgeoisie and National Socialism 1930–1933. Braunschweig's way into the Third Reich , Hanover 1961, p. 90.
  23. ^ Ernst-August Roloff: Bourgeoisie and National Socialism 1930–1933. Braunschweig's way into the Third Reich , Hanover 1961, p. 93.
  24. ↑ Manfred Overesch: Die Einbürgerung Hitler 1930 , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 40th vol., No. 4, Munich 1992, p. 551.
  25. ↑ Manfred Overesch: Die Einbürgerung Hitler 1930 , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 40th vol., No. 4, Munich 1992, p. 548.
  26. ↑ Manfred Overesch: Die Einbürgerung Hitler 1930 , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 40th vol., No. 4, Munich 1992, p. 556 ff.
  27. ↑ Manfred Overesch: Die Einbürgerung Hitler 1930 , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 40th vol., No. 4, Munich 1992, p. 555.
  28. ↑ Manfred Overesch: Die Einbürgerung Hitler 1930 , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 40th Jg., H. 4, Munich 1992, P. 562 f.
  29. ↑ Manfred Overesch: Die Einbürgerung Hitler's 1930 , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 40th vol., No. 4, Munich 1992, p. 564.
  30. ↑ Manfred Overesch: Die Einbürgerung Hitler 1930 , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 40th Jg., H. 4, Munich 1992, S. 565 f.
  31. ↑ Ursula Schelm-Spangenberg: The German People's Party in Braunschweig. Foundation, development, sociological structure, political work , in: Braunschweiger Werkstücke , Vol. 30, Braunschweig 1964, p. 152.
  32. ↑ a b Ernst-August Roloff: Bourgeoisie and National Socialism 1930-1933. Braunschweig's way into the Third Reich , Hanover 1961, p. 94.
  33. ↑ Ulrich Menzel : The stirrup holder. Annotated chronicle about the naturalization of Hitler in Braunschweig. In: No. 114, research reports from the Institute for Social Sciences (ISW), the Technical University of Braunschweig, Braunschweig 2014, ISSN  1614-7898 , pp. 109–110.
  34. ↑ Ulrich Menzel: The stirrup holder. Annotated chronicle about the naturalization of Hitler in Braunschweig. Pp. 110 and 278 (“Breakthrough”).
  35. ↑ Ulrich Menzel: The stirrup holder. Annotated chronicle about the naturalization of Hitler in Braunschweig. P. 263.
  36. ↑ a b Networked memory: Hitler as a councilor
  37. ↑ a b c Ernst-August Roloff, in: Braunschweiger Zeitung (ed.): How brown was Braunschweig? Hitler and the Free State of Braunschweig , Braunschweig 2003, p. 25.
  38. ↑ Ernst-August Roloff, in: Braunschweiger Zeitung (ed.): How brown was Braunschweig? Hitler and the Free State of Braunschweig , Braunschweig 2003, p. 57.
  39. ^ Letter from State Minister Küchenthal to the Braunschweig Ambassador Friedrich Boden in Berlin
  40. ↑ Hitler swears by the republican constitution. In:  Die Neue Zeitung , February 27, 1932, p. 1 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nzg
  41. ↑ Ernst-August Roloff, in: Braunschweiger Zeitung (ed.): How brown was Braunschweig? Hitler and the Free State of Braunschweig , Braunschweig 2003, p. 56.
  42. ↑ Ursula Schelm-Spangenberg: The German People's Party in Braunschweig. Foundation, development, sociological structure, political work , in: Braunschweiger Werkstücke , Vol. 30, Braunschweig 1964, p. 154.
  43. ↑ Helmut Heiber (Ed.): Hitler's situation discussions. Fragments of the minutes of his military conferences 1942–1945. Stuttgart 1962, p. 882.
  44. ↑ Cf. Dieter Lent: 'I have brought the country great benefits.' Reflections on this statement by Hitler from January 1945 about his work as a Braunschweig Government Councilor in 1932. In: Braunschweigisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte , Vol. 91, 2010, p. 219.
  45. ↑ Ernst-August Roloff, in: Braunschweiger Zeitung (ed.): How brown was Braunschweig? Hitler and the Free State of Braunschweig , Braunschweig 2003, p. 49.
  46. ↑ Braunschweiger Zeitung of March 3, 2007: SPD: Removing Hitler's citizenship
  47. ↑ Der Spiegel of March 10, 2007: The Fuhrer's Pass
  48. ^ The time of March 14, 2007: Famous against his will
  49. ↑ Braunschweiger Zeitung of March 3, 2007: "Repeal would not change anything"
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on December 23, 2007 .