Renewal movement (time of National Socialism)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

During the National Socialist era, the term renewal movement was used in the common parlance of National Socialism for the part of the “ German national politicians ” who identified with their goals in various European countries, including with a view to Austria or the Swiss front movement . The innovators gained political upheaval, particularly in the Kingdom of Romania and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia .

Kingdom of Romania

Since the end of the First World War , the dispute between the upper-class industrial group around Hans Otto Roth and the petty-bourgeois rural group around Rudolf Brandsch had paralyzed the conservative political camp. In the 1920s, groups such as the Dissatisfied , Klingsor or the Banat Jungschwaben stood for a political correction in minority relations . Their crystallization point, however, was the self-help organization of Fritz Fabritius, renamed the Renewal Movement , originally founded as a business association . He particularly criticized the unsuccessful, passive policy of the minority leadership towards the Romanian government. After 1930 the tone intensified with radical solutions and offensive positions after a long chain of failed attempts to change the existing conditions among the prevailing conservative elites, who did not engage in dialogue, and the Romanian government in Bucharest. The policy of Romanization pursued in the capital was an additional conflict that made the “ethnic German struggle for assertion” difficult.

After Adolf Hitler's “ seizure of power ” in 1933, the renewal movement achieved its political breakthrough. They no longer saw themselves as a fringe opposition group, but as part of the international National Socialist movement. According to conservative reports, the innovators, who since May 1932 called themselves the National Socialist Self-Help Movement of Germans in Romania (NSDR), advertised more with election gifts and less with arguments. Economic measures by the local NS groups based on the concept of helping people to help themselves made the poor farmers vote for Fabritius even more than the promise of financial subsidies from Germany. At the beginning of 1934 the NSDR changed its name to "National Renewal Movement of Germans in Romania" (NEDR).

As a result of the electoral victories in the regional people's councils, Fritz Fabritius was elected chairman of the Romanian-German umbrella organization on June 29, 1935 , which was renamed "German People's Community in Romania". The association received a “People's Program” inspired by National Socialism, against which neither the Conservatives nor the Evangelical Church AB revolted, but the radical faction of the “Renewers”, which was meanwhile under Alfred Bonfert and the party theorist Waldemar Gust on February 10, 1935 ( initially with the consent of Fabritius) had founded the radical Nazi "German People's Party of Romania" (DVR). The radicals complained that the “people's program” did not correspond to the “real spirit of National Socialism”. The conflict between the “Volksgemeinschaft” and the DVR shaped the political discussion of the Romanian Germans until October 1938. Reich German ministries, party offices and ethnic organizations took contradicting positions in this conflict or pursued their own policies. The "quarrel separated court neighbors and divided families, children fought in the street and shouted 'Fabritius should rule, Bonfert should die' or vice versa (depending on the attitude of the parents)"; Hall battles raged in the cities.

In October 1938, Fabritius, Bonfert and Gust took part in the talks on bringing the Romanian Germans into line under the leadership of the special representative for Romania, Edit von Coler . As a result, the radicals around Bonfert and Gust were assimilated into the "ethnic group leadership", with Bonfert as deputy state chairman. Since the radical group continued the dispute even after the unification in 1939, the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (VoMi), the Foreign Office and Heinrich Himmler intervened in the conflict, since the leadership of the German Reich was more sensitive to the full cooperation of the German minority at a time Relations with Romania needed. Fabritius expelled Bonfert and Gust in the spring of 1939 because of an alleged attempted coup from the leadership of the ethnic group. Bonfert, Gust and the regional youth leader Friedrich “Fritz” Cloos were removed from their offices and deported to the “Reich”.

According to statements that had repeatedly led to diplomatic confusion and political dissatisfaction in German-Romanian relations, Fabritius himself was finally ordered back to Germany at the end of November 1939, when Wolfram Bruckner was confirmed in the position of regional chairman (ad interim) as his successor . After the second Viennese arbitration award of August 1940, the NSDAP of the German ethnic group in Romania took over the sole representation of the " ethnic Germans " there. On September 27, 1940, Andreas Schmidt was appointed " ethnic group leader " in Romania by the head of the VoMi, Werner Lorenz , which concluded the National Socialist takeover of power among the Romanian Germans.

