Combat League for German Culture

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The Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur ( KfdK ), which was initially called the National Socialist Society for German Culture ( NGDK ), was a nationally -minded, anti - Semitic and politically active association during the Weimar Republic and the National Socialist regime . The association, based in Munich , was founded in 1928 by the Nazi chief ideologist Alfred Rosenberg and was under his leadership until its dissolution in 1934. The aim of the association was to significantly shape cultural life in Germany, not least within the NSDAP . In 1934 the association was dissolved and merged with the Reichsverband “Deutsche Bühne” to form the National Socialist Kulturgemeinde (“NS-Kulturgemeinde”). The dissolution process was associated with the establishment of the "Rosenberg Office" (DRbg), later the " Rosenberg Office " (ARo).

Weimar Republic

Development process

The founding phase of the Kampfbund was closely related to the Nuremberg Party Congress of the NSDAP in August 1927. After the end of the party congress, the Völkische Beobachter announced the decision to found a cultural organization, which “by organizing lecture evenings in a social setting” promoted “National Socialist ideas in circles ... should wear ", which can generally not be captured by mass events."

A subsequent circular from Alfred Rosenberg, chief editor of the Völkischer Beobachter , to all leading party functionaries of the local groups of the NSDAP as well as to renowned representatives of the völkisch- national cultural scene in October 1927 shows that Hitler had commissioned him with the establishment.

In the letter, Rosenberg referred to his efforts to “win 20-30 best German names for being publicly named as sponsors of this cause.” He asked his party comrades at the local level for support in the search for all “somehow national well-known personalities in your city ”, who could be considered for material support and for company contracts.

The association was officially founded as the "National Socialist Society for German Culture" (NGDK) on January 4, 1928. The founders were, in addition to Rosenberg , the Reich Organizational Director of the NSDAP Gregor Strasser , Reich Managing Director Philipp Bouhler , Reich propaganda leader Heinrich Himmler , Reich Treasurer Franz Xaver Schwarz and the entrepreneur Wilhelm Weiß.

"Leader" of the NGDK was Rosenberg, Gotthard Urban , a friend of Baldur von Schirach, Reich Managing Director. Hans Buchner took over the management of the various departments - such as music, film and radio.

On December 19, 1928, the NGDK was renamed "Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur eV" (KfdK) and received statutes .

Models and enemies

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The city of Karlsruhe became a center of German tumbling currents through the Hans Thoma School . These were folk-minded groups who, in addition to their anti-Semitic tradition, had adopted an anti-capitalist orientation after 1918 and were interested in local art . Rainer Maria Rilke , Hugo von Hofmannsthal , and Max Liebermann were considered to be enemy images due to their supposedly “ internationalist ” ways of thinking ; The model was the rediscovered romantic Caspar David Friedrich . The first National Socialist iconoclasts were to come from the Kampfbund group in Karlsruhe under the leadership of Thomas' successor Hans Adolf Bühler and from Weimar.

The Kampfbund described itself as an amalgamation of all forces ready to "rebuild German culture" against the Weimar "November culture". That was a battle slogan: the contemporary theater was perceived as "profoundly vicious", the music as "degenerate", as a "jazzing verniggering". One turned against “degeneration”, “cultural decay”, “cultural Bolshevism”, “Americanism”, “dirt and trash”. The culture-pessimistic, culture-fighting defense of modernity also had a "clearly anti-Semitic note".

Pan- Germanic tendencies represented the supporters of a Greater German cultural imperialism , concentrated in and around the Pan-German Association , who had a strong anti-Semitic tradition. The Nordic peoples had a leadership mandate, their folklore should provide the cultural colonization factors. The expansion efforts were directed mainly to Eastern Europe. Paul de Lagarde , Houston Stewart Chamberlain , and Othmar Spann were the authors of these circles, whose chauvinism was widespread among the educated middle class.

