Kurt Hesse

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Kurt Hesse (disambiguation) .

Kurt Hesse (born December 6, 1894 in Kiel , † January 19, 1976 in Bad Homburg in front of the height ) was a German officer , military writer and economist .

Hesse became known in the early 1920s through various publications, in particular through his writing Der Feldherr Psychologos. A Search for the Leader of the German Future (1922), known. In it he tried to draw lessons from the alleged lack of leadership and insufficient war propaganda of the First World War in order to be able to win a coming war. The name he got from it paved the way for him to an influential position within the Wehrmacht propaganda during the Nazi era .

After the start of the Second World War, Hesse ran from autumn 1939, the Department of the Army propaganda within the Office Group Wehrmacht propaganda of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW). In addition, he was a lecturer in war history at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin , from 1940 as an adjunct professor . He had to give up his position as head of the Army Propaganda Department in March 1941 after a conflict with Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels . He was reassigned to his previous position as a consultant for the Army Education Inspectorate (HBI) at the Army High Command (OKH) and in October 1941 his highest rank was that of a colonel .

After the war, from 1949 to 1951, Hesse headed a department in Ludwig Erhard's Ministry of Economics. Then he was a lecturer in economics, first at the Academy for World Trade in Frankfurt, then at the University of Marburg , which appointed him honorary professor for foreign economic issues. Here he taught and published in particular on the economic situation in developing countries and development aid . From the 1920s to the 1960s, Hesse had an influence on the intellectual orientation of the offspring of officers in the Reichswehr , Wehrmacht and the Bundeswehr , but in which he was unable to assert himself against generals like Wolf von Baudissin , who wanted a democratic orientation based on the principle of internal leadership represented.

Life

Education, World War I, inter-war period, journalistic work

Kurt Hesse was the son of the architect Walter Hesse and his wife Emma, ​​nee Mooshake. He attended humanistic grammar schools in Magdeburg, Berlin and Potsdam. After taking the Abitur examination in 1913, he joined the Prussian Army and from August 1914 took part in the First World War as a lieutenant in Grenadier Regiment 5 in East Prussia . The panic experienced by units of the XVII in the Battle of Gumbinnen Army Corps is said to have created the motivation for his later activity as a military writer. From autumn 1915 he participated in the battles in France at the Somme , the Vimy -height, the Siegfried Line in St. Quentin and at the Arrasfront and in Flanders part. Later he was a company commander and regimental adjutant under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Erwin von Witzleben . By the end of the war, Hesse was wounded several times and acquired high military awards , including the Iron Cross I and II Class , the Hohenzollers House Order with Swords and, due to the five wounds he suffered in the war, the Golden Wound Badge . In September 1917 he was promoted to first lieutenant.

After the war, Hesse remained in military service and studied economics, history and philosophy at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin from 1921 to 1924 as a member of the Reichswehr , where he received his doctorate in 1924 with a study on the military armaments of the European powers . Already at the end of the war and later parallel to his studies, he published military-political writings in large numbers. According to Klaus Naumann , he conjured up the model of the “political soldier”. The aim was to achieve a self-image of the “soldier's profession” that went beyond the apolitical competencies of the planner and combatant in uniform, a “new soldier” who is at the center of the interface between the German state, empire and nation. Hesse was one of the founders and long-time employees of the military magazine Wissen und Wehr, which existed from 1920 to 1944 . There he wrote on topics such as technology and the effects of weapons, the war economy and questions of defense psychology. He was a member of the German Society for Defense Policy and Defense Sciences , which published this magazine, and in the framework of which he distinguished himself with investigations into moral and economic problems of modern warfare.

Writings Feldherr Psychologos and From the near era of the "Young Army"

His volume Der Feldherr Psychologos , published in 1922 . A search for the leader of the German future is seen as a prototypical attempt to learn lessons from the alleged lack of leadership and insufficient war propaganda of the First World War in order to win a coming war. This work later secured him an influential position within the Wehrmacht propaganda. In it, Hesse implored the need for a "Führer" to pool the soldiers' psychological resources. Based on Gustave Le Bon's main work Psychology of the Masses as well as Carl von Clausewitz 's teachings and his own defense psychological considerations, he tried to determine the importance of psychological factors for the ideal military leader and his connection to the “mass”. Hesse wrote:

“He is the leader; everyone cheers him; everyone obeys him too. And why? Because he exercises a peculiar power: He is a ruler of souls. And that's why he is also called the General Psychologos. "

Wilhelm Deist , long-time senior historian at the Military History Research Office , emphasizes that in addition to the “visionary […] accurate characterization of future developments”, “it is remarkable how, as with Hesse, the problem of motivation and discipline, which was initially entirely related to the soldiers and the army, unites the nation comprehensive solution experiences ”. In this publication, Hesse regards “a charismatic leader of the people” as a decisive factor for the militarization of nation and society that he believes is necessary for a promising warfare. Ultimately, under National Socialism , the “' Führer ' [took over] the function of the general psychologist, as Hesse had characterized it”.

In July 1924, Hesse resigned from the military for a year, initially to travel around the world with Henning von Tresckow, who later became a resistance fighter . In addition, he wanted to concentrate more on the publication of his military publications. In his memoir, Der Geist von Potsdam , Hesse writes that beyond this unforgettable trip around the world he was on friendly terms with von Tresckow, with great mutual respect.

