Hermann Ehrhardt

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Hermann Ehrhardt (around 1916)
Hermann Ehrhardt ( x ) at the Kapp Putsch in Berlin in 1920, second from the right Herbert von Bose

Hermann Ehrhardt (born November 29, 1881 in Diersburg , † September 27, 1971 in Brunn am Walde ) was a German naval officer and anti-Semitic , German national , anti - republic free corps leader and putsch is during the Weimar Republic . Ehrhardt was initially one of the best-known Freikorps leaders of the years after the First World War , as the leader of the Ehrhardt Marine Brigade named after him . The brigade took part in the struggle against the installation of a parliamentary democracy in the November Revolution and was later one of the main actors against this very republic during the Kapp Putsch of March 1920. After the forced dissolution, Ehrhardt founded the Consul organization from the remains of his unit , which numerous committed politically motivated femicide .

Life

Youth and First World War

Ehrhardt was born into a pastor's family. Because he had slapped his class teacher out of an injured sense of honor when he was in primary school, he had to leave the grammar school in Lörrach and joined the Imperial Navy in 1899 as a midshipman . There Ehrhardt completed a career as a naval officer, during which he took part in the suppression of the Herero uprising in German South West Africa under Lieutenant Colonel Ludwig von Estorff in 1904 as a lieutenant at sea .

At the beginning of the First World War, Ehrhardt was captain lieutenant in charge of the 20th torpedo boat half flotilla. In the Battle of the Skagerrak his group (since February 1915 17th torpedo boat semi-flotilla) took part in the sinking of the English 1000-ton destroyer HMS Nomad , but lost the guide boat V 27 herself . Ehrhardt's semi-flotilla was relocated to Flanders in October 1916 and from there made advances into the English Channel to secure submarines. In 1917 Ehrhardt was promoted to Korvettenkapitän , in September of that year he became chief of the IX. Torpedo boat flotilla and remained in this role until the end of the war. At the end of the war, he led his unit to Scapa Flow , where it sank itself in 1919. Ehrhardt had already returned to Wilhelmshaven on a transport ship with most of the former crews. When his crew mutinied in the face of the dangerous mine barrier off the German coast and refused to continue, Hermann Ehrhardt took command by force and brought the ship safely to Wilhelmshaven.

Marine Brigade Ehrhardt

After the end of the war, Ehrhardt returned to Wilhelmshaven , where Bernhard Kuhnt was now the first president of the newly founded Free State of Oldenburg . On January 27, 1919, the communists proclaimed the “Council Republic of Wilhelmshaven”. Ehrhardt gathered around 300 men, mostly professional soldiers , and with them stormed the 1,000-man barracks , the headquarters of the revolutionary sailors. The resistance quickly collapsed under the use of boat cannons. Now the establishment of a volunteer formation has been pushed forward.

On February 17, 1919, the formation of the II Marine Brigade Wilhelmshaven was completed. From March 1st it was named after its leader, the Marine Brigade Ehrhardt. It was divided (at the time of its deployment in Munich in April / May 1919) into the officer storm company, the Wilhelmshaven company , the naval regiments 3 and 4, a flamethrower platoon , the 1st and 2nd mine throwing company, the 1st and 2nd pioneer companies as well as a battery of light field howitzers (caliber 10.5 cm) and a battery of field cannons (caliber 7.7 cm) . The total strength at that time was about 1,500 men.

After advertising, assembly and training had been completed, the brigade received the order in April 1919 to take action against the revolution in Braunschweig under the command of General Georg Maercker . The Freikorps did not oppose any resistance, the leaders of the revolution fled.