Political goals

A founding appeal of the Kampfbund published in May 1928 with strong anti-Semitic and racist accents declared that one was facing a “political decline promoted by anti-grassroots forces”, which included a “systematic fight against all German cultural values”. “Non-racial literacy” has allied itself “with the waste of the big cities”. In the fight against the “bastardization and negation of our existence”, they want to bind strong-willed and self-sacrificing German men and women to support “species-conscious” newspapers and magazines, previously “suppressed” scholars and artists, to organize exhibitions and to influence the theater schedules to take. A list of well-known names who agreed to publicly support the founding shows the educational bourgeois orientation: eight of the eighteen sponsors were university professors, the others, mostly from the Richard Wagner circle, were publishers, theater managers, writers and pastors.

For a long time, the Kampfbund tried to maintain a formal distance from the party that led it. So it was not a member of the NSDAP, although the main archive of the NSDAP led it as an “organization within the NSDAP” and called it a “purely National Socialist foundation”. He described himself as a cultural-political institution “völkisch Kulturschaffender”, which “should collect all defenses against today's ruling powers of disintegration in the cultural field in Germany” and “gain ground for the idea of ​​Adolf Hitler in the cultural field”. Only since autumn 1932 does he seem to have openly identified himself as National Socialist, "although his party-political standpoint ... has long been no secret".

At the first public event of the Kampfbund in the University of Munich on February 23, 1929, at which Othmar Spann gave a lecture on The Cultural Crisis of the Present , Hitler and numerous supporters took part.

Members and sponsors

The number of members who were organized in so-called support points (local groups) rose in April 1929 from approx. 300 in 25 local groups to approx. 38,000 in 450 local groups in October 1933.

Among the members and supporters of the Kampfbund was everything that had rank and name in the extreme wing of the völkisch movement, such as the anti-Semitic literary historian Adolf Bartels , Ludwig Polland , Gustaf Kossinna and the physicist and Einstein opponent Philipp Lenard , the publishers Hugo Bruckmann and Julius Friedrich Lehmann , the leading personalities of the Bayreuth Society Winifred Wagner , Daniela Thode , Hans von Wolhaben and the widow Eva Chamberlain of the racial ideologist Houston Stewart Chamberlain , the composer Paul Graener , the writer and later president of the Reichsschrifttumskammer Hanns Johst , the architect Paul Schultze- Naumburg , who published the text Art and Race and spoke particularly often at events, Gustav Havemann (founder and director of the Kampfbund-Orchester), the general director a. D. Carl von Schirach , the federal leader of the paramilitary " Wehrwolf. Association of German Men and Front Warriors “ Fritz Kloppe and the theologian and musicologist Fritz Stein . Friedrich Krebs was the country manager for Hesse and Hesse-Nassau .

The academic members who joined the corporation included the German Burschenschaft , the German Landsmannschaft , the Representative Convent of the Gymnastics Associations at German Universities, the German Guild , the German Singers Association , the Association of Special Houses and the German University Ring .

Publications and political actions

From 1929 to 1931 the Kampfbund published the magazine Mitteilungen des Kampfbundes für deutsche Kultur . Enemies were cited in the “ Signs of the Times” rubric : Erich Kästner , Kurt Tucholsky , Thomas Mann , Bertolt Brecht , Walter Mehring , the Berlin Institute for Sexology , Paul Klee , Wassily Kandinsky , Kurt Schwitters , the Bauhaus , Emil Nolde , Karl Hofer , Max Beckmann and George Grosz are among the most frequently mentioned. The books by Ernst Toller , Arnold Zweig , Jakob Wassermann , Lion Feuchtwanger , Arnolt Bronnen , Leonhard Frank , Emil Ludwig and Alfred Neumann should not be allowed to use the term "German". A campaign was directed in 1930 against Ernst Barlach and the so-called "agitation" by Käthe Kollwitz . On the one hand, artists and writers gathered here who could not keep pace with the artistic and literary developments in the Weimar Republic; on the other hand, "countless pamphlets and press releases" included the categories of "German" and "un-German" literature early on, as they were implemented in demonstrative symbolism with the book burnings in May 1933.

In October 1932, the Deutsche Kultur-Wacht was established under the editorship of Hans Hinkel . She published sheets of the Kampfbund for German Culture , which was discontinued in 1933.