In his work From the near era of the “Young Army” (1925), Hesse proclaimed a reform of the army in the field of education, training and training. On the one hand, this should distance itself more strongly from pacifism, which must be resolutely fought as "corrosive". On the other hand, a renewal of military education by focusing on the outstanding importance of military combat should be sought. Hesse developed the image of a "professional soldier" representing the "defense concept" as a "political worldview", which had to understand that wars "today are no longer just a matter of operational-technical thinking", but also on the "home front", the Connection of soldiers and people, would be decided. According to the historian Wolfram Pyta, on the other hand, the analysis does not focus on "uncritical belief in the supposed genius of military leaders [...], but rather on promoting the soldier's" personality development and cognitive training. Pyta refers to Hesse's claim that it is about "not just fighting with technical means, also thinking in them". Hesse's writings were not only widely read and discussed, but were also highly praised in the relevant military magazines and evaluated for the standard work of the Reichsarchiv on the First World War.

The military pedagogue Claus von Rosen sees Hesse's writings after the First World War as an attempt at a “conservative revolution in military education” in line with the guiding principle of the spokesman for this conservative revolution , Moeller van den Bruck : “Conservative is to create things that are worth keeping . “Hesse implemented this insofar as he tried not only to win the military-influenced bourgeoisie for a new nationalism, but to define this new nationalism in a totalitarian way. He had envisaged the integration of the “masses” in one of a strong leadership in harmony with this particular society, in which “the fate of state and society should ultimately be placed in the hands of the soldier”. A “missionary-political approach” that was not based on rational analysis, but was supposed to make the soldiers fit in the socially Darwinist understanding of “peoples wrestling with war as a positive cultural moment” and based on positive affects instead of intentional learning, was constitutive of Hesse's military education idea. This consistently aimed at "incapacitation and massification" and ultimately led to the "people in arms" up to the "last contingent in the people's storm of total war".

Reception at army command and military career until 1930

The chief of the Army Command, Colonel-General Hans von Seeckt , had him present him, but did not like Hesse's theses. His successor, Colonel General Wilhelm Heye, on the other hand, even asked Hesse whether he would like to write his biography. In 1928, Hesse was asked to write the introductory basic chapter for the new guideline for instruction and education in the army , which was praised by the military office, but was probably not published in the end - as can be seen from the marginal notes to the manuscript - because individual passages were too conservative .

Hesse continued his military career after the publication of his book From the near era of the “Young Army” in the summer of 1925 as a captain and company commander of the 5th Company of Infantry Regiment 2 in Rastenburg, before he was commanded for the third year of training as a pilot's assistant in 1928 . A severe eye disease that began in 1928 made a career as a troop or general staff officer impossible. From 1930 onwards, Hesse was placed in a position specially created for him at the Army Training Inspectorate (HBI) and taught war history at the Army officers' schools. He owed this function to the advocacy of Colonel General Heye.

During National Socialism until 1939

Scientific career

Despite the halt in his career in the narrower military sense, for example as a general staff officer, Hesse was promoted to major retired in 1933 . D. promoted. On a scientific level , he completed his habilitation in 1934 at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin with the later resistance fighter Constantin von Dietze with a thesis on the interrelationships between operational and economic warfare, illustrated by the development of the German oil industry from summer 1916 to autumn 1917 , which thematized the importance of the development of the Romanian oil wells. He was now a lecturer in war history at the Berlin University, from 1940 as an adjunct professor .

Frießner's consultant in the Army Training Inspectorate

In parallel to his lectureship at the University of Berlin, Hesse worked from the mid-1930s at the Army Education Inspectorate as a consultant for the school system and the army school officers. Alongside his boss Johannes Frießner, Hesse is considered to be the “second essential pillar of the intensifying military school policy” and intended to present an overall presentation of the education system since 1933 from a military point of view, entitled “School and science in the service of German national defense” before the war "And should begin with a chapter on" the defensive influence on schools and science ". It didn't come back to her. But he worked as the principal staff Frieß agent at the in the central organ of the National Socialist Teachers Association (NSLB) The German educator in 1939 publicized post School and National Defense with, which was created as a kind of "curriculum" and called for a strengthening of school military training.

Bestseller Mein Hauptmann

He was also active in the 1930s as a military writer, as the author of works in which the “total conscription” determined by the “Führer” was propagated as the climax of “Prussian-German soldierhood”. The most powerful of these writings is his report Mein Hauptmann (1938), which has sold over 70,000 times . In it he shows his path from the rather naive lieutenant, who was still drawn into battle with his saber drawn, through the company commander to the adjutant of his regimental commander Erwin von Witzleben. According to his own statements, his portrayal was about “the military youth to bring the simplest knowledge, d. H. to see what the officer's sense of honor, loyalty in the Germanic sense, soldierly duty, external and internal discipline, comradeship and other things mean ”.