The 37-year-old Ehrhardt was not ready to recognize defeat, revolution and the new rulers. With his free corps he had created the means to express this will. Ehrhardt's brigade struck down riots right across Central Germany, and on April 30, 1919, in Oberschleissheim, to assault the Munich Soviet Republic . The allied Freikorps proceeded with all brutality against the insurgent workers. By May 2, the fighting was essentially over. In June the brigade was deployed in Berlin against a traffic strike, in August against the first Polish uprising in Upper Silesia . Towards the end of 1919, the troops were replenished with returnees from former Baltic units, so that they grew to around 4,000 men. Ehrhardt and his men spent the turn of the year 1919/20 resting on the Döberitz military training area near Berlin. This rest period was used, among other things, for political lectures; the Ehrhardt Marine Brigade radicalized. Ehrhardt began to plan the “March on Berlin”.

Ehrhardt (Berlin, March 13, 1920)

With General Walther von Lüttwitz , since March 1919 Commander in Chief of the Berlin Reichswehr Group Command I, and the politician Wolfgang Kapp , two men were found who were determined to reverse the results of the revolution. After the Reich government had already decided at the beginning of March 1920 to dissolve the Ehrhardt Marine Brigade and other volunteer corps under pressure from the Allies, who monitored the fulfillment of the Versailles Peace Treaty , it was now ready to take action against the government. On March 12th, Finance Minister Matthias Erzberger , who was hated by right-wing extremists, resigned, which gave the anti-democratic movement an additional boost. Lüttwitz protested against the dissolution of the Freikorps by demanding the resignation of the Reich President and the Reich government. He was then released. The Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch began on March 13, 1920: Lüttwitz headed the Ehrhardt Marine Brigade and occupied the Berlin government district with it .

However, the Reich government around President Friedrich Ebert and Reich Chancellor Gustav Bauer avoided Dresden for one day and then to Stuttgart for four days . A general strike and passive waiting on the part of public authorities caused the already hastily planned coup to fail. Substantial sections of the Reichswehr were behind the putschists. The workers went on strike completely, the Kapp clique drafted a few more leaflets, but they had to give up on March 17th. The naval brigade marched back to Döberitz. On March 30, 1920, Corvette Captain Hermann Ehrhardt took on the last parade of his Freikorps. He himself was honorably discharged from the Imperial Navy on September 10 ; the Ehrhardt Marine Brigade had already been disbanded on May 31. An arrest warrant was issued against Ehrhardt, but he was able to evade it by fleeing to Munich, where he was initially no longer prosecuted.

Organization Consul, Bund Wiking and contacts to the NSDAP

After the end of the Ehrhardt Marine Brigade, parts of the Freikorps soldiers were integrated into the regular Reichswehr . The rest of the unit was formed in the fall of 1920 to form the Consul Organization , a right-wing underground organization that attracted attention with assassinations. The murders of former Finance Minister Matthias Erzberger (August 26, 1921) and Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau (June 24, 1922) and the attempted murder of former Prime Minister Philipp Scheidemann (June 4, 1922) were planned and committed by former Ehrhardt officers. Following the murder of Erzberger, Ehrhardt fled to Hungary before being arrested. In the absence of its leader, the Consul organization disintegrated and was banned on July 21, 1922 by the Republic Protection Act. Otto Pittinger , the leader of the moderate right-wing Bund Bayern und Reich , took the opportunity and tried to win the Ehrhardt Group over and de-radicalize it. This is how the so-called New German Bund was formed , which tried to bundle the old fighters of the Ehrhardt Brigade. Ehrhardt himself, returning from exile, also joined the development, but was finally arrested in November 1922.

Out of prison in 1923 Ehrhardt instructed the loyal lieutenant captain Eberhard Kautter to reorganize the New German Confederation . After the reform it became the Bund Wiking , which operated throughout the empire and, according to its own information, had around 10,000 members. In July 1923 Ehrhardt fled his custody to Switzerland, until he returned to Munich on September 29th. As a supporter of the conservative group around State Commissioner General Gustav Ritter von Kahr , Ehrhardt turned on the 8th / 9th. November 1923 against the Hitler-Ludendorff putsch . Ehrhardt pulled his troops - consisting mainly of formations of the Bund Wiking - together in Upper Franconia and was ready to march against Hitler . But that didn't happen because the coup failed in Munich.

