Osthilfe (German Empire)

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The Osthilfe was from 1926 to 1937 an agricultural policy support program of the national government and the Prussian state government for the eastern Prussian provinces . At the turn of 1932/33 the explosive Osthilf scandal developed . The possible involvement of Reich President Paul von Hindenburg could have played a role in his appointment of Hitler as Reich Chancellor on January 30, 1933.

background

With the Empire and the economic boom of the German Empire began in the eastern provinces agrarian rural exodus . The migration of the rural population to the western industrial areas mainly affected the province of East Prussia . In 1910 it was the third largest Prussian province after Silesia and Brandenburg and had the lowest population density with 55 inhabitants per square kilometer . In the mid-1930s, settlement was only half as dense as the national average. The province did not recover from the Russian destruction in August 1914 (see here ) until the 1920s. The Treaty of Versailles was fateful : West Prussia and Posen fell to newly founded Poland , and Danzig became a Free City . The Polish Corridor increased the supply problems (and external threats).

The Osthilfe

Eastern Aid Act of March 31, 1931.

East Prussia and the Posen-West Prussia border mark were Germany's agricultural districts in extreme monoculture in 1919 . Before the First World War , agricultural production was enough to feed 3 million people. After that, the self-sufficiency efforts of the eastern neighbors broke off the previously flourishing trade with the East. The rural exodus and the corridor exacerbated this already difficult situation. The transport costs for necessary imports (machines, coal, fertilizer, mineral oil) rose dramatically and made the achievable prices fall below the market value in the empire.

The Prussian state government and the Reich government decided in 1926 to help with credit policy measures. The "General Border Aid" was intended to make it easier for the estates in East Prussia , Pomerania , Brandenburg , Silesia and in the border region of Posen-West Prussia to reschedule and discharge their debts (which are significantly larger than the national average) . Because of ever higher interest charges, falling profitability and a drop in the price of rye and potatoes from 1927 onwards, there were increasing calls for support for East German agriculture. East Prussia's Upper President Ernst Siehr had campaigned successfully for such funding programs since 1922.

The East Prussia Act , passed on May 18, 1929 by the Hermann Müller ( SPD ) cabinet , was intended to ensure agriculture and food in the German Reich through settlement loans, interest subsidies and state guarantees. In July 1930 - in the meantime the global economic crisis had begun - the law was reinforced by an emergency ordinance . In total, by 1933, “an impenetrable jungle of 61 laws, ordinances, guidelines and 60 official decrees” had emerged. These efforts were later summarized under the name Osthilfe . The problem regions of Eastern Bavaria also benefited to a modest extent from aid from the East, including funds for road construction.

The Cabinet Brüning I brought a formal on March 31, 1931 Eastern Europe Cooperation Act to cancel the debt of the farms on the way. The funding was extended to the entire East Elbe agriculture. At the end of May, this Osthilfegesetz was connected to the explosive project of the settlement of new farmers on land belonging to large landowners who had gone bankrupt. This brought Briining the charge of "agrarbolshevism" and led to his overthrow.

Reich Commissioner for Eastern Aid was Hans Schlange-Schöningen . His deputy, Kurt Wachsmann , played a key role in the development and organization of Osthilfe.

The Eastern Aid Scandal

doubt

District administrators like Herbert Ziemer recognized that subsidies from individual businesses were an invitation to abuse and that it was almost impossible for the administration to act fairly. In June 1931, the first allegations of corruption were named in a confidential report that dealt with Hindenburg's interventions in matters of agricultural aid. The East Aid Commissioner from Pomerania , Johann Georg von Dewitz , gave his relatives and some of Hindenburg's relatives a very generous amount of support. In this context, it is suspected that Hindenburg and Brüning were influencing the following disciplinary proceedings. However, the issue has not been clearly clarified.

Erich Ludendorff started a campaign in his public observatory on November 27, 1932 , in which he drew attention to irregularities in the financing and collection for Gut Neudeck and accused Hindenburg of being influenced by “certain circles”. The Reich Chancellery and the office of the Reich President only announced that “the suspicions were irrelevant and that official denials were deliberately avoided.” Elard von Oldenburg-Januschau , neighbor and friend of Hindenburg, responded to the allegations with an open letter to the Kreuz- Newspaper . This was then discussed in all the major newspapers; the affair widened in the following days to the "Neudeck tax matter": "Who actually paid the gift tax?"

