Hans Ebeling (publicist)

Hans Ebeling , called Plato (born September 2, 1897 in Krefeld , † May 17, 1968 in Mönchengladbach ), was a German political publicist . During the Weimar Republic he was one of the leading figures in the Bundische youth movement . During National Socialism , from exile in the Netherlands , he organized the resistance of youth groups remaining in Germany and tried to bring together exiles from the Bund and political youth movements.

Life

First World War and the immediate post-war period

Ebeling was the only son of a textile manufacturer. After he graduated from high school in 1915 , he volunteered for the war. He was awarded the Iron Cross I and II Class and in 1916 was promoted to lieutenant in the artillery .

In 1919 Ebeling returned to Krefeld and began studying architecture in 1920 . He founded the "Krefeld Youth Association", which he incorporated into the German National Youth Association (DNJ) in 1920 as the Lower Rhine Regional Association . In 1920 he briefly took part in the fight against the Red Ruhr Army in the Ruhr area as a battery leader in the Reichswehr . In 1921 Ebeling broke off his architecture studies. Instead, he began studying economics in Cologne , Münster and Gießen, which was interrupted several times, and received his doctorate in 1929 under Friedrich Lenz on Ferdinand Lassalle .

In 1921 Ebeling was one of the leading members of the DNJ who, in protest against the traditionalist stance of the association, founded a split, the Young National Federation (Junabu). In 1922 Ebeling took over the federal leadership of the Junabu from Heinz Dähnhardt . But soon there were conflicts over the direction of the federal government. Ebeling wanted to actively participate in the resistance against the occupation of the Ruhr . For him, the “club shop” was out of the question if one seriously wanted to organize against the enemy. Instead, he wanted to transform the Junabu into a pure “boys' union” as a preliminary stage to a military team. In contrast, resistance formed, which in 1923/24 led to a split in Junabu.

Ebeling continued the Gau Westmark, which he led, as a young national federation with around 300 members - the German Young Society . He maintained close relationships with the Reichswehr leadership in Münster ( Wehrkreiskommando VI) under Fritz von Loßberg and, with his support, carried out acts of sabotage against the French. On behalf of Franz Pfeffer von Salomon , he is also said to have procured weapons and set up training camps for guerrilla warfare in the occupied territories. A French military court sentenced him to death in absentia.

National revolutionary publicist

In 1928 Ebeling took part together with Werner Lass and Karl Otto Paetel at the Ommen conference for the establishment of a world youth union . Ebeling and Laß deliberately provoked a scandal when they left the conference prematurely in protest against the non-invitation of the Soviet Union . Your initiative is considered evidence of the anti-capitalist radicalization of right-wing extremist German youth even before the crisis. In 1930 Ebeling traveled with Lenz to the Soviet Union, where he is said to have met Karl Radek .

Following the Ommen scandal, Ebeling and Laß published a “Declaration by the German Young Nationalists” on November 9, 1928 in the regional journal Die Kommenden . In it they developed a national revolutionary or national Bolshevik position, which was aimed at the " nationalists of all leagues". Ebeling and Laß criticized the general political orientation towards the West and wanted to prevent the "integration of Germany into the West, at least for the Bundische Jugend". They rejected parliamentarism and said that they were fighting “new German imperialism ”. Against the "internationality of the bourgeoisie in the form of world democracy and the so-called world economy " they put "the state front of Prussian- German tradition". At the same time they demanded absolute political neutrality towards Russia and "the state of workers, peasants and soldiers."

With this attitude Ebeling distanced himself equally from National Socialism and Communism . In relation to National Socialism and Fascism , he criticized the fundamental affirmation of the capitalist economic order and especially the anti-Eastern objective; he criticized communism's internationality. He accused the bourgeois youth movement of having become " romanticism and thus reaction ".

In 1929 at the latest, Ebeling came into contact with Ernst Jünger and Friedrich Hielscher through Werner Kreitz . He had attended the meeting initiated by the "Mittelstelle für nationale Publizistik" in 1929 at Eichhof, Kreitz's parents' house, where other leading nationalist journalists such as Bruno von Salomon , Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz , Otfrid Rademacher and Hans Schwarz van Berk had also gathered . He also took part in the deliberations of these circles on how the Schleswig-Holstein peasant movement, known as the “ rural people movement ”, could capitalize on the rights.