In World War II

Head of the Army Propaganda Department

In November 1939, Hesse became head of the Army Propaganda Department in the Wehrmacht Propaganda Office Group of the Wehrmacht High Command. With the support of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch , he tried to turn this department into an independent propaganda department that was independent of the Wehrmacht High Command and Goebbels. These efforts displeased Goebbels and the head of the Wehrmacht Propaganda Office Group in the OKW, Colonel Hasso von Wedel , as did Hesse's propaganda efforts to make von Brauchitsch the most important military hero of the Wehrmacht after the victory against France in 1940. The volume published and co-authored by Hesse About battlefields forward! With the victorious army through France in 1940 , an initial print run of 50,000 was launched in 1940 and by 1943 it had a total print run of 235,000. Von Brauchitsch wrote a foreword in which he authorized the volume as a “publication of my reporting season”. In his introductory article, Hesse presented von Brauchitsch to the readers as an “outstanding personality”, whose military leadership qualities they would now receive an exclusive insight into thanks to the special proximity of the “reporting squad” accompanying Brauchitsch.

Goebbels in particular promoted the recall of Hesse, who had great influence in the Wehrmacht and Nazi propaganda from 1939 to spring 1941 . Hesse, who was not a member of the NSDAP , wrote about 70 radio reports and about 150 articles for the Völkischer Beobachter , mostly placed on the main page, for example on July 25, 1940 Die Kampfmaschine und die Leben Mensch . According to the American historian Oron J. Hale , Hesse was George Soldan's successor as the “military commentator” of the Volkischer Beobachter , after Hitler's contributions and the military censorship were rejected. In addition, in October 1940, at Goebbels ' Weimar poets ' meeting, Hesse gave the lecture The Contribution of German Literature to the Military and Combat Performance of Our Time , after accompanying a so-called poet's trip to the battlefields of the victorious French campaign in July 1940 and the poets “das Song of Songs of German Soldiers ”. The former president of the Reichsschrifttumskammer in the Nazi cultural enterprise, Hans Friedrich Blunck, praised Hesse's talent for speaking, as well as his “excellent work as a mediator between poet and soldier”.

Conflict with Goebbels and activity until the end of the war

At the beginning of 1941, however, Goebbels took advantage of a conflict over the army film The Victory in the West , which was mainly initiated by Hesse and was supposed to be a documentary , to have OKW boss Wilhelm Keitel relieve him of his position as head of the army propaganda department in the OKW's Wehrmacht Propaganda Office. Hesse had demanded the highest distinction for this film, made with the help of the OKH propaganda troops, which was shown for the first time in Berlin on January 31 and then met with great approval in the cinemas , and expressed his incomprehension that this film should be replaced with pictures from the front a film made mainly in recording studios like Kampfgeschwader Lützow had received the highest recommendations from Goebbels. On this day Goebbels tried to get Hitler's chief adjutant Rudolf Schmundt to get Brauchitsch to part ways with Hesse, at the beginning of March he even accused him of publicly raising doubts about Hitler's military capabilities. On March 20, 1941, Hesse was released from his position and transferred back to his previous position in the army education system.

The historian Christoph Raichle evaluates the involvement of Hitler's adjutant Schmundt, “Hitler's military mouthpiece”, in the process of eliminating Hesse as an indication that Hitler himself favored the replacement of Hesse, because he wanted to prevent Hesse from “his employer Brauchitsch alongside Hitler a part of the military glory ”was able to award propaganda and publicity. According to the historian Wolfram Pyta, Hitler had his “placet” for the film, which became an international success with translations in over twenty languages, primarily because of its “calculated advertising effect abroad” for the superiority of German weapons technology and leadership “Given. In return, he accepted the limitation of his role as sole general, but at the same time pursued the replacement of Hesse. Even after Hesse's article in the Völkischer Beobachter at the end of 1940, in which he reduced Hitler's role to that of a genuine political leader, "who in turn", according to Hesse, "had great generals at his disposal," Hitler had taken it as a "declaration of war" , so that from this point on he set the appropriate levers to eliminate Hesse in motion.

In February 1941, Hesse's play Der Weg nach Lowicz was premiered in Wuppertal and Guben and then played on a number of other provincial theaters . According to Bogusław Drewniak's study on theater in the Nazi state , the alleged “suffering of the ethnic Germans” in Poland forms the background of the seven scenic images in the play. The play contained clear "anti-Polish tendencies", the Poles were the responsible warmongers in the summer of 1939.

In October 1941, Hesse was promoted to colonel and undertook trips to the Army Groups Middle and North as well as France and Finland on behalf of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army (OKH) . In November 1942 he was transferred to the commanding reserve of the OKH and commanding the military commander in France as field commander No. 751 of the Seine et Oise department at the St-Cloude location. During this time with the Army Reserve Command and the military commander in France, his "habilitation father" Constantin von Dietze also tried to find out how far Hesse wanted to join the resistance against National Socialism. Hesse, who was convinced of Hitler even after the rift with Goebbels , ignored them. When retreating, he was leader of a provisional combat group at Bovay from August 1944 and was taken prisoner at Maubeuge on September 3, 1944.

post war period

At the end of the war, Hesse was an American prisoner of war in the Baltimore camp. Because of his increasing eye disease, he applied for repatriation and was transferred first to Coburg in July 1945, later to the Oberursel / Taunus camp, where he worked on a presentation in 1946 and 1947 at the Operational History (German) Section of the Historical Division of the American Armed Forces the Wehrmacht propaganda worked in World War II .