Ehrhardt had contact with Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist movement very early on . When Ernst Röhm was looking for experienced men to set up his Sturmabteilung (SA) who could lead the new association, he turned to Ehrhardt. Initially, however, he did not want to have anything to do with Hitler and scolded: "God, what does the idiot want again?" Finally, however, he was persuaded by Röhm and handed several of his men over to Hitler. The lieutenant of the organization Consul Hans Ulrich Klintzsch became head of the SA, the Ehrhardt man Alfred Hoffmann became chief of staff. However, only two months later Ehrhardt ended his connection with the Hitler movement and the SA and also withdrew some of his men.

Arnold Rechberg's estate includes a letter from Ehrhardt dated January 1930, in which he asked Rechberg to provide him with industrial funds, as well as a receipt from April 1930 that Rechberg gave him 4,500 Reichsmarks.

descent

After the coup in 1923, Ehrhardt lost his reputation among right-wing extremists in Munich. He was considered a traitor for having turned against Hitler. The Wiking Association also lost its importance. In April 1924 Ehrhardt fled again from the German Reich to Austria from criminal prosecution and returned in October 1926 after an amnesty from the new Reich President Paul von Hindenburg . In the meantime, the Bund Wiking had lost so much of its importance that Ehrhardt felt compelled to start negotiations with the Stahlhelm , in which the Bund was to be incorporated. These negotiations also failed and on April 27, 1928 the Bund Wiking was finally dissolved.

Ehrhardt family grave
Brunn am Wald Castle

The "following" founded by Ehrhardt together with Hartmut Plaas in 1931 reunited 2000 of his supporters as well as disappointed National Socialists and Communists who wanted to prevent Hitler from taking power and above all denounced the demagoguery of the NSDAP . In the same year Ehrhardt maintained relationships with Otto Strasser and the left wing of the NSDAP, but nothing further resulted for him. In 1933 Ehrhardt had his residence on the former estate of Count von Bredow in Kleßen , Westhavelland, which he had acquired. On June 28, 1933 the “Westhavelländische Tageszeitung” reported: “Captain Ehrhardt is committed to the NSDAP”, the SS Reich leadership announced. He would have “personally joined the party” “and with his military association, the Ehrhardt Brigade, submitted to the Reichsführer SS”. The "Ehrhardt Brigade in the Association of the SS" only existed for a short time. After Ehrhardt had been promoted to SS-Gruppenführer in the second half of January 1934, SS-Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler dissolved the association on February 1, 1934 . Apparently Ehrhardt's life was also in danger: together with many other old opponents of Hitler, he was supposed to be murdered in the course of the suppression of the alleged Röhm putsch in June / July 1934. However, he fled in good time from the SS to a forest near his estate, and later to Switzerland . In 1936 he went to Austria, where he ran the manorial estate in Brunn am Wald in the Krems an der Donau district and lived with his family at Brunn am Wald Castle. The Kleßen estate was sold in 1937. In the following years he lived as a farmer and was no longer politically or militarily active until his death in 1971.

On August 13, 1927 Ehrhardt married Margarethe Viktoria Princess zu Hohenlohe-Öhringen (1894–1976) in Neuruppin . The marriage had two children, Marie Elisabeth and Hermann Georg. Ehrhardt became an Austrian citizen in 1948. Ehrhardt and his wife Margarethe are buried in the community cemetery in Lichtenau in the Waldviertel .

Publications

  • Germany's future. Tasks and goals. JF Lehmann, Munich 1921.
  • Captain Ehrhardt. Adventures and destinies. Retold. Edited by Friedrich Freksa . August Scherl, Berlin 1924.

