Otto-Ernst Schüddekopf

Otto-Ernst Schüddekopf (born November 20, 1912 in Berlin , † October 19, 1984 in Braunschweig ) was a German historian .

Life

Schüddekopf was born in Berlin-Charlottenburg in 1912 . He attended a grammar school in Potsdam before he began studying political geography, psychology, philosophy, history and German literature at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin in October 1931 . In 1931 he met the right-wing intellectual Friedrich Hielscher through Ernst Niekisch . Hielscher had assembled a circle of men whom he directed both intellectually and religiously. Schüddekopf was interested in the group, but couldn't make up his mind to join it at first. It was not until 1934 that he worked with us fully. In the same year he began studying at the Institute for Defense Policy and Defense Geography at Berlin University, where in 1938 he was awarded a doctorate with a thesis on British naval policy. phil. received his doctorate.

After receiving his doctorate, he first worked as a research assistant in the military science department of the Air Force . After the beginning of the Second World War , Schüddekopf became a soldier in February 1940. After serving at the front, he worked for the War History Department of the Wehrmacht High Command from December 1941 . In 1942 he was finally offered a position in the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) of the SS through connections with the Hielscher Circle . There he worked in Office VI (Foreign SD) in Department D ("West") as a consultant for England. Schüddekopf was responsible for espionage against Great Britain and worked closely with Walter Schellenberg , the head of Office VI. In 1943 he was also appointed SS-Obersturmführer.

After the end of the Second World War and the fall of the Nazi regime in 1945, Hielscher and his circle consistently presented themselves as a resistance group. The group not only helped isolated victims to flee, but also at least planned active resistance. In fact, Hielscher hid the communist Alfred Kantorowicz for a time in his apartment. According to the presentation of the group, both the Schüddekopf post in the Reich Security Main Office and Wolfram Sievers ' as managing director of the Ahnenerbe Research Association were part of the plan to fill central positions in the party and administration with members of the district in the event of an overthrow. Hielscher was also informed about the planning of the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 . Today the position of the circle is controversial: The resistance activity of the circle is confirmed by recent research - for example the influential historian Michael H. Kater and the German social scientist Ina Schmidt, who presented an important dissertation in 2004. In the case of the high-ranking SS officer Schüddekopf, but especially in the Sievers case, who was involved in National Socialist crimes, it is difficult to determine where the alleged resistance activity began, where it ended, and where complicity began instead.

Shortly before the end of the war, Schüddekopf came to his wife in Braunschweig at the beginning of April 1945 , where he reported to the American military command after the Allied invasion. There he stated that he had worked in the Reich Security Main Office and gave the names and addresses of the members of the Hielscher circle who were supposed to testify that he had belonged to the resistance. He was interned at Camp 020 (Latchmere House Prison) in south-west London, where he gave detailed information to the British Security Service about the British Volunteer Corps , the sending of agents to Ireland in preparation for an invasion and the espionage case of Cicero (aka Elyesa Bazna ) made. During Schüddekopf's imprisonment, Hielscher and other former members of the circle tried to prove his resistance activities with the help of reports and affidavits. As a result, the preliminary proceedings against Schüddekopf that had already been initiated were finally discontinued in October 1948. In March 1949 he was exonerated in the course of the denazification investigations. In the Soviet occupation zone , his writings The British Naval Policy (1938), British Thoughts on the Use of the Air Army (1939) and The Base Policy of the German Reich 1890-1914 (1941) were placed on the list of literature to be segregated.

In 1953 Schüddekopf worked as a lecturer in history and was co-editor of the international yearbook for history and geography lessons . His books were very well received, and his study of national Bolshevism in the Weimar Republic is considered particularly influential ( Linke Menschen von Rechts , 1960). He also dealt with the communist intellectual and functionary Karl Radek . His collection of sources on the Reichswehr in the Weimar Republic was also extremely well received and is still widely used today. In addition, he began several times to collect material for a representation of the resistance activities of the Hielscher circle, a plan that he no longer carried out. The scientist, who was awarded the Culture Prize of the German Trade Union Federation in 1973, died in 1984.