Ebeling had assets with which he could finance his publications himself. From August 1930, he and Kreitz had published the magazine " Vorkampf" - Against political and economic oppression , on which Friedrich Lenz, Hans Harras and Jupp Hoven ( Young Prussian Federation ) also worked. Based on the title of the magazine, the term “pioneer circle” is used in this context. From January 1930 to June 1931, Ebeling also published the national journal Die Kommenden together with Ernst Jünger . In 1931 Ebeling founded the magazine Der Umsturz with Werner Laß , which was banned in 1933.

Ebeling's political program, which he outlined in 1932 in the pioneer section , envisaged a planned state economy as an economic form, state socialism as a form of rule, the separation of church and state and an east-oriented foreign policy in which an alliance against the imperialism of the world bourgeoisie was concluded with the Soviet Union should. Ebeling saw a different form of class rule in fascism . In his opinion, the nationalist forces of Germany should be anti-fascist because fascism in the form of the corporate ideology is a Catholic expression for the maintenance of the rule of international finance, which is directed against Prussia.

In exile during National Socialism

After the transfer of power to the National Socialists , Ebeling initially stayed in Germany, but soon found himself exposed to reprisals. In February 1933 criminal proceedings were initiated against him for possession of weapons. Ebeling surrendered to the police on March 21, 1933. He was released from custody; At the same time, however, investigations continued against him on suspicion of communist activity. At the beginning of 1934 the Junabu, which he led, dissolved. In August 1934 Ebeling fled to the Netherlands .

From exile, Ebeling organized the resistance of alliance groups that had gone underground. The regional anchoring of Ebeling and his former youth organization on the Lower Rhine facilitated the secret border traffic between the Netherlands and the German Empire . Whitsun 1935, leaders of illegal German alliance groups met with Ebeling in the Netherlands. Ebeling's strategy was to maintain the formally dissolved youth leagues and to smuggle members into the Nazi ruling apparatus. In the autumn of 1935 the Secret State Police (Gestapo) arrested 30 to 40 members of the illegal Junabu groups. In June 1937 twelve Junabu leaders were tried for high treason before the Essen People's Court . The procedure, also known as the “Junabu Trial”, did not meet the expectations of the National Socialists, who had hoped to deter the opposition alliances from further illegal activity. Instead, the defendants used the forum of the trial to openly criticize the Nazi state, while they themselves referred to their own patriotic commitment. One of the defendants died while the trial was still in custody under unknown circumstances, allegedly by suicide.

Together with Theo Hespers , who came from the Catholic youth movement, Ebeling founded the Bündischer Jugend (AKBJ) working group in 1935 , which published special information on German youth and the Bündische Rundbriefe . These publications were hectographed in the Holland Typing Office by Selma Meyer , who was friends with Ebeling and headed the " Wuppertal Committee ", a solidarity committee for the more than 1,900 Wuppertal workers who were arrested by the National Socialists from 1935 onwards as part of the " Wuppertal trade union trials " were.

On 17./18. In July 1937, Hespers and Ebeling founded the German Youth Front in Brussels . The aim was to bring together the German youth associations that were in exile and resistance. Co-founders were Karl Otto Paetel , the social democrat Hans Stoffers , Erich Jungmann from the KJVD , the communist Werner Kowalski as well as representatives of the Belgian, Dutch and British youth associations. The Communists were expelled after approving the Moscow trials . Until the beginning of 1940, Ebeling and Hespers from Brussels , Amsterdam and London published the Bundische Zeitschrift Kameradschaft - writings of young Germans , which was smuggled into Germany as an organ of the youth front . This resulted in a widespread journalistic and organizational system that brought together those groups from the youth movement who were opposed to National Socialism and who resisted. Ebeling founded two committees to support refugees from the German youth movement in exile. On the other hand, Ebeling preserved his independence by refusing to join a Popular Front committee in 1937 .

