Naumann circle

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The Naumann Circle was a group of former National Socialists around Werner Naumann , the last State Secretary of the Reich Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels . The Naumann Circle was initially a "loose network" that developed more and more into a "neo-National Socialist secret society and in its character imitated the anti-republican associations, circles of friends and clubs of the Weimar Republic ". The Naumann district tried, among other things, in 1952/53 to subvert the FDP with a focus on the state association of North Rhine-Westphalia . The British occupation authorities arrested some members of the group in early 1953.

history

“I doubt whether you can turn a liberal party into a Nazi combat group [...] in the end, but we have to give it a try. [...] If there were no FDP, it would have to be founded today. "

“The main thing is not to lose touch with each other and to see the parties as just a means to an end. It would be best if we had our people in all parties, which is sometimes the case anyway. "

These statements by Naumann at a meeting of the "Gauleiter Circle" in Hamburg on November 18, 1952 show why members of his circle u. a. joined the FDP . Leading members of the circle in addition to the namesake were Heinrich Haselmayer ; Karl Kaufmann , Karl Scharping , Gustav Adolf Scheel , Heinz Siepen, Franz Alfred Six and the former SS and police leader Paul Zimmermann .

According to Lutz Hachmeister , the initiative was initially called the “Hundertmann Group”. Paul Karl Schmidt was involved in its founding. As early as 1943, as head of the press department at the Foreign Office, he was a colleague of Six, who was then head of the “cultural policy department”. The Hitler myth and anti-Semitism were now rejected as out of date. The debate about the participation of former “elites”, as these people understood each other, in war crimes should be ended once and for all by a “general amnesty”.

The circle tried, through targeted infiltration u. a. the FDP to provide political influence for former National Socialists from the middle management level. The problem for the federal party FDP was that the already very nationalistic state association of North Rhine-Westphalia (in Hesse and Lower Saxony it looked similar in the early 1950s) welcomed the new members with open arms in order to expand its electoral base to the right and, according to the North Rhine-Westphalian FDP chairman Friedrich Middelhauve , to integrate former National Socialists into parliamentary democracy.

“The rural people are to be gathered at a class level, the soldiers' associations in an umbrella organization, the retail trade or the refugees or the taxpayers, we should speak up in the communities, where we should fight for the positions of mayor and mayor [...]. Perhaps also [around] one or the other regional association of this or that party, - in short - we penetrate the community in all its ramifications and if all or even only a part of them are ready, then the hour has come to declare that there is apart from the license parties also an independent Germany. Here it is and this is what it looks like. "

- Naumann : November 1, 1952, speech to the Gauleiter group

Werner Naumann , Werner Best , Franz Alfred Six and Hans Fritzsche drafted a German program for Middelhauve , a right-wing nationalist draft, which, however, did not oppose the Liberal Manifesto of the regional associations Hamburg , Bremen and Baden at the FDP federal party conference at the end of November 1952 in Bad Ems. Württemberg was able to prevail.

At the same time Naumann pursued another goal: in view of the foreseeable ban of the Socialist Reich Party , which in elections z. In some cases, the lawyer Rudolf Aschenauer , who belongs to the Naumann district, used his position as lawyer for the SRP chairman Fritz Dorls . Dorls had even designated Aschenauer as his official successor for a national successor party to the SRP, which was known nationwide - and as a result, all attempts by the SRP leadership to set up a successor organization to which Aschenauer was initiated failed. The attempt by the SRP to use the former refugee party, the German Community (DG) , which is now very national , as a “coat” for the upcoming state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia in November 1952, resulted in a press conference by Aschenauer together with the Bavarian DG chairman, in which both called on the previous voters of the SRP to now elect the German Community to ban all DG election lists in NRW as SRP successor organizations. Aschenauer, who from spring 1952 was also a member of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Catholic Intelligence Service - with contacts including Konrad Adenauer - had both hindered the efforts of the SRP leadership to form a successor organization and politically damaged the German community. The aim of the Naumann Group was to form the planned “National Collection Party” around the organisationally still weak German Reich Party by including former SRP members and regional national parties (such as the German Community, which was more widespread in southern Germany). These attempts failed; to this u. a. the following at:

On the one hand, all those involved pursued their own interests. Second, the All-German People's Party was founded under Gustav Heinemann (the Naumann group also had contacts to this party). Thirdly, in January 1953, the Naumann group was exposed by the British secret service.