Kingdom of Yugoslavia

The prosperity of the German minority in Yugoslavia, especially in Vojvodina , was only relative compared to the Magyars or Albanians living there, as there were a considerable number of landless and small farmers among them. The Yugoslav land reform did not grant the Germans any land. Although the German farmers had to give up little land to the Agricultural Fund, their communities lost considerable land. The members of the German minority were only able to exercise limited political influence on the decisions in parliament. After the introduction of the royal dictatorship in 1929, the domestic political importance of the German minority decreased even further. The German-language school system was only poorly developed after 1918, despite some state concessions, and consisted of four-class elementary school departments and some middle schools with teachers who often did not have sufficient knowledge of the German language. The German association system, its business associations and mostly local press were, however, well developed.

In this situation, a small but agile and nationally conscious intellectual class tried to improve the overall situation of the minority in the 1920s with parliamentary activity and contacts with both the Yugoslav and German governments, but could only achieve limited success. National consciousness began to awaken, but the social and political situation of the minorities did not improve. Discontent arose among the younger generation in the early 1930s. Having grown up in Yugoslavia, she had no sympathy for pre-war Hungary or the historical kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, unlike broad circles of the older generations. At the same time, she was far more radical and impatient in formulating her wishes, especially towards the old leaders who, in her opinion, had failed and had only used their posts for their own benefit. The generation of young intellectuals appeared at the same time as the rise of National Socialism in Germany and Austria. They got to know the new ideology at German and Austrian universities, where most of them had studied. The influence of the National Socialists was already noticeable here before 1933, and so the young intellectuals returned to their homeland with radical ideas. But there was not only a royal dictatorship and a disregard for minority rights, but also the lack of prospects for young academics from the minorities. They had practically no access to civil service or community service, and influential “old people” often held several posts in the minority organizations.

Within the German minority, especially in Vojvodina, there were militant conflicts between the young innovators and the old conservative guard. This was not only a struggle of generations, but also of world views and, in part, of material interests, at the center of which was the largest and most important association of Yugoslav Germans , the Swabian-German Cultural Association . The Yugoslav authorities interfered discreetly in this dispute and, less discreetly, agencies and national organizations of the German Reich. The importance of the struggle lay not in the number of Kulturbund members, but in the fact that most of the nationally conscious “ethnic German” intelligentsia at the time took part in it. This war of direction lasted until 1938/39 and was not only fought through the press and meetings, but also in street brawls. As in other German ethnic groups in Europe, the young “innovators” won not because the majority of them had the German population behind them, but because of the help of the agencies from the German Reich, especially the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (VoMi). This happened during the general radicalization of domestic and foreign policy in the German Reich and was its immediate consequence. The foreign policy successes of the Reich were connected with aggressive propaganda, which was conveyed through the Volksdeutsche newspapers, radio and films from the Reich as well as through visits by Reich German activists, which enabled the new leaders to gain acceptance among the Danube Swabian population. Since both the old and the young leaders sought support in the Reich, the old federal leadership of the Kulturbund enabled the ideological reorientation of the masses through their own approach to National Socialism during their struggle against the “innovators”.

Since the division of the Germans into two camps, a closed policy of the minority was no longer possible, so that the “Deutsche Tageblatt” lamented how much the Yugoslav Germans lost their political weight for any other group due to the “intra-peoples disputes” . The Reich German authorities held back in the conflict between the previous leaders of the Yugoslav Germans and the "innovators" out of consideration for the policy towards the Milan Stojadinović government , since the latter took and began to adopt a position that deviated from the previous Yugoslav foreign policy on economic and political issues, to break away from the bloc under French influence and to move closer to Germany, which was not undisputed domestically. In order not to put an even greater strain on Stojadinović's position by officially promoting the renewal movement, which was obviously inclined towards National Socialism, the German Reich initially supported the minority organizations recognized in Yugoslavia. However, the more the National Socialist ideology spread in the “Germans abroad”, the more their leaders were in a losing position. The ongoing dispute weakened the already difficult position of the minority, while the "renewal movement" gained ground under the effects of developments in the German Reich. From the beginning of 1938, a balance between the two groups was initiated, which came about in 1939. An arbitration tribunal made up of representatives of the German minorities in Estonia, Latvia, Romania and Czechoslovakia decided that the renewers should withdraw their accusations against chairman Stefan Kraft , whereas Kraft was urged to resign from his office.

