National Socialist German Workers' Party (Free City of Danzig)
The National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) Danzig was the regional association of the NSDAP in the Free City of Danzig .
history
Twenties
After the First World War , Danzig was split off from the German Empire against the will of the majority of the population and, as a “Free City”, was under a mandate from the League of Nations .
The NSDAP played no significant role in Danzig in the 1920s. It had few members. Organizationally, the NSDAP was divided into Gaue .
In 1925 Hans Albert Hohnfeldt , who had been elected to the People's Day for the German Social Party in the People's Day election in Danzig in 1923 , joined the NSDAP and founded the Danzig branch. On March 11, 1926 he was appointed Gauleiter of the Gaues Gaues. His deputy was Wilhelm von Wnuck . Hohnfeldt was also the SA leader in Danzig. In this function, Walter Maass was his deputy.
In the People's Day election in Gdansk in 1927 , the NSDAP ran for the first time in an election for the People's Day . The United Lists of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Hitler) and the Reich Party for People's Law and Appreciation received 1,483 votes (0.81%) and a mandate (Hohnfeldt).
Organizationally, the NSDAP in Danzig was weak. In 1928 there were only two local groups. On June 20, 1928, Hohnfeldt resigned his Gauleiter position due to illness and also resigned as Gau SS leader. Maass then took over the role of Gauleiter on a provisional basis, but suggested to the Reich leadership that Danzig be run as part of the East Prussian Gau in the future. The Reich leadership followed the suggestion and commissioned the East Prussian Gauleiter Erich Koch to reorganize the NSDAP in Danzig. Maass became deputy Gauleiter.
In fact, this decision was not of great importance. Koch was seldom in Danzig and there were few organizational changes. The number of members in Danzig remained at around 220 until September 1929, and only rose to around 350 at the end of 1929 following the success of the NSDAP in state elections.
Internal party disputes and growth
From April 1930 there were internal party conflicts that ended in Danzig's split from the East Prussian Gau. Without Koch's involvement, Maass appointed Bruno Fricke as a full-time Gauge managing director. From April 1, 1930, Fricke published a "Gau Danzig newsletter" that was to be distributed monthly. At the same time he reorganized the leadership of the Danzig NSDAP. Koch rejected these changes, but met opposition in Danzig. Maass applied to the Reich leadership to separate the Gaus Danzig from the East Prussia Gau and to appoint Fricke as Gauleiter. The NSDAP in Danzig had meanwhile grown to 800 members. Gregor Strasser , who as head of the Reich organization of the NSDAP was responsible for the decision, rejected the Danzig advance in June 1930 and confirmed Koch as Gauleiter for Danzig as well. On July 1, 1930, Fricke resigned from the Gauge management and remained SA leader in Danzig. Since he continued to act as a Gau managing director, Koch dismissed him on July 15 and initiated party regulatory proceedings against Fricke before the Gau party court of the NSDAP. Fricke was removed from all party functions and expelled from the party, but the majority of the Danzig National Socialists supported him. A general meeting in Danzig elected a new Gau leadership of a Gaus Danzig, consisting of supporters of Fricke. At the end of September 1930 Hitler ordered the creation of a Gau Danzig. Arthur Greiser was appointed Gauleiter , the leadership of the Gaus was mainly formed from supporters of Fricke. Fricke himself emigrated to Paraguay and headed the local groups of the Black Front there and later in Buenos Aires . In mid-October 1930 Albert Forster became Gauleiter in Danzig. The pacification of the internal party situation was thus complete.
Despite these internal party quarrels, the NSDAP was able to achieve a clear profit in the popular elections in Danzig in 1930 on November 16. Now 32,457 Danzigers voted for the party, which corresponds to 16.40%. In the People's Day, the NSDAP was now represented by 12 MPs and there they also tipped the scales. German nationalists, center and liberals formed the new Senate Ziehm , which was tolerated by the National Socialists. In the autumn of 1931, an overthrow of the Ziehm Senate was discussed in the NSDAP, but Adolf Hitler decided against it. At the end of 1932 Hitler changed his mind and they waited for an occasion. With the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor in January 1933, the NSDAP saw the time had come. It withdrew its trust in Senate Ziehm and offered to enter a joint Senate with the bourgeois parties if Hermann Rauschning became Senate President and the NSDAP would provide the Senator for the Interior. The bourgeois parties refused and the Senate resigned. He remained in office until June 20, 1933.
Majority party
The Volkstag election in Danzig in 1933 was influenced by the National Socialist seizure of power in the Reich.
The NSDAP election campaign was conducted with a great deal of brutality. Many election rallies of the communists and the democratic parties were blown up, and a large number of acts of violence by the SA were carried out during the election campaign.
The Danziger Neusten Nachrichten , which had previously been close to the DNVP , now reported in the interests of the National Socialists. After the takeover of government in the Reich, the NSDAP experienced a massive increase in membership.
The election ended with a clear victory for the National Socialists. 107,331 votes (50.12%) meant 38 seats in parliament and thus an absolute majority. Hermann Rauschning (NSDAP) became the new President of the Senate. The Senate Rauschning consisted exclusively of NSDAP members. Following the example of the empire, an enabling law was passed and a number of laws on conformity which were in contradiction to the Danzig constitution . The opposition factions turned to the League of Nations (which was the guarantor of the Free City of Danzig) with complaints about this. However, the League of Nations took no action. The seizure of power had also taken place in Danzig.
The early Volksstag election in Gdansk in 1935 was under the impression of Nazi terror and massive election fraud and was therefore no longer a free choice.
Inclusion
With the beginning of the Second World War , Danzig was again incorporated into the German Empire. Accordingly, the NSDAP organization in Danzig was dissolved and incorporated into the Nazi Gau Danzig-West Prussia under Gauleiter Albert Forster .
literature
- Christian Rohrer: National Socialist Power in East Prussia, 2006, ISBN 3-89975-054-3 , pp. 115–153
Individual evidence
- ^ Germán Friedmann: Nacionalsocialistas antihitleristas y cuestión judía. Los casos de The Black Front y Free Germany Movement in Argentina . In: Anuario IEHS. Revista del Instituto de Estudios Histórico Sociales , ISSN 2524-9339 , Vol. 31 (2016), pp. 15-36, here p. 18.
- ↑ a b Dieter Schenk : Danzig 1930–1945. The end of a free city . Ch.links, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-86153-737-3 , p. 28 ( limited preview in Google Book search).