Oskar Körner

NSDAP delegation at the German Day in Coburg in October 1922. Körner is on the left with his pipe and hat.

Oskar Körner (born January 4, 1875 in Oberpeilau , Reichenbach district , Province of Silesia , † November 9, 1923 in Munich ) was a German businessman and National Socialist politician . From 1920 to 1923 he was second chairman, advertising chairman and propaganda leader of the NSDAP . Körner died as a participant in the Hitler-Ludendorff putsch .

Life

Oskar Körner grew up as an orphan in his place of birth. After attending primary school, he moved to Bielefeld in 1890 as an apprentice and assistant . From 1898 he did his military service there with the 2nd Westphalian Infantry Regiment No. 15 and was released in 1900 as a corporal. He then moved to Düsseldorf , where he married his wife Frieda on January 3, 1903 († July 5, 1912). The couple had two sons: Hans (born May 14, 1903) and Friedrich (born April 2, 1906). He was a Protestant .

After the beginning of World War I , he was deployed from August 2, 1914 for four years in the medical service on the Western Front, where he also took part in the Battle of Verdun and was awarded the War Merit Cross with Swords . Most recently with the rank of medical sergeant, he was released on December 17, 1918 to Munich , where he settled in Edlingerstrasse.

After the end of the war he worked in a toy store in Rosental near Munich's Viktualienmarkt , which he took over from M. Koller on March 15, 1919. With this takeover he later gained a great reputation within the NSDAP. The party profited from his willingness to donate, as he allegedly gave half of the profits of his toy store to the NSDAP. He was considered one of the party's earlier financiers. The businessman Banderer took over the business after Körner's death in 1923.

Then he reported to the resident army and became a member of the German National Guard and Trutzbund as well as of the national and anti-Semitic white - collar workers ' union of the German National Trade Aid Association .

After a speaker appearance by Hitler in the Sterneckerbräu on February 5, 1920, Körner became a member of the DAP , later renamed the NSDAP (membership number 743). As a co-founder of the National Socialist German Workers' Party , he belonged to Hitler's inner circle in the early days of the party building. Körner was also instrumental in the design of the swastika as a party symbol, in connection with which, however, he voted for the left-wing swastika. He was also close friends with the jeweler and goldsmith Joseph Fuess , who u. a. designed the Golden Party Badge and found its way through Körner. A steep career in the party followed, as he was promoted by Adolf Hitler to second secretary of the party in July 1920 and to first secretary of the party on September 30, 1920. On December 17, 1920, Körner helped raise funds and finance the purchase of the Völkischer Beobachter .

In January 1921 Eugenie Haug , niece and employee of Körner, lived temporarily with him in Munich. On January 21, 1921, Körner was re-elected at a general members' meeting with a clear vote under party chairman Anton Drexler as second party chairman. He held this office until January 31, 1922, when he then served as advertising chairman and propaganda director until his death. In this office, he devoted himself to several small jobs, such as winning new party members, sticking and pasting over and tearing posters, painting swastikas and distributing leaflets. You can still see Körner's works on the Braunau railway bridge in Munich today . He was also often accompanied by Hitler as a delegate, meeting leader and hall guard, and was part of his bodyguard. Körner was also able to make a name for himself as a talented speaker, which is why he was one of the propagandists of earlier DAP / NSDAP history . He continued to gain reputation within the movement by founding several local NSDAP groups in the area around Landshut (October 4, 1920), Augsburg (April 1922) and Coburg (October 1922). He was also party leader of the Schwabing section .

Hitler cultivated a close friendship with Körner and his family, which is why he spent the Christmas festivities there in the early 1920s. Research by several historians shows that Körner was considered a very loyal and devoted supporter of Hitler. Through the close contact, Körner's niece Eugenie and her brother Ernst Haug also came into the closer circle of the leadership of the German Workers' Party .

As a guest at a lecture by the then still young local group Wielenbach , Körner met Otto Dickel , whose rhetoric he was enthusiastic about. As a result, he engaged him on June 24, 1921 as a speaker in the ballroom of the Munich Hofbräuhaus . As the responsible NSDAP chairman, a criminal complaint was brought against Körner on June 30, 1921, after he had participated in a prohibited distribution of leaflets by the NSDAP on June 15, 1921. A subsequent trial resulted in a final sentencing to a week's imprisonment. He was accused of having participated in the distribution of a hate speech against MP Karl Gareis , calling for murder . However, this did not prevent him from participating again in a leaflet distribution by the NSDAP on July 18, 1923. On July 28, 1921, he also posted leaflets calling for participation in a party meeting in the Krone Circus .

On July 11, 1921, one day after the exclusion proceedings against Hermann Esser and disputes with Drexler and Otto Dickel , he briefly resigned from the NSDAP together with Hitler. After his return to the party, Hitler took over the party leadership on July 29, 1921, and Körner subsequently became a member of the new party executive. He was confirmed as second party leader under Hitler.

On January 12, 1922, Körner was sentenced to three months in prison along with Hitler, Hermann Esser and a few other followers for breach of the peace and assault. The background to this conviction was the storming of a meeting of the Bayernbund on September 14, 1921, where it had seriously injured the speaker Otto Ballerstedt . However, after just six weeks, Körner was released early from Stadelheim prison. The Munich Latest News reported on October 3, 1921, about the now unemployed businessman Körner, who described his actions as an act of affect. On April 4, 1923, Körner and the former board members had to answer for offenses against the banking law in court. Körner's last conviction is dated August 30, 1923.

From October 14 to 15, 1922, he was drawn to the German Day in Coburg as a federal member of the Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund and in the role of the NSDAP delegation , where street battles between the SA and KPD and SPD members broke out.