The radical exponents of the “renewal movement” did not succeed in getting to the fore. Rather, the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (VoMi) decided with Josef Janko after months of negotiations in favor of a relatively moderate and consensual representative of the “renewal movement” as chairman of the Kulturbund; not ultimately in order not to endanger the friendly relations between the Yugoslav government and the German Reich. With Janko, a number of like-minded younger men moved into the leading positions of German cultural and economic organizations. However, this did not bridge the gap that had opened up in the long disputes. It aroused new bitterness that with the advance of the “innovators” the older generation was being forced out of minority and cooperative work. The penetration of National Socialist ideology into the Kulturbund, the adoption of the forms of Reich German organizations - especially in the youth movement - and the propagation of a uniform ethnic German costume aroused resistance from the older generation, not least from the churches. The split brought about by the renewal movement in the ethnic group continued to have an effect even after the conflict had been settled, although those who came into leadership positions were still comparatively moderate representatives of this direction who tried to protect the interests of all Germans. At the same time, the mistrust of broad circles of the German population remained lively because the radical representatives of the “renewal movement” tried to gain the influence they had been denied in the minority organizations by other means and were supported by individual institutions in the Reich.

In the remaining years up to the German attack on Yugoslavia in April 1941 , the vast majority of the German minority was organized in the Kulturbund. This was especially true for Vojvodina: The new federal government (which has called itself the "ethnic group leadership" since the spring of 1940) boasted at the end of 1940 that 98 percent of Yugoslav Germans had become members of the Kulturbund and that it had now de facto organized the entire German ethnic group . The new leadership proved successful in organizing broad strata, and the Kulturbund increasingly adopted the characteristics of the NS mass organizations and their structures. The foreign policy successes of the German Reich and the new national pride of the Vojvodina Germans were decisive factors. On March 28, 1941, Janko finally stopped all activities of the Swabian-German Cultural Association and its affiliated departments on the instructions of the German government. Successor organizations were the