On the night of January 15, 1953, the British themselves made arrests because German authorities did not want to. The leading members of the circle were arrested on the basis of Allied reservation rights in Düsseldorf, Solingen and Hamburg. The archives of the district were confiscated from Karl Friedrich Bornemann's apartment . In public there was talk of the Naumann affair or the Gauleiter-FDP . The accusation was that they overthrew the Bonn government and thereby endangered the security of the Allied troops. The British High Commissioner Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick had informed the Federal FDP politicians Theodor Heuss (Federal President), Franz Blücher (Party Chairman) and Thomas Dehler (Federal Minister of Justice) about the investigations by the British secret service.

German authorities were not involved in executive matters, although the British had informed and asked them beforehand. On January 20, 1953, the British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden was forced to make a declaration of honor for Adenauer in front of the House of Commons , stating that the German government was also against Nazism.

In the summer of 1953 the 2nd Holiday Criminal Senate of the Federal Court of Justice dropped the proceedings against the accused, but the attempt to infiltrate a party represented in the Bundestag by former National Socialists had failed.

To clear up the affair, the FDP formed an internal party investigation committee consisting of Alfred Onnen , Thomas Dehler and Fritz Neumayer , which raised serious allegations against parts of the NRW regional association.

Naumann himself ran for the Bundestag election on September 6, 1953 on the list of the German Reich Party (DRP). The DRP received 1.1 percent of the second vote.

The Belgian author Stan Lauryssens processed the material into a novel, which was published in 1975 with the title Opmars naar het Vierde Rijk .

Ernst Achenbach

The question of the extent to which Ernst Achenbach , later FDP member of the Bundestag , whom his party wanted to make Commissioner of the European Economic Community in 1974 , was included in the group, namely as their liaison to Middelhauve, has not yet been clarified in research. Dehler was of the opinion that Achenbach was the real head of the group. His view is supported by Naumann's diary, a subjective source in which he notes about a conversation with Achenbach as his statement :

“In order to enable the NS [= National Socialists] to influence political events under these circumstances, they should join the FDP, infiltrate it and take its leadership in hand. He uses individual examples to explain how easy it would be to do that. With only 200 members, we can inherit the entire state board [in North Rhine-Westphalia]. He wants to hire me [= Naumann] as general secretary or something similar !! "

Members of the Naumann circle

Besides Naumann and possibly Achenbach, the district u. a. the following people who had already performed an important role during the Nazi era :