Due to his massive criticism of the behavior of American soldiers in the war, he had to leave this war history department of the US Army . His 1,100 pages on Wehrmacht propaganda during the war, which he had put down on paper by the beginning of 1947, were never published, but served General Hasso von Wedel as one of the bases for his later presentation on the Wehrmacht's propaganda troops. From 1947 to 1949, Hesse worked for the Badischer Verlag .

For the defense in the Wilhelmstrasse Trial , Case XI of the Nuremberg Trials , Hesse drafted a memorandum on the role of industry in Hitler's seizure of power and appeared as a witness. For a joint action by the industrial groups accused in Nuremberg to reject responsibility for the war guilt, however, Hesse's draft was not considered suitable.

Head of Division in the Ministry of Economic Affairs

From 1949 to 1951, Hesse was one of five economists with a postdoctoral qualification in Ludwig Erhard's Ministry of Economics and headed Section I A6 Economic Policy Effects of Overall Economic Programs . According to the historian Bernhard Löffler, he was the ministry's “armaments industry expert”, who had already addressed the possibilities of “targeted utilization” of the resources of the “enemy country” in his post-doctoral thesis in 1934 and now both in the ministry and in articles for the magazine The economist pleaded for greater consideration of planned economy elements.

According to Hesse in 1950, the history of the Second World War teaches that the exploitation of potential economic power requires “uniform control”. Now the “tight coordination of all federal economic authorities” is on the agenda, and a partial revision of the “previous policy of the free market economy, liberalization and [European] integration” must be considered, which “with a certain production planning, Raw material management and control of foreign trade "should be combined. At the end of 1950, in a written statement to Minister Erhard, Hesse spoke out against the United States wanting greater integration of German economic potential for Western armament and defense purposes, unless this was coordinated with national requirements.

Professor of Economics

In the second half of 1951, as a result of disciplinary proceedings against Hesse's head of department Günter Keizer, Keiser and other senior staff, including Helmut Meinhold and Kurt Hesse, were replaced. Hesse then moved to the Academy for World Trade in Frankfurt am Main. He was first a lecturer, then chairman of this business-related training institution.

In 1957 he received a teaching position for economics at the University of Marburg, with a special focus on developing countries. In 1963, at the age of 69, he was appointed honorary professor for foreign economic issues and remained in this position until 1969. Hesse published and gave lectures on issues relating to developing countries and development aid .

Positioning on rearmament and the Bundeswehr

Parallel to these activities, Hesse positioned himself with regard to rearmament and the Bundeswehr still to be built up in the early 1950s in the former Major i. G. Adelbert Weinstein published work Army without Pathos - the German rearmament in the judgment of former soldiers (1951) as a representative of traditionalist modernity, which in the military training the combination of methods of the "old style barracks" with the aim of the "thoughtful, responsible man [s] who acted in the spirit of the whole ”. According to Hesse in a conversation published there with the later defense commissioner of the German Bundestag , Vice Admiral ret. D. Hellmuth Heye , primarily with the aim of creating a soldier who “obeys without needing the command of his superior”. In the first issue of the Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau he advocated a collaboration-oriented division of tasks between soldiers, business and science, whereby science and business, according to Hesse, should be clear that “in the crucial hours of historical development, the fate of state and people is in the hands of soldiers ”.

After initial cooperation, Hesse came into conflict with Wolf Graf von Baudissin , the advisor for the internal structure in the Blank office , because his concept of internal leadership meant that he turned too far away from military traditions. His later attempt in 1964 to become Heye's successor as Defense Commissioner of the German Bundestag through contacts with top politicians in the federal and state governments and thus to exert a decisive influence on the development of the Bundeswehr failed. Nevertheless, until the 1960s, Hesse maintained good contacts with the training system of the Bundeswehr, which used some of his early writings, including Der Feldherr Psychologos , as training material for officer training. Although Hesse's military pedagogical ideas were in essential points diametrically opposed to the official conception of Innereführung with the model of a “citizen in uniform”, Hesse's ideas were incorporated into the Bundeswehr's guidelines for military action. Claus von Rosen names several examples, including the emphasis on combat as a positive cultural element in the 1998 Army Service Regulations for Troop Leadership . According to this, "[soldierly leadership] is particularly effective in combat".

Scripture The spirit of Potsdam and last years of life

Hesse also published as a retiree until the early 1970s, including his 1967 memoir Der Geist von Potsdam . He saw this font as his legacy to the younger generation. In it, according to Claus von Rosen, Hesse conjured a kind of “ categorical imperative of Prussia ”. Wolfram Pyta considers Hesse's writing to be “source-based reliable memories” of a non- National Socialist military expert who tried to spread “a subversive counter-discourse to the cult of the general around Hitler” as early as 1940/41, especially with the design of the film Der Sieg im Westen . Hesse's work was well received, but not by the target group of young people, but by members of his own generation. According to the historian Bodo Scheurig in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit 1968, Hesse did not reach his target group or his glorification of Prussia was “no encouragement for the youth” because his work did not contain answers to essential questions, for example problems of the atomic age or the divided Germany.

