Ernst Graf zu Reventlow

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Ernst Graf zu Reventlow

Ernst Christian Einar Ludwig Detlev Graf zu Reventlow (born August 18, 1869 in Husum ; † November 21, 1943 in Munich ) was a German naval officer , writer , journalist and German-national or National Socialist politician . The writer Fanny zu Reventlow was his sister.

Life

Ernst, who came from the Reventlow family, was the son of the Prussian district administrator and bailiff of Holstein Ludwig Graf zu Reventlow (1824-1893) and his wife Emilie (born zu Rantzau ; 1834-1905). After graduation in 1888 he joined the Imperial Navy , where he in 1898 to Lieutenant was promoted and 1899 with the character as a lieutenant commander retired to try as growers in Central America his luck. In the same year he had married the French noblewoman Blanche Comtesse d'Allemont de Broutillot (1873-1937). In 1905 he returned to Germany and worked as a political writer. In 1906 he published the highly acclaimed and monarchy hostile book Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Byzantines . From 1907 he wrote as a permanent employee for the Berliner Tageblatt on foreign and marine policy issues, in which he emphasized anti-England and as a supporter of naval armament. He also wrote for Heinrich Rippler's DVP newspaper, the daily Rundschau , the German daily newspaper and the Kreuz newspaper . In the Reichstag elections in 1907 and 1912 , Reventlow ran unsuccessfully for the German Social Party in the Flensburg-Aabenraa constituency. In 1912 he was on the board of directors and on the promotion committee of the association against the arrogance of Jewry . At the same time he became the political representative of the main management of the Pan-German Association and was editor-in-chief of the Pan-German papers from 1908 to 1914 . In 1914 Reventlow sat on the "Press Committee", which worked with the war press office. During the war he published in the interests of the German colonial war aims and sharply criticized Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg's war policy .

From 1920 to 1943 Reventlow was the magazine Reichswart . Weekly for national independence and German socialism , which dealt with political and religious topics. In 1921 he was sued by the Zionist publicist Ascher Ginzberg for publicly claiming that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion , an anti-Semitic forgery that was supposed to prove Jewish plans for world domination , were his work. The process dragged on until 1923, Reventlow had to withdraw the claim.

In the Weimar Republic , he was one of the founders and leading politicians of the German National Freedom Party (DVFP), a radical nationalist and anti-Semitic party founded in December 1922 . Reventlow's political essays, however, were also noticed in the context of the cross-front efforts. For example, Interior Minister Rudolf Oeser expressed himself in a ministerial meeting on August 2, 1923 about “approaches to a certain agreement of ideas between communists and German nationalists” and referred to the article “A piece of the road?” By Reventlow, which is in No. 176 of the Red Flag appeared on the same day. Reventlow's publication in the Red Flag was part of a temporary cooperation between Völkisch and Communists after Karl Radek's “Schlageterrede” in June 1923. In the course of the cooperation, high-ranking communist functionaries also appeared as speakers at Völkisch events. On January 13, 1926, the Reich Commissioner for Public Order Supervision Hermann Emil Kuenzer referred in a report on the communist movement to the Reich Ministry of the Interior that the “extreme right” was “not unsympathetic” to the violent, revolutionary approach of the KPD , and was referring to an article by Reventlow in the Deutsches Tageblatt (No. 3 of January 5 of this year).

In domestic politics, Reventlow showed himself - as an outstanding DVFP representative and in line with the tactical line of his party - initially as a sharp opponent of the leader principle represented by the NSDAP ; He accused Adolf Hitler (on the occasion of Hitler's efforts to come to an agreement with the Bavarian government) of “ ultramontanism ” and called him a “Napoleon in the back pocket”. In terms of foreign policy, Reventlow took a sharp turn against Gustav Stresemann . Until the end of 1926 he demanded that the German Reich should not join the League of Nations .

In the Reichstag elections in May 1924 , Reventlow, at that time already convicted for violating the Republic Protection Act, received a mandate in the Reichstag as a member of the National Socialist Freedom Party (NSFP), a list connection with the participation of the DVFP. In the DVFP successor organization Deutschvölkische Freiheitsbewegung (DVFB), Reventlow was a leading representative of a social revolutionary direction that advocated a program tailored to the workforce and called for employees to be involved in supervisory boards and in company profits. After he was unable to assert himself with these ideas in the party, he resigned from the DVFB in February 1927. Reventlow switched to the NSDAP, which he helped to achieve success, especially in northern Germany. He publicly withdrew his earlier attacks against Hitler. He retained his mandate in the Reichstag even after the National Socialist “ seizure of power ”, most recently on the NSDAP unified list of 1938. Reventlow was considered a follower of Gregor Strasser within the NSDAP ; after his assassination in the " Röhm Putsch " in 1934, he was increasingly isolated in the party.