  1. Gunter d'Alquen , journalist, editor of the “Black Corps” , SS-Standartenführer
  2. Werner Best , deputy to Reinhard Heydrich , SS-Obergruppenführer, head of the administration office at the occupation authority in France, from November 1942 authorized representative of the German Reich in Denmark (head of the occupation authority), after the war he worked at the Achenbach law office
  3. Karl Friedrich Bornemann , b. 1908, HJ -gebietsführer Düsseldorf, then editor of a "KBI information service".
  4. Wolfgang Diewerge , senior Nazi propagandist from the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, director of the Reich broadcaster Danzig
  5. Friedrich Karl Florian , Gauleiter of Düsseldorf
  6. Hans Fritzsche , most recently head of the radio department in the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda and the “Commissioner for Political Formation” in Großdeutscher Rundfunk , accused of being a major war criminal in Nuremberg but acquitted
  7. Lydia Gottschewski , Nazi women's union functionary (place of residence at the time of the Naumann affair: Düsseldorf)
  8. Josef Grohé , most recently Reich Commissioner for the occupied territories in Belgium and northern France
  9. Hans-Bernhard von Grünberg , professor of political science and last rector of the University of Königsberg
  10. Heinrich Haselmayer , old fighter since 1927, SA man, Combat League for German Culture in Hamburg, leader of the NS student union there , involved in the sterilization of "hereditary diseases" defined by National Socialists
  11. Paul Hausser , SS-Oberstgruppenführer and Colonel General of the Waffen-SS, the first chairman of the mutual aid community of soldiers of the former Waffen-SS
  12. Horst Huisgen , Hitler Youth Area Leader in Silesia; State manager of the FDP in Lower Saxony
  13. Heinrich Hunke , Aryan, functionary of Deutsche Bank, National Socialist spatial planner and large-scale strategist , later Ministerial Director of the State of Lower Saxony (FRG)
  14. Karl Kaufmann , Gauleiter and Reich Governor of Hamburg
  15. Herbert Lucht , head of the Wehrmacht Propaganda branch in Paris. His wife Lea Lucht, called Slissy, was Belgian, a niece of Léon Degrelle , Achenbach was Lucht's company lawyer in Düsseldorf, Fritz Dorls and Otto Skorzeny worked in the company
  16. Wilhelm Meinberg , member of the board of directors at Dresdner Bank and military manager
  17. Karl Ott , State Secretary and Member of the State Parliament in Lower Saxony
  18. Karl Scharping , official in the radio department of the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda
  19. Gustav Adolf Scheel , former Reich student leader and Gauleiter of Salzburg
  20. Paul Karl Schmidt , former Nazi press officer in the Foreign Office
  21. Heinz Siepen , NSDAP local group leader and district administrator, co-owner of the Punktal steel works in Solingen
  22. Franz Alfred Six , SS brigade leader, sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for mass murder, released in October 1952, employed in the Achenbach law office
  23. Eberhard Taubert , head of the Anti-Comintern section , judge at the People's Court
  24. Albert Urmes , Gau Propaganda Leader in Moselle and occupied Luxembourg
  25. Edmund Veesenmayer , Plenipotentiary in Hungary, SS-Brigadführer
  26. Paul Wegener , Gauleiter Weser-Ems, SS-Obergruppenführer
  27. Paul Zimmermann , SS Brigade Leader
  28. Siegfried Zoglmann , leader of the Hitler Youth and SS, head of the command post in Bohemia and Moravia, head of the liaison office to the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Max Bonacker: Goebbels' husband on the radio. The Nazi propagandist Hans Fritzsche (1900–1953). Dissertation, University of Hamburg 2006, Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-58193-5 , p.
  2. ↑ Files of the Control Commission for Germany / British Element , detachment 1014, p. 610. See also: Beate Baldow: Episode or danger? The Naumann affair . Diss. Phil. FU Berlin 2012, p. 154.
  3. ↑ With “contact” and “our people” the network of National Socialists after 1945 is meant. Source: Kurt P. Tauber: Beyond Eagle and Swastika. German Nationalism since 1945 . tape 1 . Middletown 1967, p. 140 .
  4. ↑ Beate Baldow: Episode or Danger? The Naumann affair . Diss. Phil. FU Berlin 2012, p. 154.