The Gestapo took the activities of the German Youth Front extremely seriously. Shortly after Theo Hespers' arrest in Antwerp, she declared in an internal report in February 1942 that Ebeling was "one of the greatest enemies of National Socialism." His goal was the violent overthrow. He wanted to fight National Socialism with all means and eliminate its leaders. Viewed soberly, however, this assessment was exaggerated, because at no point did the German Youth Front have the means for such a violent overthrow. Rather, her focus was on the journalistic field. The magazine of the German Youth Front, Die Kameradschaft, was part of the left-wing political spectrum. In contrast to other publications in exile, however, she took the view early on that war with Hitler's Germany was inevitable and that there should be no international cooperation with the German Reich.

Because the German authorities were extraditing him, Ebeling fled to Brussels in 1937 . Here he also founded the “Special Information for German Youth”, pamphlet-like information letters for the illegal Bund groups. In 1939 his German citizenship was revoked, while the University of Gießen revoked his doctorate.

After the outbreak of World War II , Ebeling, unlike Hespers, managed to escape to England on November 29, 1939 . Here he worked temporarily in London for the station Der Sturmadler - broadcaster for German youth. Until 1940 he continued the “Special Information for German Youth”. From July to December 1940 he was interned as an " Enemy Alien ". He then headed the London Group of Comradeship and published the hectographed circulars of the Comradeship - Bündische Opposition from 1941 to 1944 , which were intended for the internal discussion of the Bundische Opposition. He took on British citizenship and worked as a freelance journalist, for example as a spokesman for German emigration at the BBC, and was one of the signatories of the Lidice Declaration on German Emigration in England of June 1942.

After the Second World War

In 1949 Ebeling returned to Germany. From 1950 he headed the British information center Die Brücke in Düsseldorf . He founded a "Center for Historical Research" and since 1956, together with Arno Klönne, has published the magazine Graue Blätter , since 1968 the magazine Kernpunkte . Impoverished, he had been living on welfare since 1966 and succumbed to cancer in 1968.

Publications

• and H Böckling (ed.): The pioneer against political and economic oppression. Born 1930 12 No. Aug. No. [Ed .: H. Ebeling. Responsible: H. Böckling]. H. Ebeling, Krefeld, P.O. Box 272 1930.
• The fight of the Frankfurter Zeitung against Ferdinand Lassalle and the establishment of an independent workers' party. Hans Ebeling. CL Hirschfeld, Leipzig 1931.
• Ernst Wiechert . The way of a poet. Grote, Berlin 1937.
• The caste. The political role of the German general staff between 1918 and 1938. New Europe Pub. Co., London 1945.
• The German youth movement. Its past and future. The New Europe publishing co. ltd., London 1945.
• (Ed.): Youth against National Socialism. “Rundbriefe” and “Special information for young people from Germany”. zsgest. by Hans Ebeling and Dieter Hespers. 2nd Edition. Bartmann, Frechen 1968.
• (Ed.): Youth resistance in the III. Rich. Documents. [ed. by Hans Ebeling u. Dietrich Hespers]. Vive-le-Gues-Verlag, Mönchengladbach o. J.
• (Ed.): Comradeship - writings of young Germans. ed. by Hans Ebeling u. Dietrich Hespers. Vive-le-Gues-Verlag, Mönchengladbach 1974.
• and Dirk Hespers: reactionaries, rebels, revolutionaries. Youth Movement - Bundische Jugend. Vive le gues Verlag, Mönchengladbach 1988, ISBN 9783925668043 .