After his complete blindness in 1971 and a heart attack in the same year, Hesse withdrew from all public activities. In March 1972 he wrote a last seven-page text entitled Personal data and influences that determine my development , which he expressly marked with the comment "Clues for a possible appreciation of my life". These and other unpublished writings are now in his estate at the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv in Freiburg im Breisgau . In this detailed résumé, Hesse claimed to have given "important impetus in three areas: military psychology, war economy and development aid". In addition to his memoirs, which he regarded as a kind of personal legacy, his most important writings were his books Der Feldherr Psychologos (1922), Wandlungen des Soldiers (1931) and Mein Hauptmann (1938). Hesse died in Bad Homburg in January 1976.

Fonts (selection)

• Ireland's fate, a warning to Germany! How we would be if England won. Härtel, Leipzig 1918.
• The Marne drama of July 15, 1918. Truths from the front. Mittler, Berlin 1919.
• Officer and man. In: Knowledge and Defense . No. 1, 1920, pp. 104-117.
• The general Psychologos. A search for the leader of the German future. ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1922.
• The triumph of militarism. About armament and disarmament. Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1923, DNB 362273731 (Book version of the philosophical dissertation at the University of Berlin 1924, which was accepted one year later, 75 pages under the title: The military armaments of the European powers after the war under financial and economic aspects , DNB 570337380 ).
• The German infantryman. In: Knowledge and Defense. No. 1, 1924, pp. 47-60.
• From the near era of the "Young Army" . Mittler, Berlin 1925.
• The patrolman and other experiences from the Great War (= Fatherland folk and youth books of the Union publishing house. ). Union, Stuttgart 1930 (6th edition 1935).
• Changes of the soldier. Attempt to establish the German professional soldier Mittler, Berlin 1931.
• Under the spell of soldierhood. Outline of the history of the Prussian-German army since 1653. Diesterweg, Frankfurt am Main 1934 (under the title Kleine Heeresgeschichte. Under the spell of the soldiery. With a foreword by Reich War Minister Generalfeldmarschall von Blomberg, 2nd expanded edition 1938 and 3rd edition 1942).
• Soldier and Fatherland. 3 centuries of German military service up to the Wehrmacht of the Third Reich in words and pictures. Klemm, Berlin-Grunewald 1935.
• The substitute economy as an essential problem of the peace and war economy. A contribution to the theory of the war economy (= treatises of the German Society for Defense Policy and Defense Sciences; Volume 2, 1934/35, No. 13). Berlin 1935.
• Warfare and war economy in the enemy country. Lessons from the campaign in Romania 1916/17. Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg 1936.
• The soldier tradition. Evidence of German soldiery from 5 centuries. Diesterweg, Frankfurt a. M. 1936.
• My captain. Portrait of a soldier. Deutscher Verlag, Berlin 1938 (41st – 70th thousand in the same year, see DNB 573783454 ).
• Eighty million are fighting. Idea and right of our wrestling. German publisher, Berlin 1939.
• The general unit Hindenburg-Ludendorff. In: Army leaders of the world war. Edited by the German Society for Defense Policy and Defense Sciences. Mittler, Berlin 1939, pp. 255-288.
• The way to Lowicz. A show in 7 pictures. Berlin 1940.
• Forward across battlefields! With the victorious army through France in 1940 . Limpert, Berlin 1940 (initial circulation 1940: 50,000; 1941: 150,000–200,000).
• Science, business and the armed forces. In: Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau. No. 6/7, 1951, pp. 2-15.
• Without step - march! A conversation. In: Adalbert Weinstein (ed.): Army without Pathos - German rearmament in the judgment of former soldiers. Köllen, Bonn 1951, pp. 84-107.
• State and soldier. In: Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau. No. 3, 1951, pp. 2-15.
• Economic miracle South Africa. A political and economic cross-section. Droste, Düsseldorf 1954.
• Possibilities and limits of influencing one's own troops. In: Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau. No. 3, 1958, pp. 139-145.
• Developing countries and development aid at the turn of the colonial era. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1962.
• The spirit of Potsdam. From Hase and Koehler, Mainz 1967.
• Japan as an economic power and trading partner (= series of the Frankfurt Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Volume 34). Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Frankfurt am Main 1968.
• The old soldier and the Bundeswehr. Awareness of history, maintenance of tradition and democratic co-responsibility. In: Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau. No. 11, 1968, pp. 601-615.
• The system of development aid. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1969, ISBN 3-428-01953-9 .
• Thoughts on military leadership and automation. In: Rolf Elble (Ed.): Clausewitz in our time. Outlook after 10 years of the Clausewitz Society . Wehr- und Wissen-Verlagsgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1971, ISBN 978-3-8033-0208-3 , pp. 61–72.