After internal party directional battles, in which Körner wanted to shift the emphasis from the military to the political side, he resigned on January 29, 1923 as vice chairman of the party committee, but remained in the party. Hans Jacob took his place .

On April 19, 1923, his last place of residence was registered on Baaderstrasse.

Körner took part in the German Days of September 1 and 2, 1923 in Nuremberg and on September 30, 1923 in Bayreuth .

Death and propaganda appropriation

Odeonsplatz on November 9, 1923 after the putsch was put down

In November 1923, Körner took part in the so-called " Hitler Putsch ", an attempt by Hitler, General Erich Ludendorff and several other leaders of the völkisch-nationalist right to usurp power in the German Reich through a violent putsch from the Munich Bürgerbräukeller . After the attempt by the putschists to win over the regional violent leaders around Colonel Seißer , General Lossow and Ritter von Kahr on their side on the night of November 8th and 9th, they attempted to march through downtown Munich in To march in the direction of the Feldherrnhalle and from there to the Bavarian military area command in order to pull the population of the Bavarian capital on their side and still be able to persuade the local rulers to join the coup.

Grains was initially among the party members in the Bürgerbräukeller in preparation for the coup , then pushed the march to the Feldherrnhalle in the amount of Marienplatz for demonstration and marched at the head of the second row to the left of Alfred Rosenberg and Arno Schickedanz with. Albrecht von Graefe , Julius Streicher , Max Stuhlmann and Theodor von der Pfordten also marched in this row. When the train reached the Feldherrnhalle, there was a collision with the Bavarian state police . In the ensuing exchange of fire between the police and the coup plotters, four policemen and fourteen coup plotters, including Körner, were killed. Two more died in the courtyard of the military area command. It is reported that Körner's skull was shattered when he jumped protectively in front of Adolf Hitler after his bodyguard Ulrich Graf fell to the ground, seriously injured. According to a National Socialist publication from 1933, Körner and Kurt Neubauer were the first two victims to be fatally wounded in front of the Feldherrnhalle .

Körner's body was initially buried in Munich's north cemetery.

After the re-establishment of the NSDAP, Körner was included in the cult of the “martyrs of the movement” : Hitler dedicated the first volume of his book Mein Kampf to him and the fifteen other killed putschists and had the blood order donated. After the National Socialists came to power, numerous streets in the German Reich were named after Körner, for example in Bayreuth, Breslau, Leverkusen, Leslau (in the Wartheland ), Munich, Weiden, Regensburg and Wuppertal.

In 1935, Körner's body was exhumed and, on November 9, 1935, on the occasion of a commemorative march on the 12th anniversary of the failed Hitler coup, was transferred in a sarcophagus together with the fifteen other killed putschists to the "Temple of Honor" on Munich's Königsplatz and buried there.

After the end of the Second World War , the Allied Control Council contacted his family to decide on the whereabouts of the remains.

literature

• Paul Bruppacher: Adolf Hitler and the history of the NSDAP , 2008
• Albrecht Tyrell: From “Drummer” to “Leader”. The change in Hitler's self-image between 1919 and 1924 and the development of the NSDAP. Fink, Munich 1975, ISBN 3-7705-1221-9 , see register p. 294.
• Othmar Plöckinger: History of a Book: Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" 1922–1945 . Oldenbourg, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-486-57956-8 .
• Mathias Rösch: The Munich NSDAP 1925–1933. An investigation into the internal structure of the NSDAP in the Weimar Republic . Oldenbourg, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-486-56670-9 . (At the same time: Munich, University, dissertation, 1998).
• Anton Joachimsthaler : Hitler's path began in Munich 1913–1923 , 2000
• Anton Joachimsthaler: Hitler's List: A Document of Personal Relationships , 2003
• Hans-Günter Richardi : Hitler and his backers. New facts on the early history of the NSDAP. 1991.
• Richard Bauer: Munich, Capital of the Movement , 1993
• Ulrike Claudia Hofmann: traitors fall into the distance! Femicide in Bavaria in the twenties , 2000
• Horst Möller , Andreas Wirsching , Walter Ziegler (historian) : National Socialism in the Region. Contributions to regional and local research and international comparison , 1996
• Konrad Heiden : Adolf Hitler: The Age of Irresponsibility, a biography , 1936
• Werner Maser : The early history of the NSDAP , 1965
• Werner Maser: Adolf Hitler - The End of the Leader Legend , 1980
• Werner Maser: The Storm on the Republic , 1973
• Martin Döring: Parliamentary Arm of the Movement , 2001
• Kurt Pätzold , Manfred Weißbecker : History of the NSDAP 1920–1945 , 1998
• Uwe Lohalm: Völkischer Radikalismus , 1970
• Hermann Bethge: The Führer and his work: Bd. A leader rises (years of battle)
• Hans Weberstedt, Kurt Lagner: Memorial Hall for the Fallen of the Third Reich , 1936
• Wolfgang Horn: Leader ideology and party organization in the NSDAP (1919–1933) , 1972
• Ernst Deuerlein: The rise of the NSDAP in eyewitness reports , 1982
• Ernst Deuerlein: Hitler: A Political Biography , 1969
• Hans Volz : Dates of the history of the NSDAP , 1935
• Mathias Rösch: The Munich NSDAP 1925–1933. An investigation into the internal structure of the NSDAP in the Weimar Republic , 2002
• Thomas Weber : How Adolf Hitler became a Nazi: From an apolitical soldier to the author of “Mein Kampf” , 2016

Individual evidence

1. ^ Robert Cecil: The Myth of the Master Race. Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology . 1972, p. 41.
2. ↑ Street names Bayreuth
3. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from February 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.