Various activities had a great supraregional response: In 1930 Hans Severus Ziegler , the KfdK's country manager, Hans Severus Ziegler , appointed by the National Socialist Thuringian Minister of the Interior and Culture, Wilhelm Frick, appointed the national architect Schultze-Naumburg as director of the Weimar company Bauhochschule and at the same time dismissed all lecturers of the Bauhaus style. He ordered the removal of the works of Otto Dix , Lyonel Feininger , Wassily Kandinsky , Paul Klee , Ernst Barlach , Oskar Kokoschka , Franz Marc , Emil Nolde and other artists considered “ degenerate ” from the exhibition rooms of the Weimar Castle Museum. He deleted the works of Paul Hindemith and Igor Stravinsky from state-subsidized concert programs . The works of Erich Maria Remarque and the films of Sergej Eisenstein , Wsewolod Illarionowitsch Pudowkin and Georg Wilhelm Pabst were banned .

At Pentecost 1930 the Kampfbund organized its first large youth conference in Weimar, which was under the patronage of Frick. For the first time, with reference to Weimar's “immortal spiritual heroes”, National Socialist leaders were introduced: Baldur von Schirach , Goebbels , Göring , Darré . A joint resolution called for “above all the strengthening of the German will to defend”, and for the arts it was said: “We call for resistance to all harmful influences on the people in the field of theater ... in literature and the fine arts ... against an alien architecture”.

Under the motto “It is not necessary that I live, but that I do my duty!”, The Kampfbund Whitsun 1931 organized a youth and culture conference in Potsdam , on the Rosenberg a lecture on “ Blood and Honor ”, “Race and personality ”, and Göring, pilot's captain, spoke on the subject of“ Willing to fight for culture ”.

time of the nationalsocialism

After the National Socialists and their German-national alliance partners came to power in 1933, local groups of the KfdK initially took part in the “Action against the un-German spirit”, which took place in May 1933 under the leadership of the German student body , during which “un-German” literature was removed from libraries and in public ritual book burnings .

Organizationally, the Kfdk forced the merger of the Association of Independent People's Theaters and the Bühnenvolksbund into a subsidiary organization, the Reichsverband Deutsche Bühne eV . Subsequently, it took over other professional associations.

In the competition for influence between Rosenberg, Goebbels and Robert Ley as the head of the DAF and their leisure facility “ Kraft durch Freude ”, KfdK and Reichsverband Deutsche Bühne merged on June 6, 1934 to form the “National Socialist Cultural Community” (NSKG) Immediately after the founding "corporately joined the organization 'Kraft durch Freude'". On the one hand, the Nazi cultural community should henceforth take the lead in shaping cultural life in the Nazi political community “strength through joy”; On the other hand, with this summary, Rosenberg connected the goal of taking over the program design for the art and cultural life supported by her within the framework of the entire NSDAP, especially with regard to youth organizations.

In the field of film, Deka-Film in Berlin belonged to the field of the Kampfbund . The abbreviation means "German Kampffilm".