literature

• Franz-Werner Kersting : Military and youth in the Nazi state. Arms and school policy of the Wehrmacht. Deutscher Universitätsverlag, Wiesbaden 1989, ISBN 3-8244-4027-X (also: Münster / Westfalen, Universität, Dissertation, 1987).
• Bernhard Löffler : Social market economy and administrative practice. The Federal Ministry of Economics under Ludwig Erhard (= quarterly for social and economic history. Supplements. Vol. 162). Steiner, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 978-3-515-07940-2 (complete at the same time: Passau, universities, habilitation thesis, 2000/01).
• Wolfram Pyta : Hitler. The artist as politician and general. A dominance analysis. Siedler, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-8275-0058-8 .
• Christoph Raichle: Hitler as a symbol politician. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-17-025191-5 (at the same time: Stuttgart, Universität, Dissertation, 2013), in particular pp. 380–414 (= Chapter 5.1 The elimination of the propaganda duo Brauchitsch / Hesse 1939–1941 ) .
• Claus von Rosen : Kurt Hesse: Conservative revolution in military education after the First World War. Leadership Academy of the Federal Armed Forces, Hamburg 1998 (34-page document, which is largely identical in content to von Rosen's essay in the anthology Classics of Pedagogy in the German Military , edited by Detlef Bald, Uwe Hartmann and Claus von Rosen , but also contains extensive comments on Hesse's curriculum vitae).
• Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse. In: Detlef Bald , Uwe Hartmann , Claus von Rosen (ed.): Classics of pedagogy in the German military. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1999, ISBN 3-7890-6039-9 , pp. 164–187 (as it is more accessible than von Rosen's writing Kurt Hesse: Conservative Revolution of Military Education after the First World War , whenever possible as evidence).
• Daniel Uziel: The propaganda warriors. The Wehrmacht and the consolidation of the German home front. Lang, Oxford et al. 2008, ISBN 978-3-03911-532-7 .
• Artur Weber : Colonel a. D. Professor Dr. Kurt Hesse on December 6, 80 years. In: Defense. Journal for all military issues. Organ of the Society for Military Studies. Vol. 23, 1974, No. 12, pp. 651f.

Web links

• Literature by and about Kurt Hesse in the catalog of the German National Library
• Hesse, Kurt. Hessian biography. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
• Kurt Hesse's estate in the Federal Archives-Military Archives Freiburg

