Hans Reupke

Johannes "Hans" Karl Eduard Reupke (born July 23, 1892 in Saargemünd , † November 20, 1942 in Dijon ) was a German lawyer , economic functionary and journalist.

Life

Reupke was the son of the building officer Gustav Reupke and his wife Hedwig, nee Keye. In his youth he attended elementary school in Saargemünd and then high schools in Strasbourg and Altkirch. He then studied law in Freiburg im Breisgau and Strasbourg until the outbreak of the First World War . In Freiburg he became a member of the Franconia Freiburg fraternity in the winter semester of 1911/12 .

At the beginning of the First World War , Reupke reported as a volunteer. After just a few weeks, in October 1914, he was captured by the French in Langermarck, from which he was able to flee to Spain. In 1919 he returned to Germany. He finished his studies and came in 1920 as a trainee lawyer at the American Department of the Foreign Office. In the meantime he made his assessor and in 1927 became in-house counsel and lawyer of the Reich Association of German Industry (RdI).

In the early 1930s, Reupke began to excel as a publicist on economic issues. Reupke spoke out in favor of an economic system based on the model of Italian fascism, in which the model of state economic control based on private property should be transferred to the German Reich. Consequently, in 1931 he became a member of the Society for the Study of Fascism .

In May 1930 Reupke joined the NSDAP (membership number 388.027). In 1931 he also became a member of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the task force of the NSDAP. Within the party, Reupke soon made contact with the Strasser group. During the internal party crisis of the NSDAP in autumn 1932, Reupke advocated the course of the Strasser group, which in contrast to the "radicals" around Hitler and Goebbels - who called for full government power to be transferred to the NSDAP - advocated a compromise solution who would give up the NSDAP in a coalition cabinet of the chancellor post and the full power of government in order to be content with a few ministerial posts. This attitude led in December 1932 to a deep rift between Reupke and the Berlin Gauleiter Goebbels. After a serious clash between the two, Goebbels instituted party court proceedings before the investigation and arbitration committee of the Gaus Berlin, which in February 1933 ordered Reupke's exclusion from the NSDAP. As a result, there was a lengthy opposition procedure before the Supreme Party Court of the NSDAP, which in 1935 ruled Reupke's final exclusion from the party. In 1939, however, Hitler personally granted Reupke's petition for re-entry into the NSDAP, so that he became a party member again at the end of 1939.

After the National Socialists came to power in the spring of 1933, Reupke largely withdrew from politics and concentrated on his business activities. Nevertheless, he was arrested by the Gestapo in 1934 in connection with the intensified crackdown on the Strasser supporters and subsequently held in protective custody for more than six months.

In 1933 Reupke received a position as head of department in the Reichsstand of German industry. In 1936 he went to Magdeburg as managing director of the industrial department at the Middle Elbe Chamber of Commerce. In 1937 he also became general manager of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Magdeburg and the Middle Elbe Chamber of Commerce.

During the Second World War , Reupke worked in the German military administration in France. He was murdered by partisans in Dijon at the end of 1942 .

The economic system of fascism

In his well-known book "The Economic System of Fascism", Reupke described fascism as a "pathfinder of the capitalist system" with the task of "completely destroying and replacing the class concept that permeates the modern world". He wrote that fascism does not want to abolish private property of the entrepreneur, on the contrary, defend against the attacks of socialism. Fascism brings a new economic order which, while maintaining the ownership of the means of production, offers a “systematic organization of the economy” and thus “eclectically combines the advantages of the individual and collective economy”.

Reupke sent a copy of the book to Hitler , in whose acknowledgment of July 30, 1930 Hitler wrote:

"By spreading it in business circles, you undoubtedly benefited the movement"

The Club of Berlin also actively promoted the spread of Reupke's writing. In 1930 and 1931, August Heinrichsbauer used company funds to finance study trips by Reupke and Edgar Julius Jung to Italy .

Fonts

• Captured in France, fled to Spain. Experiences of a war volunteer . 1916.
• The legal position of the works council members on the supervisory board . 1922. (dissertation)
• The economic system of fascism. The Fascist Economy: An Experiment of the Planned Economy on a Private Capitalist Basis . Berlin 1930.
• National Socialism and the Economy . Berlin 1931.

literature

• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Volume 8: Supplement L – Z. Winter, Heidelberg 2014, ISBN 978-3-8253-6051-1 , pp. 188-189.
• Daniela Kahn: The control of the economy by law in National Socialist Germany. The example of the Reichsgruppe Industrie . Klostermann 2006, p. 521.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Military History Journal , 2003, Vol. 62, p. 88.
2. ^ Ernst Elsheimer (ed.): Directory of the old fraternity members according to the status of the winter semester 1927/28. Frankfurt am Main 1928, p. 413.
3. ↑ Kilian Steiner: Ortsempfänger, Volksfernseher und Optaphon: the development of the German radio and television industry and the Loewe company, 1923-1962 . 2005, p. 219.
4. ↑ Quotation from Fritz Fischer : Alliance of Elites . Düsseldorf 1979, p. 68.
5. ↑ Reupke, Wirtschaftssystem, p. 112.
6. ↑ Klaus-Peter Hoepke: The German right and Italian fascism . Droste 1968, p. 181.
7. ↑ Ulrike Hörster-Philipps : Big Capital, Weimar Republic and Fascism . In: Reinhard Kühnl , Gerd Hardach (ed.): The destruction of the Weimar Republic . Cologne 1977, p. 80.
8. ↑ Manfred Wichmann: The Society for the Study of Fascism in: Werner Röhr (Ed.): Bulletin for Fascism and World War Research 31/32, Berlin 2008, p. 93.

Web links

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