literature

Historical background
  • Hildegard Brenner : The Art Policy of National Socialism (= Rowohlt's German Encyclopedia. 167/168, ZDB -ID 985674-2 ). Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1963.
  • Klaus Vondung : The Apocalypse in Germany (= dtv 4488). Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-423-04488-8 .
  • Jan-Pieter Barbian : Literary politics in the "Third Reich". Institutions, competencies, fields of activity (= dtv 4668). Revised and updated edition. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-423-04668-6 .
  • Wolfram Meyer zu Uptrup: Fight against the "Jewish World Conspiracy". Propaganda and anti-Semitism of the National Socialists 1919 to 1945 (= Technical University Berlin - Center for Research on Anti-Semitism. Series of documents, texts, materials. Vol. 46). Metropol, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-932482-83-2 (also: Berlin, Technical University, dissertation, 1998).
Sources / documents
  • Alfred Rosenberg: Appeal! In: The world struggle. Vol. 5, Mai-Heft, 1928, ZDB -ID 526158-2 , pp. 210-212.
  • National Socialist Propaganda in the Munich University. In: Frankfurter Zeitung. Abendblatt , dated February 25, 1929, ZDB -ID 1350381-9 , p. 2.
  • Blacklist for public libraries and commercial lending libraries. Combat League for German Culture - Reichsleitung, Berlin 1934, (typewritten), DNB .
Research / monographs
  • Reinhard Bollmus: The Rosenberg Office and its opponents. Studies on the power struggle in the National Socialist system of rule (= Studies on Contemporary History. Vol. 1, ZDB -ID 577009-9 ). Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1970, (At the same time: Heidelberg, Universität, Dissertation, 1968; 2nd edition with an afterword. Oldenbourg, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-486-54501-9 ), (A lot of information in a separate chapter and closely based on source material).
  • Frank Wende (Ed.): Lexicon on the history of parties in Europe. Kröner, Stuttgart 1981, ISBN 3-520-81001-8 .
  • Jürgen Gimmel: The political organization of cultural resentment. The "Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur" ( Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur) and the uneasiness of educated citizens about modernity (= series of scholarship holders of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. Vol. 10). Lit, Münster u. a. 2001, ISBN 3-8258-5418-3 (also: Siegen, Universität, Dissertation, 1999).
  • Harald Lönnecker : "... to gain ground for Adolf Hitler's idea in the cultural field". The “Combat League for German Culture” and the German academics. In: GDS archive for university and student history. Vol. 6, 2002, ISSN  0938-6173 , pp. 121-144, online (PDF; 183.5 kB) .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Piper: Combat League for German Culture (KfdK), 1928-1934 . In: Historical Lexicon of Bavaria:
  2. ↑ a b Reinhard Bollmus: The office of Rosenberg and its opponents . Studies on the power struggle in the National Socialist system of rule. Stuttgart 1970, pp. 19 and 27.
  3. ^ Jürgen Gimmel: The political organization of cultural resentment. The “Combat League for German Culture” and the uneasiness of educated citizens about modernity. Münster / Hamburg / London 1999, p. 13.
  4. ^ A b Jan-Pieter Barbian: Literary Policy in the "Third Reich" . Institutions, competencies, fields of activity, Nördlingen 1995, p. 56, ISBN 3-423-04668-6 (Source: BArch Potsdam, NS 8/122, Bl. 35–37; Landesarchiv NRW, Dept. Rhineland, RW 23/67 Bl 334–335; the letter bears the letterhead of the Völkischer Beobachter and was included in a circular from the Eher publishing house ).
  5. ^ Jürgen Gimmel: The political organization of cultural resentment. The “Combat League for German Culture” and the uneasiness of educated citizens about modernity. Münster / Hamburg / London 1999, p. 13.
  6. ↑ Reinhard Giersch, Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur, in: Dieter Fricke (Ed.), Lexicon for the history of parties. The bourgeois and petty bourgeois parties and associations in Germany (1789–1945). Vol. 3, Cologne 1985, pp. 169-171, here: p. 169.
  7. ↑ Willem de Vries: Art theft in the west 1940-1945 . Alfred Rosenberg and the Special Staff Music, Frankfurt a. M. 2000, p. 23, ISBN 3-596-14768-9 . (It is probably about the economist Hans Buchner (1896–1971), economic editor of the Völkischer Beobachter since 1923 , and the graphic artist and teacher Emil Rudolf Weiß . Research on this is still pending.)