Remarks

1. ^ ^{A b} Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse: Conservative Revolution of Military Education after the First World War. Leadership Academy of the Bundeswehr, Hamburg 1998, p. 23.
2. ^ Artur Weber: Colonel a. D. Professor Dr. Kurt Hesse on December 6, 80 years. In: Defense. Journal for all military issues. Organ of the Society for Military Studies. Vol. 23, 1974, No. 12, pp. 651f.
3. ^ Klaus Naumann: The political battlefield. Military Job Profiles in the New Wars. In: Mittelweg 36 . Vol. 23, December 2014-January 2015, pp. 28–48, here p. 42f.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse. In: Detlef Bald u. a. (Ed.): Classics of pedagogy in the German military. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1999, pp. 164–187, here p. 167.
5. ↑ Frank Reichherzer: “Everything is front!”. Defense Sciences in Germany and the Bellification of Society from the First World War to the Cold War. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn a. a. 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-77138-4 , p. 433.
6. ↑ Wolfram Wette: Ideologies, propaganda and domestic politics as prerequisites for the war policy of the Third Reich. In: Causes and conditions of the Second World War (= The German Reich and the Second World War . Volume 1). Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 1989, pp. 25–208, here pp. 144f .; Daniel Uziel: The propaganda warriors. The Wehrmacht and the consolidation of the German home front. Peter Lang, Oxford a. a. 2008, p. 39 (“This book was his first public venture in this field and, in the long run, it secured him an influential position within the future Wehrmacht propaganda organization”).
7. ^ Daniel Uziel: The propaganda warriors. The Wehrmacht and the consolidation of the German home front. Peter Lang, Oxford a. a. 2008, p. 40.
8. ↑ Kurt Hesse: Der Feldherr Psychologos. A search for the leader of the German future. ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1922, p. 206.
9. ^ Wilhelm Deist: The Reichswehr and the war of the future. In: Military history messages . Vol. 45, 1989, Issue 1, pp. 81-92, here pp. 82f.
10. ^ Wilhelm Deist: The Reichswehr and the war of the future. In: Military history messages. Vol. 45, 1989, Issue 1, pp. 81-92, here p. 90.
11. ^ ^{A b c} Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse: Conservative revolution of military education after the First World War. Management Academy of the Bundeswehr, Hamburg 1998, p. 24.
12. ↑ Kurt Hesse: The spirit of Potsdam. Von Hase and Koehler, Mainz 1967, passim, especially pp. 93-109 (= chapter Between Confession and Resistance: Henning von Tresckow ).
13. ↑ Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse. In: Detlef Bald u. a. (Ed.): Classics of pedagogy in the German military. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1999, pp. 164-187, here pp. 167f.
14. ^ Klaus Naumann: The political battlefield. Military Job Profiles in the New Wars. In: Mittelweg 36 . Vol. 23, December 2014-January 2015, pp. 28–48, here pp. 43f .; Quotes from Naumann based on Kurt Hesse's book On the near era of the “Young Army” , pp. 24–27.
15. ↑ Wolfram Pyta: Hitler. The artist as politician and general. A dominance analysis. Siedler, Munich 2015, p. 291 and p. 727, note 11; Pyta quotes from Hesse's book From the near era of the “Young Army” , p. 33f.
16. ↑ Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse: Conservative revolution of military education after the First World War. Leadership Academy of the Bundeswehr, Hamburg 1998, p. 3.
17. ↑ Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse. In: Detlef Bald u. a. (Ed.): Classics of pedagogy in the German military. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1999, p. 180.
18. ↑ Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse. In: Detlef Bald u. a. (Ed.): Classics of pedagogy in the German military. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1999, p. 182.
19. ↑ Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse. In: Detlef Bald u. a. (Ed.): Classics of pedagogy in the German military. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1999, pp. 164-187, here pp. 168f.
20. ↑ ^{a b} Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse. In: Detlef Bald u. a. (Ed.): Classics of pedagogy in the German military. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1999, pp. 164-187, here p. 169.
21. ^ Franz-Werner Kersting: Military and Youth in the Nazi State. Arms and school policy of the Wehrmacht. Deutscher Universitätsverlag , Wiesbaden 1989, ISBN 3-8244-4027-X , p. 302.
22. ^ Bernhard Löffler: Social market economy and administrative practice. The Federal Ministry of Economics under Ludwig Erhard. Steiner, Stuttgart 2003, p. 102f. with note 57 and p. 613; on Dietze as "habilitation father" see also Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse. In: Detlef Bald u. a. (Ed.): Classics of pedagogy in the German military. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1999, pp. 164-187, here p. 171.
23. ^ Franz-Werner Kersting: Military and Youth in the Nazi State. Arms and school policy of the Wehrmacht. Deutscher Universitätsverlag, Wiesbaden 1989, p. 302ff.
24. ^ Bernhard Löffler: Social market economy and administrative practice. The Federal Ministry of Economics under Ludwig Erhard. Steiner, Stuttgart 2003, p. 102.
25. ↑ Quoted from Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse. In: Detlef Bald u. a. (Ed.): Classics of pedagogy in the German military. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1999, pp. 164-187, here p. 169.
26. ↑ Christoph Raichle: Hitler as a symbol politician . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-17-025191-5 (Zugl .: Stuttgart, Univ., Diss., 2013), p. 380-414, citations p. 390f.
27. ^ Daniel Uziel: Propaganda, War Reporting and the Wehrmacht. Status and function of the propaganda troops in the Nazi state. In: Rainer Rother, Judith Prokasky (ed.): The camera as a weapon. Propaganda images of the Second World War. edition text + kritik, Munich 2010, ISBN 3-86916-067-5 , pp. 13–36, here pp. 25 and 34f., note 62.
28. ↑ Oron J. Hale: Press in the Straitjacket, 1933-1945 . Droste, Düsseldorf 1965, p. 319, according to note 53, Hale relies on his survey of the editor-in-chief of the Völkischer Beobachter Wilhelm Weiß , which he carried out on August 31, 1945.
29. ↑ Wolfram Pyta: Hitler. The artist as politician and general. A dominance analysis. Siedler, Munich 2015, p. 311f. u. P. 730 note 31; Hesse's contribution is printed in: Poetry in the Battle of the Reich . Hamburg 1940, pp. 14–34.
30. ↑ Wolfram Pyta: Hitler. The artist as politician and general. A dominance analysis. Siedler, Munich 2015, p. 311f. and p. 730 note 29; Pyta quotes here from: Blunck's diary entry from July 22, 1940 , Kiel University Library, Blunck estate, Diary 1940, p. 128.
31. ^ Daniel Uziel: The propaganda warriors. The Wehrmacht and the consolidation of the German home front. Peter Lang, Oxford a. a. 2008, p. 194ff. Christoph Raichle: Hitler as a symbol politician in detail about the film . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2014, pp. 404-414.