Representatives of the Reichs-Landbund (RLB) presented to Reich President Hindenburg on the morning of January 11, 1933. They voiced sharp attacks against the agricultural and settlement policy of the Schleicher cabinet and accusations of "agrarbolshevism". In the afternoon there was a new meeting with the participation of Reich Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher , Reich Food Minister Freiherr von Braun and representatives of the cabinet. An open declaration of war by the RLB to the Schleicher cabinet had already been forwarded to the press in the form of a press release.

Chancellor Schleicher and his cabinet rejected the RLB's allegations on January 12, 1933 and protested against the form of the press release. The cabinet stopped all negotiations with the RLB. The Reichsverband der Deutschen Industrie published a statement expressing outrage over the actions of the RLB.

abuse

Gut Neudeck around 1860, Alexander Duncker collection

Lina von Hindenburg , the widow of Hindenburg's brother, could not hold the old Hindenburgsche Gut Neudeck due to hopeless overindebtedness and offered it for sale in autumn 1927. It was given to Hindenburg on his 80th birthday on October 2, 1927. His friend Oldenburg-Januschau had collected the money for this primarily from members of the Reich Association of German Industry and the Reichslandbund .

The Reich Finance Minister, Count Schwerin von Krosigk, reported to the budget committee on January 13, 1933 on the financial situation of the states and municipalities. If the German National People's Party abstained , the committee accepted a motion from the center according to which it should be clarified

1. which areas are rescheduled and
2. what sums of money flowed into large estates on the one hand and medium-sized and small businesses on the other from aid to the east,
3. the extent of the settlement in 1932 and which settlement areas were made available in 1933.

After the DNVP had held back until then, Alfred Hugenberg offered his party's participation in government in a conversation with Schleicher. His condition was the amalgamation of the Ministry of Economics and Food in his hand.

On January 19, 1933, the center delegate Joseph Ersing revealed in the budget committee of the Reichstag details of the misuse of public funds from Osthilfe: “And if the funds given by the Reich were not used to cover debts, but to buy luxury cars and racehorses and to travel to the Riviera would be used, then the Reich would have to demand repayment of the money. The large landowner groups are trying to make a further parliamentary negotiation impossible. That is why the strongest activity for an immediate dissolution of the Reichstag is being developed behind the scenes ” .

The allegations aroused interest not least because in connection with Ludendorff's revelations the names of Hindenburg and v. Oldenburg-Januschaus had been mentioned in the press. These families should also have benefited from the allocation of public funds. It was also known at the end of 1932 that Neudeck had been transferred to the president's son Oskar von Hindenburg to avoid inheritance tax . This could not be legally challenged, but it damaged the image of Hindenburg as "an honest and correct Prussia without fault or blame" and increased interest in the recent revelations.

On January 21, 1933, the DNVP also announced open opposition. She spoke of the danger of "Bolshevism in the countryside" - as it did in 1932 against Briining.

On January 22, 1933, Hitler, Wilhelm Frick , Hermann Göring , Paul Körner , Franz von Papen , Otto Meissner and Oskar von Hindenburg met in the house of Joachim von Ribbentrops . It was about the formation of a Hitler-Papen cabinet and the overthrow of the Schleicher cabinet. Hitler and Oskar von Hindenburg spoke for about two hours in private in the next room. Meissner reported later in the Wilhelmstrasse trial that Hindenburg had said in the taxi on the way back that “there is now no other option” than to make Hitler chancellor. Historians such as Karl-Dietrich Bracher suspect that Hitler threatened Hindenburg with further revelations; besides, Papen himself agreed to be Vice Chancellor; DNVP and Stahlhelm would have a majority in the cabinet and further revelations could be prevented.

On January 28, 1933, Schleicher announced in the Daily Rundschau that he would ask Hindenburg for authorization to dissolve the Reichstag. In the event of rejection, he announced his resignation. At the same time he warned of a "Papen-Hugenberg dictatorship cabinet". At the cabinet meeting that morning there were no major objections from the ministers to Schleicher's plan. At noon he met with Hindenburg. This refused and released Schleicher. Although Schleicher was expected to resign, the press treated the news as a sensation. Hindenburg appointed Hitler Chancellor on January 30, 1933. He formed a government made up of German nationalists and National Socialists . Hugenberg became Reich Minister for Economics and Nutrition, in this function also Commissioner for Aid to the East.