  8. ↑ Jan-Pieter Barbian: Literary Policy in the "Third Reich" . Institutions, competencies, fields of activity, Nördlingen 1995, p. 56 f. (Source: BArch Potsdam, Ns8 / 122 Bl. 73–75.)
  9. ↑ All information according to: Harald Lönnecker: "... Gaining ground for Adolf Hitler's idea in the cultural field". The ›Combat League for German Culture‹ and the German academics . Frankfurt a. M. 2003, p. 4 f. Cf. also Lutz Felbick : The “high cultural assets of German music” and the “degenerate” - on the problem of the concept of the cultural orchestra . In: Zeitschrift für Kulturmanagement , 2/2015, pp. 85–115.
  10. ↑ Reinhard Bollmus: The office of Rosenberg and its opponents. Studies on the power struggle in the National Socialist system of rule . Stuttgart 1970, Munich / Oldenbourg 2006, 2nd edition, p. 27; Jürgen Gimmel: The political organization of cultural resentment. The “Combat League for German Culture” and the uneasiness of educated citizens about modernity . Münster / Hamburg / London 1999, p. 15; Reinhard Giersch: Kampfbund for German culture . In: Dieter Fricke (Hrsg.): Lexicon for the history of parties. The bourgeois and petty bourgeois parties and associations in Germany (1789-1945) . Vol. 3, Cologne 1985, pp. 169-171, here: p. 169.
  11. ↑ Hildegard Brenner: The Art Policy of National Socialism . Reinbek near Hamburg 1963, DNB
  12. ↑ Self-descriptions according to: Harald Lönnecker: "... to gain ground for the idea of ​​Adolf Hitler in the cultural field". The “Combat League for German Culture” and the German academics . Frankfurt a. M. 2003, p. 1.
  13. ↑ Reinhard Giersch: Kampfbund for German culture . In: Dieter Fricke (Hrsg.): Lexicon for the history of parties. The bourgeois and petty bourgeois parties and associations in Germany (1789-1945) . Vol. 3, Cologne 1985, pp. 169-171, here: p. 16.
  14. ↑ Reinhard Bollmus: The office of Rosenberg and its opponents. Studies on the power struggle in the National Socialist system of rule . Stuttgart 1970, Munich / Oldenbourg 2006, 2nd edition, p. 28.
  15. ↑ Reinhard Giersch: Kampfbund for German culture . In: Dieter Fricke (Hrsg.): Lexicon for the history of parties. The bourgeois and petty bourgeois parties and associations in Germany (1789-1945) . Vol. 3, Cologne 1985, pp. 169-171, here: p. 169.
  16. ↑ Reinhard Giersch: Kampfbund for German culture . In: Dieter Fricke (Hrsg.): Lexicon for the history of parties. The bourgeois and petty bourgeois parties and associations in Germany (1789-1945) . Vol. 3, Cologne 1985, pp. 169-171, here: p. 169.
  17. ^ Deutsche Kulturwacht of November 4, 1933.
  18. ↑ Harald Lönnecker: "... to gain ground for Adolf Hitler's idea in the cultural field". The “Combat League for German Culture” and the German academics . Frankfurt a. M. 2003, p. 3.
  19. ^ Clemens Zimmermann: The book burning on May 17, 1933 in Heidelberg. Students and Politics at the End of the Weimar Republic . In: Joachim-Felix Leonhard (Ed.): Book burning. Censorship, prohibition, extermination under National Socialism in Heidelberg . Heidelberg 1983, pp. 55-84, here: p. 71.
  20. ↑ Reinhard Giersch: Kampfbund for German culture . In: Dieter Fricke (Hrsg.): Lexicon for the history of parties. The bourgeois and petty bourgeois parties and associations in Germany (1789-1945) . Vol. 3, Cologne 1985, pp. 169-171, here: p. 170.
  21. ↑ So in Erlangen, Hanover, Heidelberg, Königsberg, Nuremberg, Würzburg, see: Hans-Wolfgang Strätz: The spiritual SA moves in. The student “Action Against the Un-German Spirit” in spring 1933 . In: Ulrich Walberer (Ed.): May 10, 1933. Book burning in Germany and the consequences . Frankfurt a. M. 1983, pp. 84-114, here: pp. 101 f .; Gerhard Sauder (Ed.): The book burning. May 10, 1933 . Munich / Vienna 1983, pp. 188, 196, 198, 200, 206, 213.
  22. ↑ Reinhard Giersch, Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur, in: Dieter Fricke (Ed.), Lexicon for the history of parties. The bourgeois and petty bourgeois parties and associations in Germany (1789–1945). Vol. 3, Cologne 1985, pp. 169–171, here: p. 171.
  23. ^ Jürgen Gimmel: The political organization of cultural resentment. The “Combat League for German Culture” and the uneasiness of educated citizens about modernity . Münster / Hamburg / London 1999, p. 108 ff.

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