  5. ↑ Lutz Hachmeister: The enemy researcher. The career of SS leader Franz Alfred Six . Beck, Munich 1998, p. 294 ff.
  6. ↑ Lutz Hachmeister: The Opponent Researcher, The Career of SS Leader Franz Alfred Six , p. 294 ff .; Wigbert Benz : The journalist's continuity. Paul Karl Schmidt alias Paul Carell . In: Historisches Centrum Hagen (ed.): Forum “Barbarossa” online , article 6/2004; There are also many details on the “Hundertmann Group” in: German program . In: Die Zeit , No. 23/2002
  7. ^ "License parties" = the first parties in the 3 western zones, approved by the respective occupying power; as a swear word about cf. with today: " system parties ". His reference to soldiers' unions was aimed at founding free corps
  8. ↑ Because of its relatively open neo-Nazism, the Naumann Group saw the SRP as counterproductive; according to Beate Baldow: episode or danger? The Naumann affair . Diss. Phil. FU Berlin 2012, p. 178 even forced the SRP to be banned.
  9. ↑ When the ban comes . In: Der Spiegel . No. 33 , 1952, pp. 7 ( online ).
  10. ↑ Beate Baldow: Episode or Danger? The Naumann affair . Diss. Phil. FU Berlin 2012, p. 176, note 1075.
  11. ↑ Beate Baldow: Episode or Danger? The Naumann affair . Diss. Phil. FU Berlin 2012, p. 181.
  12. ↑ Beate Baldow: Episode or Danger? The Naumann affair . Diss. Phil. FU Berlin 2012, p. 176, note 1075. Or: Der Spiegel No. 44/1954; “If nobody talks about it.” Available on the Internet.
  13. ↑ The National Collection Party planned by the Naumann Group “was in opposition to the SRP”. Beate Baldow: episode or danger? The Naumann affair . Diss. Phil. FU Berlin 2012, p. 188.
  14. ↑ The German Reich Party held back relatively, as the Naumann Group demanded a renaming for "foreign policy considerations"; The SRP leadership finally managed to take part in the federal election campaign as the “German Development Association” and, contrary to Aschenauer's intentions, the German Community founded a Lower Saxony state association, which was banned in March 1953 as the SRP successor organization.
  15. ↑ Beate Baldow: Episode or Danger? The Naumann affair . Diss. Phil. FU Berlin 2012, p. 192.
  16. ↑ Hans-Peter Schwarz, Ilse Dorothee Pautsch, Matthias Jaroch (eds.): Files on the foreign policy of the Federal Republic of Germany . Volume 2. Oldenbourg, Munich 2001, p. 31, notes 7 and 8.
  17. ^ Publisher: Wetenschappelijke Uitgeverij. No German translation. The title corresponds to “The March into the Fourth Reich ”.
  18. ↑ Torben Fischer, Matthias N. Lorenz (Ed.): Lexicon of "Coping with the Past" in Germany . Bielefeld 2007, p. 103 .
  19. ↑ This sequence of names according to documents from the State Chancellery of North Rhine-Westphalia, archive, Reg. No. 718 "National Socialism" 1949–1973. Likewise, Düsseldorf City Archives, Sign. 0-1-22: Families…, Letter B. Remarkably, listed here as a contemporary witness . Changing names, sometimes just by changing a single letter (here: by rearranging the two parts of the double first name) was a popular method to later disguise one's own identity. In the post-war period Bornemann used "Friedrich Karl B.", including the scientific literature on the Naumann group. Likewise the British authorities: now readable in The National Archives , Kew Arrest of Dr Naumann and his associates: documents impounded at residence of FK Bornemann on 14 January 1953. Sign. FO 371/103911. Entire archive stock in this regard: See web links.
  20. ↑ Frequently misspelling "Haselmeyer" u. Ä. What makes research difficult. Real name form after Norbert Frei.
  21. ↑ Bernt Engelmann : The ABC of big money . Verlag der Nation , Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-373-00162-5 , p. 100 .
  22. ↑ FO 371/103896: Instructions for arrest of Dr Bornemann and Karl Kaufmann as soon as they can be located in the UK zone. FO 371/103911: Handover of prisoners to the Germans on April 1, 1953; FO 371/103912: Transfer to the Federal Court of Justice, press; FO 371/103900 Contacts between the foreign offices of both countries: the Germans think that there are not enough grounds for imprisonment for Bornemann; FO 371/103901 Bornemann drew up a network of agents in the Soviet zone of occupation , called the "East Zone".