32. ^ The diaries of Joseph Goebbels . On behalf of the Institute for Contemporary History, ed. by Elke Fröhlich . Part I: Records 1923-1941 . Volume 9: December 1940 to July 1941. Saur, Munich 1998, p. 120 (there entry from February 1, 1941: "At the Fuehrer. Brauchitsch discussed the question with Schmundt. He had to part with his Hesse, who only caused him difficulties now also to the Führer. ") and p. 174 (there entry of March 7, 1941:" A cheeky article in ' Daheim ' against the strategic abilities of the Führer. I would like to bet that Hesse is behind it again. I'll have that investigated. In the Hesse case, Keitel shares my point of view. ”); on Goebbels' diary entries relating to Hesse from July 1940 to March 1941 see Christoph Raichle: Hitler als Symbolpolitiker . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2014, pp. 397-403.
33. ^ Daniel Uziel: The propaganda warriors. The Wehrmacht and the consolidation of the German home front. Peter Lang, Oxford a. a. 2008, p. 194ff.
34. ↑ Christoph Raichle: Hitler as a symbol politician . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2014, p. 399 a. P. 446.
35. ↑ Wolfram Pyta: Hitler. The artist as politician and general. A dominance analysis. Siedler, Munich 2015, pp. 291–296, here p. 294f.
36. ↑ Wolfram Pyta: Hitler. The artist as politician and general. A dominance analysis. Siedler, Munich 2015 p. 295 and p. 728 note 26, Pyta refers to the following article by Kurt Hesse: 1940 - the proudest year of the German army . In: Völkischer Beobachter , December 31, 1940.
37. ^ Bogusław Drewniak: The theater in the Nazi state. Scenario of contemporary German history 1933–1945 . Droste, Düsseldorf 1983, ISBN 3-7700-0635-6 , p. 236.
38. ^ ^{A b} Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse: Conservative Revolution of Military Education after the First World War. Management Academy of the Bundeswehr, Hamburg 1998, p. 25.
39. ^ Artur Weber: Colonel a. D. Professor Dr. Kurt Hesse on December 6, 80 years. In: Defense. Journal for all military issues. Organ of the Society for Military Studies. Vol. 23, 1974, No. 12, pp. 651f.
40. ↑ Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse. In: Detlef Bald u. a. (Ed.): Classics of pedagogy in the German military. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1999, pp. 164-187, here p. 171.
41. ↑ Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse: Conservative revolution of military education after the First World War. Leadership Academy of the Bundeswehr, Hamburg 1998, p. 26.
42. ^ Daniel Uziel: The propaganda warriors. The Wehrmacht and the consolidation of the German home front. Peter Lang, Oxford a. a. 2008, p. 382f.
43. ↑ "Hesse, Kurt". Hessian biography. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
44. ↑ Hubert Seliger: Political Lawyers? The defenders of the Nuremberg trials . Nomos, Baden-Baden 2016, ISBN 978-3-8487-2360-7 (also: Dissertation, University of Augsburg, 2014), p. 325.
45. ^ Bernhard Löffler: Social market economy and administrative practice. The Federal Ministry of Economics under Ludwig Erhard. Steiner, Stuttgart 2003, p. 99, note 46, p. 137.
46. ^ Bernhard Löffler: Social market economy and administrative practice. The Federal Ministry of Economics under Ludwig Erhard. Steiner, Stuttgart 2003, p. 102f; Löffler, p. 613, mentions Kurt Hesse's relevant contributions: German and European armaments , in: Der Volkswirt 4 (1950), volume 42, p. 9ff .; The financial side of armament , in: Der Volkswirt 4 (1950), volume 45, p. 11f. and European armaments industry , in: Der Volkswirt 4 (1950), issue 51/52, p. 44ff.
47. ^ Kurt Hesse: German and European armaments. In: The economist. Vol. 4, 1950, issue 42, p. 9ff., Here p. 9; The financial side of armament. In: The economist. Vol. 4, 1950, issue 45, p. 11f., And European armaments industry. In: The economist. Bd. 4, 1950, issue 51/52, p. 44ff, here p. 46. Quoted from Bernhard Löffler: Social market economy and administrative practice. The Federal Ministry of Economics under Ludwig Erhard. Steiner, Stuttgart 2003, p. 103.
48. ↑ Werner Abelshauser , Walter Schwengler: Beginnings of West German Security Policy 1945–1956. Vol. 4: Economy and Armaments. Sovereignty and security. Edited by Military History Research Office . R. Oldenbourg, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-486-56068-9 , p. 60.
49. ^ Bernhard Löffler: Social market economy and administrative practice. The Federal Ministry of Economics under Ludwig Erhard. Steiner, Stuttgart 2003, p. 108.
50. ↑ "Hesse, Kurt". Hessian biography. (As of July 26, 2016). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
51. ↑ Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse. In: Detlef Bald u. a. (Ed.): Classics of pedagogy in the German military. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1999, pp. 164-187, here p. 171.
52. ↑ Quoted from Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse. In: Detlef Bald u. a. (Ed.): Classics of pedagogy in the German military. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1999, pp. 164–187, here p. 172.
53. ↑ Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse. In: Detlef Bald u. a. (Ed.): Classics of pedagogy in the German military. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1999, pp. 164-187, here pp. 172f.
54. ^ Daniel Uziel: The propaganda warriors. The Wehrmacht and the consolidation of the German home front. Peter Lang, Oxford a. a. 2008, p. 383; Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse. In: Detlef Bald u. a. (Ed.): Classics of pedagogy in the German military. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1999, pp. 164-187, here pp. 165, 172f. u. 182
55. ↑ Army Service Regulations 1998, No. 301. Quoted from Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse. In: Detlef Bald u. a. (Ed.): Classics of pedagogy in the German military. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1999, p. 182.
56. ↑ Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse. In: Detlef Bald u. a. (Ed.): Classics of pedagogy in the German military. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1999, p. 173.
57. ↑ Wolfram Pyta: Hitler. The artist as politician and general. A dominance analysis. Siedler, Munich 2015, p. 291 and p. 727 note 10 (there quotation on Hesse's memoirs) and P. 570 (second quote).
58. ↑ Bodo Scheurig: Prussian conjuration. Fall of a stand - no encouragement for the youth. In: The time . No. 13/1968 of March 29, 1968, literature supplement p. 16; see also Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse. In: Detlef Bald u. a. (Ed.): Classics of pedagogy in the German military. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1999, pp. 173f.
59. ↑ Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse: Conservative revolution of military education after the First World War. Leadership Academy of the Bundeswehr, Hamburg 1998, p. 27.
60. ↑ Claus von Rosen: Kurt Hesse: Conservative revolution of military education after the First World War. Management Academy of the Bundeswehr, Hamburg 1998, p. 23 u. P. 27.

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