Fonts (selection)

• The military geographic and strategic bases of British naval policy from the beginning of imperialism to the end of the world war: 1880 to 1918 . Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg 1938 [Also in Buchh. ud T .: British naval policy: Defense geography and strategic principles; 1880 to 1918 . ( Publications of the Institute for General Defense Studies at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin . H. 2)].
• British thoughts on the use of the air force . Mittler, Berlin 1939.
• The base policy of the German Empire: 1890–1914 . Junker and Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1941 ( Writings for Politics and Foreign Studies , no. 74).
• German domestic politics in the last century and the conservative thought. The connections between foreign policy, internal governance and party history, illustrated by the history of the Conservative Party from 1807 to 1918 . Verlag Albert Limbach, Braunschweig 1951 ( contributions for history lessons. Sources and materials for the teacher's hand ).
• The army and the republic. Sources on the politics of the Reichswehr leadership 1918 to 1933 . Hanover / Frankfurt am Main 1955.
• Left people from right. The national revolutionary minorities and communism in the Weimar Republic . Stuttgart 1960 (New edition: National Bolshevism in Germany 1918–1933 . Frankfurt am Main 1973, ISBN 3-548-02996-5 ).
• Karl Radek in Berlin. A chapter in German-Russian relations in 1919 . In: Archives for Social History . Volume 2, 1962, pp. 87-166.
• Twenty Years of Western European School History Book Revision, 1945–1965: Facts and Problems . Limbach, Braunschweig 1966, 119 pp. ( Series of publications by the International Textbook Institute , Volume 12).
• Glorious imperial era . With an introduction by Hans-Joachim Schoeps . Ullstein, Berlin et al. 1973.
• Until everything falls apart. The history of fascism . Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1974.
• The German resistance against National Socialism: Its representation in curricula and textbooks of the subjects history and politics in the Federal Republic of Germany . On behalf of the Forschungsgemeinschaft 20. Juli e. V. (1st edition). Diesterweg, Frankfurt am Main / Munich et al. 1977 ( teaching and learning history . [1].). Zugl. published in: series of publications d. Research Association July 20th.
• The First World War . Bertelsmann-Lexikon-Verlag, Gütersloh 1977, ISBN 3-570-05021-1 .

literature

• Ina Schmidt: The Lord of Fire. Friedrich Hielscher and his circle between paganism, new nationalism and resistance against National Socialism . SH-Verlag, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-89498-135-0 (also dissertation at the University of Hamburg with Stefan Breuer 2002; see review by H-Soz-u-Kult ).

Web links

• Archive of the Institute for Contemporary History Munich – Berlin : Findmittel Online, holdings: ED 398 (PDF; 62 kB)

Remarks

1. ↑ On Schüddekopf's career, cf. Schmidt, The Lord of Fire , pp. 255f. There is also a photo of Schüddekopf there.
2. ↑ See Schmidt, Der Herr des Feuers , pp. 256f. (Note 657 with literature and sources).
3. ↑ On this Ina Schmidt, Der Herr des Feuers , p. 258.
4. ↑ Michael Kater, The “Ahnenerbe” of the SS 1935–1945: A contribution to the cultural policy of the Third Reich , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1974, p. 322f. (there, p. 322: “There was really resistance from the Hielscher circle, even if hardly anything has been announced today”); Schmidt, Der Herr des Feuers , Cologne 2004. On this, Berthold Petzinna, review of: Schmidt, Ina: Der Herr des Feuers. Friedrich Hielscher and his circle between paganism, new nationalism and resistance against National Socialism Cologne 2004 , in: H-Soz-u-Kult , July 29, 2004, who considers the resistance activity of the Hielscher circle to be "proven" by Schmidt's work.
5. ↑ Entry Schüddekopf in the British National Archive (English).
6. ↑ See Schmidt, Der Herr des Feuers , p. 285.
7. ↑ See the lists from 1946 and 1948 at polunbi.de
8. ↑ See the reviews of Klaus Werner Epstein's (in: Historische Zeitschrift 193, 1961, pp. 676–681) and G. Barracloughs (in: International Affairs 37, No. 4, 1961, p. 517).
9. ↑ See for example Karin Wieland, “Totalitarismus” als Rache , in: Alfons Söllner , Ralf Walkenhaus, Karin Wieland (eds.), Totalitarismus. A history of ideas of the 20th century , Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1997, pp. 117–141, here p. 121, which highlights him as an “early expert on Radek”.
10. ↑ See the review by Gordon A. Craigs , in: The American Historical Review 62, No. 1, 1956, pp. 135f.
11. ↑ See Schmidt, Der Herr des Feuers , pp. 288–292.