literature

  • Hannsjoachim W. Koch: The German Civil War. A History of the German and Austrian Freikorps 1918–1923 . 2nd Edition. Ullstein, Munich 1977; Edition Antaios , Dresden 2002, ISBN 3-935063-12-1 .
  • Gabriele Krüger: The Ehrhardt Brigade. Leibniz-Verlag, Hamburg 1971, ISBN 3-87473-003-4 .
  • Hans Mommsen : Rise and Fall of the Republic of Weimar. 1918-1933 . 2nd Edition. Ullstein , Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-548-26581-2 , see here p. 735 (register).
  • Matthias Sprenger: Landsknechte on the way to the Third Reich? On the genesis of the change in the Freikorps myth . Schöningh, Paderborn 2008, ISBN 978-3-506-76518-5 .
  • Gerhard Wiechmann: War, crises, revolutions: military, police and resident services in Oldenburg 1914 to 1935. An overview . In: Udo Ehlert (Ed.): From the vigilante to the armed forces. On the history of the garrison and the military in the city of Oldenburg . Isensee Verlag, Oldenburg 2006, ISBN 3-89995-353-3 , pp. 65–92 (see here the connections between Hermann Ehrhardt and the Junglandbund Elsfleth approx. 1926 until its dissolution in 1933).
  • John Koster: Hermann Ehrhardt: The Man Hitler Wasn't , Idle Winter Press, Portland 2018, ISBN 1-94568-705-3

Movies

  • Walther Rathenau - Investigation of an assassination attempt (ARD / SDR October 18, 1967, director: Franz Peter Wirth ), with Rolf Boysen in the role of Ehrhardt.
  • The counter-revolution - the Kapp-Lüttwitz-Putsch ( BR 2011, director: Bernd Fischerauer ), with Michael Roll in the role of Ehrhardt.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfram Wette : The Wehrmacht - Enemy Images War of Extermination Legends ; S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-7632-5267-3 , p. 58
  2. ^ Gabriele Krüger: The Ehrhardt Brigade. Hamburg 1971, ISBN 3-87473-003-4 , p. 24.
  3. ^ Gabriele Krüger: The Ehrhardt Brigade. Hamburg 1971, ISBN 3-87473-003-4 , pp. 25f.
  4. ↑ On the Kapp Putsch cf. Mommsen, Rise and Fall of the Republic of Weimar , p. 110; Eberhard Kolb , The Weimar Republic . 6th, revised and expanded edition, Oldenbourg, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-486-49796-0 , p. 40 f.
  5. ^ Heinrich August Winkler , Geschichte des Westens, Die Zeit der Weltkriege 1914–1945, 3rd edition 2016, p. 279, CH Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-59236-2
  6. ↑ Quoted from Heinz Höhne , The Order under the Skull. The history of the SS , Mohn, Gütersloh 1967, p. 22.
  7. ↑ indictment of ORA against Alfred Hoffmann and others (12 J 190/22) of 16 May 1924 the State Archives Friborg, inventory Landgericht Offenburg, no. 150
  8. ↑ On Ehrhardt's contacts with the SA cf. Höhne, The Order under the Skull , pp. 22–24.
  9. ^ Andreas Dornheim : Röhm's husband for abroad. Politics and assassination of the SA agent Georg Bell . Münster 1998. p. 37.
  10. ^ Marie Luise Rohde, Klessen , Palaces and Gardens of the Mark, Issue 107, 2009, ISBN 978-3-941675-07-0 , page 3
  11. ^ Susanne Meinl : National Socialists against Hitler. The national revolutionary opposition around Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz. Siedler Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-88680-613-8 , pp. 228-230.
  12. ↑ See Höhne, Der Orden unter dem Totenkopf , p. 115.
  13. ^ Marie Luise Rohde, Klessen , Palaces and Gardens of the Mark, Issue 107, 2009, ISBN 978-3-941675-07-0 , page 3
  14. ^ Marie Luise Rohde, Klessen , Palaces and Gardens of the Mark, Issue 107, 2009, ISBN 978-3-941675-07-0 , page 3
  15. ↑ The counter-revolution - the Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch . In: BR-alpha . May 20, 2011.
  16. ^ Counterrevolution: The Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch 1920 on YouTube (the whole film, 90 minutes).
personal data
SURNAME Ehrhardt, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German military and free corps leaders
DATE OF BIRTH November 29, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Diersburg
DATE OF DEATH September 27, 1971
Place of death Well at the forest