The Berliner Tageblatt reported on the collection of the files on the Eastern Aid scandal that had already been delivered by officials from the Reich Commissioner for Eastern Aid on the morning of February 2, 1933. Five days later, an article about riots that prevented the investigation into the Eastern Aid scandal from being continued followed in the same newspaper . On February 25, 1933 , the social democratic newspaper Vorwärts reported under the title “Der Osthilfesumpf” that the Berlin police chief had forbidden SPD member Kurt Heinig to publish a brochure as a reporter for the committee of inquiry into the Osthilfe scandal - because of alleged threats to public order.

Aftermath

The enabling law was on 23 March 1933 Reichstag decided (444 "yes", 94 "no", 109 not present, of which 81 MPs were KPD off previously been). The Committee of Inquiry into Osthilfe ended its work on May 3, 1933 and found no irregularities in its final report.

On the occasion of the anniversary of the Battle of Tannenberg on August 27, 1933, Hindenburg received a certificate from Göring, the Prime Minister of Prussia , with which the Langenau domain (previously owned by the Hindenburg family) and the Preußenwald forest near Gut Neudeck as Gift to Hindenburg. Both were then declared tax-free by Hitler and Göring as long as they were owned by male successors of the Hindenburg family. The Reich also took on the further expansion and renovation of Gut Neudeck. Three weeks later the office of the Reich President asked for a written confirmation of this promise and an early payment. In his 1970 memoirs, Brüning said in this context that “the Reich President was convinced that Papen would only have brought Hitler to power in order to re-establish the monarchy. When concerns arose in this direction for the first time in the summer, a neighboring property was given to Hindenburg by Neudeck [...] Oskar von Hindenburg managed to dispel his father's concerns ”.

After the death of Reich President Paul von Hindenburg on August 2, a referendum was scheduled on August 18, 1934 on the merging of the offices of Reich Chancellor and President in the person of Führer Adolf Hitler for August 19, 1934. In a radio speech the evening before, Oskar von Hindenburg promoted the merger:

“My now eternal father himself saw in Adolf Hitler his immediate successor as head of the German Reich, and I act in accordance with my father's intention when I call on all German men and women to hand over my father's office to the Führer and To vote for Chancellor.
And so the Marschallsturm zu Tannenberg is still shouting these days: 'Get together and stand firmly behind Germany's leader. Shows outward and inward that an indissoluble bond tightly spans the German people in one will. '"

- Oskar von Hindenburg : radio speech from August 18, 1934

After aggressive propaganda by the NSDAP, 84.6% voted “Yes”. That corresponded to a little over 70% of all eligible voters.

In 1936, Oldenburg-Januschau published his memoirs ("Memories") and stated that he had numerous conversations in Neudeck and the neighboring Januschau with the aim of influencing Hindenburg: however, these attempts were "only in the rarest of cases" successful been. The former Prime Minister of Prussia, the Social Democrat Otto Braun, renewed in his memoirs in 1940 the accusation that the Neudeck donation had made the Reich President "personally interested in agriculture".

The former Minister for Food and Agriculture in the Papen and Schleicher cabinets , Magnus Freiherr von Braun , published his book From East Prussia to Texas in 1955 , in which he described the course of aid to the East from his perspective. He rejected all allegations of irregularity and vehemently defended Oldenburg-Januschau. He also held this point of view in the 3rd “revised and supplemented” version from 1965: “Is it permissible for Dr. hc Otto Brauns probably only understand in connection with the fact that the deposition of Braun as Prime Minister in Prussia bore the signature of Hindenburg ” . He refers to the committee report of May 23, 1933: "The report found that there were no complaints in any of the cases . "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Rüdiger Döhler : East Prussia after the First World War . Einst und Jetzt, Vol. 54 (2009), pp. 219-235.
  2. ^ Fried von Batocki, Klaus von der Groeben: Adolf von Batocki. In action for East Prussia and the Reich. A picture of life . Ostsee-Verlag, Raisdorf 1998, ISBN 3-9802210-9-1 .
  3. ↑ a b c Magnus von Braun: Path through four time epochs , pp. 211, 223, 225.
  4. ↑ Helmut Braun: Osthilfe 1926–1937 (Historical Lexicon of Bavaria, online )
  5. ^ Gerhard Schulz : Between Democracy and Dictatorship. Constitutional Policy and Reich Reform in the Weimar Republic , 1992, pp. 211f.
  6. ↑ Herbert Ziemer, unpublished memoirs, p. 133 (private property).
  7. ↑ a b Bracher, pp. 453, 619.
  8. ↑ a b Weßling, pp. 64 f., 67 f., Sources there
  9. ↑ a b files of the Reich Chancellery
  10. ↑ a b c Schulthess 1933, pp. 12, 18, 23.
  11. ^ Brüning, p. 662.
  12. ↑ Files of the Reich Chancellery from August 1 and 2, 1934.
  13. ↑ Here quoted from: Max Domarus: Hitler. Speeches and proclamations. 1932-1945. Commented on by a German contemporary . Volume 1, Süddeutscher Verlag, Munich, p. 444.