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alfred Maleta: The socialist in Dollfuss Austria: an investigation of the workers question. Pressverein, Linz ad D. 1936, p. 108 f.
  2. ↑ cf. PA / AA: Inl. Hg 17d / 1764, Doc. 129491-519. In: Thomas Casagrande: The Volksdeutsche SS Division "Prinz Eugen": the Banat Swabians and the National Socialist war crimes. Campus Verlag, 2003. ISBN 3-59337-234-7 , p. 152.
  3. ^ A b c d Paul Milata : Between Hitler, Stalin and Antonescu: Romanian Germans in the Waffen SS. Volume 34 of Studia Transylvanica. Böhlau Verlag Köln Weimar, 2007, ISBN 3-412-13806-1 , p. 336.
  4. ^ A b Tammo Luther " Volkstumsppolitik des Deutschen Reiches 1933-1938: The Germans Abroad in the Field of Tension Between Traditionalists and National Socialists. Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004. ISBN 3-51508-535-1 , p. 133
  5. ^ Johann Böhm : Hitler's vassals of the German ethnic group in Romania before and after 1945. Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2006
  6. ↑ a b half-yearly publication for Southeast European history, literature and politics , Johann Böhm: Techniques of Manipulation - tehnici de manipulare (statement) , February 1, 2013.
  7. ^ Georg Weber, Renate Weber: Zendersch: a Transylvanian community in transition. Delp, 1985, ISBN 3-7689-0222-6 , p. 265.
  8. ^ Stefan Breuer , Ina Schmidt: Die Kommenden: a magazine of the Bündische Jugend (1926-1933). Volume 15 of Edition Archive of the German Youth Movement, Wochenschau Verlag, 2010, ISBN 3-89974-529-9 , p. 316.
  9. ↑ Valdis O. Lumans: Himmler's Auxiliaries: The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the German National Minorities of Europe, 1933-1945 , University of North Carolina Press, 1993, ISBN 0-8078-6311-4 , p. 111 (English)
  10. ↑ Klaus Popa : The aspirations for power of the ethnic group leader and power man Andreas Schmidt and the German ethnic group in Romania (1940-1944) as a prime example of Nazi fanatization and instrumentalization
  11. ↑ Nikola Gaćeša: Nemci u agrarnoj reformi i vlasništvu obradivog zemljišta u Vojvodini 1919-1941: Radovi iz agrarne istorije i demografije. Novi Sad 1995, p. 294. In: Zoran Janjetović : The Danube Swabians in Vojvodina and National Socialism. ( Memento from January 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Mariana Hausleitner , Harald Roth : The Influence of National Socialism on Minorities in Eastern Central and Southern Europe. IKS Verlag, Munich 2006.
  12. ↑ a b Oskar Plautz: The becoming of the national community. Novi Sad 1940, pp. 53-55. In: Zoran Janjetović: The Danube Swabians in Vojvodina and National Socialism. ( Memento from January 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Mariana Hausleitner, Harald Roth: The Influence of National Socialism on Minorities in Eastern Central and Southern Europe. IKS Verlag, Munich 2006.
  13. ^ Josef Volkmar Senz: The school system of the Danube Swabians in Yugoslavia. Munich 1969. In: Zoran Janjetović: The Danube Swabians in Vojvodina and National Socialism. ( Memento from January 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Mariana Hausleitner, Harald Roth: The Influence of National Socialism on Minorities in Eastern Central and Southern Europe. IKS Verlag, Munich 2006.
  14. ↑ Jovan Durman: Zadrugarstvo Nemaca u Jugoslaviji do Drugog svetskog ratam: Zadružni arhiv, the second in 1954; Ivan Milivoj Varga: nose zadrugarstvo. In: Jubilarni zbornik života i rada SHS 1918–1928. Beograd 1928, pp. 279-289. In: Zoran Janjetović: The Danube Swabians in Vojvodina and National Socialism. ( Memento from January 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Mariana Hausleitner, Harald Roth: The Influence of National Socialism on Minorities in Eastern Central and Southern Europe. IKS Verlag, Munich 2006.
  15. ↑ a b c Branko Bešlin: Vesnik tragedije. Nemačka štampa u Vojvodini (1933-1941). Novi Sad 2001. In: Zoran Janjetović: The Danube Swabians in Vojvodina and National Socialism. ( Memento from January 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Mariana Hausleitner, Harald Roth: The Influence of National Socialism on Minorities in Eastern Central and Southern Europe. IKS Verlag, Munich 2006.
  16. ^ Georg C. Mosse: The crisis of German ideology. Intellectual origines of the Third Reich. New York 1964, p. 268 and 271. In: Zoran Janjetović: The Danube Swabians in Vojvodina and National Socialism. ( Memento from January 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Mariana Hausleitner, Harald Roth: The Influence of National Socialism on Minorities in Eastern Central and Southern Europe. IKS Verlag, Munich 2006.
  17. ↑ a b Dušan Biber: Nacizem i Nemci v Jugoslaviji 1933-1941. Ljubljana 1966, pp. 67-69, 93-127, 140-166. In: Zoran Janjetović: The Danube Swabians in Vojvodina and National Socialism. ( Memento from January 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Mariana Hausleitner, Harald Roth: The Influence of National Socialism on Minorities in Eastern Central and Southern Europe. IKS Verlag, Munich 2006.
  18. ↑ a b c Zoran Janjetović: O nacifikaciji vojvođanskih Švaba. In: Tokovi istorije VI (1999), 1–4, p. 252. In: Zoran Janjetović: Die Donauschwaben in Vojvodina and National Socialism. ( Memento from January 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Mariana Hausleitner, Harald Roth: The Influence of National Socialism on Minorities in Eastern Central and Southern Europe. IKS Verlag, Munich 2006.
  19. ↑ Valdis O. Lumans: Himmler's auxiliaries. The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the German minorities of Europe 1933-1945. Chapel Hill, London 1993. In: Zoran Janjetović: The Danube Swabians in Vojvodina and National Socialism. ( Memento from January 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Mariana Hausleitner, Harald Roth: The Influence of National Socialism on Minorities in Eastern Central and Southern Europe. IKS Verlag, Munich 2006.
  20. ^ A b c Hans-Ulrich Wehler : Nationality policy in Yugoslavia: the German minority 1918-1978. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980, ISBN 3525013221 , p. 35 ff.
  21. ^ Jozo Tomasevich: War and Revolution in Yugoslavia: 1941-1945. Stanford University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-80477-924-4 , p. 202. In English.
  22. ^ Sepp Janko: The way and the end of the German ethnic group in Yugoslavia. Graz, Stuttgart 1982. In: Zoran Janjetović: The Danube Swabians in Vojvodina and National Socialism. ( Memento from January 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Mariana Hausleitner, Harald Roth: The Influence of National Socialism on Minorities in Eastern Central and Southern Europe. IKS Verlag, Munich 2006.
  23. ↑ Josip Mirnić: Nemci u u Bačkoj Drugom svetskom ratu. Novi Sad 1974, p. 58. In: Zoran Janjetović: The Danube Swabians in Vojvodina and National Socialism. ( Memento from January 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Mariana Hausleitner, Harald Roth: The Influence of National Socialism on Minorities in Eastern Central and Southern Europe. IKS Verlag, Munich 2006.

Remarks

  1. ↑ This exaggerated number was the result of a deception, since the family members of a member of the Kulturbund were automatically counted as members. (cf. Zoran Janjetović: The Danube Swabians in Vojvodina and National Socialism. ).