literature

• Stefan Breuer and Ina Schmidt: The coming ones. A magazine of the Bündische Jugend (1926–1933). Wochenschau Verlag, Schwalbach / Ts. 2010, ISBN 9783899745290 .
• Louis Dupeux : “National Bolshevism” in Germany 1919–1933. Communist strategy and conservative dynamics. CH Beck, Munich 1985, ISBN 3406304443 .
• Matthias von Hellfeld : Bündische Jugend and Hitlerjugend. On the history of adaptation and resistance 1930–1939. Verl. Für Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne 1987, ISBN 3804686834 .
• Arno Klönne : Bund emigration and Bund resistance. The group around the "comradeship" . In: Kathinka Dittrich u. Hans Würzner (Ed.): The Netherlands and German exile . Äthenäum, Königstein 1982, pp. 122-135.
• Fritz Schmidt: Another Germany. Resistance and persecution by Nazi organs; the circle around Hans Ebeling and Theo Hespers in exile. Achims Verlag, Edermünde 2005, ISBN 3-932435-14-1 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Hans Ebeling in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ According to other information, Ebeling died in Büderich . Hanno Hardt, Elke Hilscher, Winfried B. Lerg (eds.): Press in Exile. Contributions to the communication history of the German exile 1933–1945. (Dortmund contributions to newspaper research 30), Saur, Munich 1979, p. 232.
2. ^ The pioneer , August 1931. In: Werner Kindt (Ed.): The German youth movement 1920 to 1933. The Bundische Zeit; Source writings. Diederichs, Düsseldorf 1974, ISBN 3424005274 , p. 993.
3. ^ Dupeux, Nationalbolschewismus , p. 351.
4. ^ Dupeux, Nationalbolschewismus , p. 356.
5. ^ Dupeux, Nationalbolschewismus , pp. 371f.
6. ↑ Werner Kindt (Ed.): The German youth movement 1920 to 1933. The Bundische Zeit; Source writings. Diederichs, Düsseldorf 1974, ISBN 3424005274 , pp. 995f.
7. ↑ Maurizio Bach, Stefan Breuer: Fascism as a movement and regime. Italy and Germany in comparison . Wiesbaden 2010, p. 199
8. ↑ Hans Ebeling: "Youth Movement" as Reformism (November 1931). In: Werner Kindt (ed.): The German youth movement 1920 to 1933. The Bundische Zeit; Source writings. Diederichs, Düsseldorf 1974, ISBN 3424005274 , p. 1000.
9. ↑ Ina Schmidt: The Lord of Fire. Friedrich Hielscher and his circle between paganism, new nationalism and resistance against National Socialism. Cologne 2004, p. 38; Dupeux, Nationalbolschewismus , p. 369.
10. ↑ Dupeux, Nationalbolschewismus , p. 365f.
11. ^ Dupeux, Nationalbolschewismus , pp. 364f.
12. ↑ ^{a b} Hellfeld, Bündische Jugend , p. 179.
13. ^ Arno Klönne: Youth in the Third Reich. The Hitler Youth and their opponents . Cologne 1999, p. 223.
14. ^ Eckard Holler: Left currents in the free bourgeois youth movement . In: Gedeon Botsch, Josef Haverkamp (Ed.): Youth Movement, Anti-Semitism and Right-Wing Politics. From the “Freideutschen Jugendtag” to the present . (= European-Jewish studies - contributions 13). De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Munich 2014, p. 188 f.
15. ↑ Dietmar Simon: code name Dobler: the life of Werner Kowalski (1901-1943) . Agenda, Münster 2004, p. 190; Thomas Biene: Exile journalism in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg . In: Hanno Hardt (Ed.): Press in Exile. Contributions to the communication history of the German exile 1933–1945 . (= Dortmund contributions to newspaper research, vol. 30). Saur, Munich 1979, p. 199.
16. ^ Eckard Holler: Left currents in the free bourgeois youth movement . In: Gedeon Botsch, Josef Haverkamp (Ed.): Youth Movement, Anti-Semitism and Right-Wing Politics. From the “Freideutschen Jugendtag” to the present . (= European-Jewish studies - contributions 13). De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Munich 2014, p. 189.
17. ↑ Thomas Bee: exile journalism in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg . In: Hanno Hardt (Ed.): Press in Exile. Contributions to the communication history of the German exile 1933–1945 . (= Dortmund contributions to newspaper research, vol. 30). Saur, Munich 1979, p. 194
18. ↑ Hellfeld, Bündische Jugend , pp. 184f.
19. ↑ Hellfeld, Bündische Jugend , p. 185.
20. ^ Fritz Schmidt: Another Germany. Resistance and persecution by Nazi organs; the circle around Hans Ebeling and Theo Hespers in exile. Achims Verl, Edermünde 2005, p. 94.