swell

  • Reich Chancellery files . Volume December 1932 to January 1933, issue of the Schleicher cabinet.
  • Berliner Tageblatt , No. 56, dated February 2, 1933 (report on the collection of the files already delivered on the Osthilfe scandal by officials of the Reich Commissioner for Eastern Aid on the same morning).
  • Berliner Tageblatt , No. 64, of February 7, 1933 (rioting and riot scenes prevent the investigation into the Osthilf scandal from continuing).
  • Magnus Freiherr von Braun : From East Prussia to Texas. Experiences and contemporary historical considerations of an East German . Stollhamm 1955. From the 3rd, revised edition under the title: “Path through four time epochs. From the East Prussian manor life of the fathers to the son's space exploration in America ”. Limburg 1965.
  • Heinrich Brüning : “Memoirs. 1918–1934 ". Stuttgart 1970. pp. 377, 393, 662.
  • Max Domarus: Hitler. Speeches and proclamations. 1932-1945. Commented on by a German contemporary . Süddeutscher Verlag Munich.
  • Albert Grzesinski : In the fight for the German republic. Memories of a Social Democrat. Edited by Eberhard Kolb . Munich 2001 (series of publications by the Reichspräsident-Friedrich-Ebert-Gedenkstätte Foundation 9).
  • Elard von Oldenburg-Januschau : memories . Leipzig 1936, p. 218.
  • Schulthess' European History Calendar. Edited by Ulrich Thürauf, Volume 74: 1933, Munich 1934.
  • Völkischer Beobachter , No. 102 of April 12, 1933 (report that “the agitation over the Eastern aid scandal has collapsed”).
  • Ludendorffs Volkswarte , episode 47 of November 27, 1932, episodes 48, 49, 50.
  • Vorwärts , No. 67, of February 9, 1933 (Nazis have eliminated "all control over the Osthilfegewinnler").
  • Vorwärts , No. 95, of February 25, 1933 (“Der Osthilfesumpf” / report on the ban on the publication of the brochure by SPD MP Kurt Heinig, reporter of the committee of inquiry into the Osthilfe scandal, because of endangering public order).
  • Vossische Zeitung , January / February 1933 (bourgeois-liberal reporting, an article almost daily from January 19)

literature

  • Karl-Dietrich Bracher : The dissolution of the Weimar Republic. A study on the problem of the decline in power in a democracy . Athenäum-Verlag / Droste, Königstein / Düsseldorf 1978, ISBN 3-7610-7216-3 (unchanged reprint of the 5th edition, Villingen 1971).
  • Bruno Buchta: The Junkers and the Weimar Republic. Character and importance of aid to the east in the years 1928–1933 . East Berlin 1959
  • Klaus von der Groeben : Administration and Politics 1918–33 using the example of East Prussia . 2nd, expanded edition. Lorenz von Stein Institute for Administrative Sciences at Christian Albrechts University, Kiel 1988
  • Wolfgang Weßling: Hindenburg, Neudeck and the German economy. Facts and contexts of an “affair” , in: Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 64, 1977, issue 1, pp. 41–73.
  • Angelika Roidl, The "Osthilfe" under the government of the Reich Chancellor Müller and Brüning (contributions to economic and social history 5), Weiden 1994. ISBN 3-929318-17-2 .
  • Heinrich-August Winkler : Weimar. 1918-1933. The history of the first German democracy . 4th edition, Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-4064-4037-1 .

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