Reventlow was from 1934 head of the anti-church and anti-Christian German faith movement , from which he resigned in 1936 - according to his own statements “for National Socialist reasons”. In 1937 he was on the advisory board of the “Jewish Question” research department at the Reich Institute for the History of the New Germany , headed by Walter Frank . He also acted as the editor of the anti-Semitic magazine Der Weltkampf from the circle of Alfred Rosenberg, here at the Institute for Research into the Jewish Question. Reventlow was also one of the important authors in the early stages of the National Socialist monthly issue .

Reventlow's only son Roger (* 1896) died in the war in 1945.

Publications (selection)

  • The German fleet. Your development and organization. 1901.
  • The Russo-Japanese War. 1904 ff.
  • Holy peace, sweet harmony. A political satire. Dieterich'sche Verlagbuchhandlung Theodor Weicher , Leipzig 1906.
  • Germany's Foreign Policy 1888–1913. 1914.
  • Germany at sea. A book from the German navy. Otto Spamer publishing house, Leipzig 1914.
  • The vampire of the mainland. A presentation of English politics according to its driving forces, means and effects. 1915.
  • Do we need the Flemish coast? 1918.
  • Political history of the Great War. 1919.
  • Völkisch-Communist Unification? 1924.
  • Minister Stresemann as statesman and advocate of world conscience. 1925.
  • War debt lie and war debt liar. 1929.
  • German socialism. 1930.
  • The way to the new Germany. A contribution to the resurgence of the German people. 1931.
  • The German fight for freedom. 1934.
  • Where is god 1934.
  • Judas fight and defeat in Germany. 150 years of the Jewish question. 1937.
  • From Potsdam to Doorn. 1940.

literature

  • Joachim Lilla , Martin Döring, Andreas Schulz: extras in uniform: the members of the Reichstag 1933–1945. A biographical manual. Including the Volkish and National Socialist members of the Reichstag from May 1924 . Droste, Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-7700-5254-4 , p. 508 f .
  • Michael Hagemeister : The "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in court. The Bern Trial 1933–1937 and the “Anti-Semitic International”. Chronos, Zurich 2017, ISBN 978-3-0340-1385-7 , short biography p. 562.
  • Elke Kimmel: Reventlow, Ernst Graf too. In: Handbook of Antisemitism . Volume 2/2, 2009, pp. 684f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Michael Peters:  Reventlow, Ernst Christian Einar Ludwig Detlev. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11202-4 , p. 476 f. ( Digitized version ).
  2. ^ A b Joachim Lilla, Martin Döring, Andreas Schulz: extras in uniform. The members of the Reichstag 1933–1945. A biographical manual. Including the ethnic and National Socialist members of the Reichstag from May 1924. Droste, Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-7700-5254-4 , p. 508.
  3. ^ Obituary in the Kölnische Zeitung of November 23, 1943.
  4. ↑ Ulrich Nanko: The German Faith Movement. Marburg 1993, p. 348; Nanko gives the years of publication 1919 to 1944.
  5. ↑ Christian Hartmann , Thomas Vordermayer, Othmar Plöckinger, Roman Töppel (eds.): Hitler, Mein Kampf. A critical edition. Institute for Contemporary History Munich, Berlin / Munich 2016, vol. 2, p. 802.
  6. ↑ http://www.bundesarchiv.de/aktenreichskanzlei/1919-1933/0021/cun/cun1p/kap1_2/kap2_235/para3_2.html
  7. ^ Reimer Wulff: The German National Freedom Party 1922–1928. Hochschulschrift, Marburg 1968, pp. 26–32.
  8. ↑ http://www.bundesarchiv.de/aktenreichskanzlei/1919-1933/0021/lut/lut2p/kap1_1/para2_94.html
  9. ↑ For example, article in the Reichswart of January 19 and August 16, 1924, cf. on this Wolfgang Horn: Leader ideology and party organization in the NSDAP: (1919–1933). Droste, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-7700-0280-6 , pp. 182f, 192.
  10. ↑ Article in the Reichswart of February 7, 1925, cf. Horn 1972, p. 213.
  11. ^ Wulff: German National Freedom Party. P. 150 f.
  12. ↑ Article in the Reichswart of April 9 and 23, 1927, cf. Horn 1972, p. 266.
  13. ↑ Frankfurter Zeitung No. 159, March 26, 1936.
  14. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 , p. 493.
  15. ^ Wilfried Scharf: National Socialist monthly books (1930-1944). In: Heinz-Dietrich Fischer (ed.): German magazines from the 17th to the 20th century. Publication documentation, Pullach near Munich 1973, ISBN 3-7940-3603-4 , p. 413.
personal data
SURNAME Reventlow, Ernst Graf too
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Reventlow, Ernst Christian Einar Ludwig Detlev Graf zu (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Reichstag deputy (NSFP; NSDAP), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH August 18, 1869
PLACE OF BIRTH Husum
DATE OF DEATH November 21, 1943
Place of death Munich