Prince's Decree

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Historical research refers to a secret Fuehrer decree from the spring of 1940 by Adolf Hitler as a prince decree . In it he forbade all princes belonging to the armed forces of the dynasty and royal houses that ruled until 1918 from taking part in combat operations during the Second World War . On May 19, 1943, Hitler excluded all members of the former ruling royal houses from the Wehrmacht.

The background to the decree was the broad public participation at the funeral of Wilhelm Prince of Prussia , grandson of the last German Emperor Wilhelm II. He had taken part in the French campaign as a lieutenant with the 1st Infantry Division and was seriously wounded on May 23, 1940 near Valenciennes been. Although his death three days later in a field hospital in Nivelles, Belgium, was not discussed in the press or on the radio, the news itself and the place and date of his funeral spread through obituary notices and verbal reports. On May 29, on the occasion of his funeral, over 50,000 mourners formed a "silent trellis" between the Friedenskirche and the Temple of Antiquities in the Park of Sanssouci near Potsdam . It was the largest unorganized demonstration not officially announced in Hitler's reign. The demonstration revealed to Hitler the great sympathy and concern for the formerly ruling Hohenzollern family that still existed in large circles of the population and in the officer corps . Concerned about his popularity, Hitler immediately afterwards dictated the prince's decree , justifying the “international infiltration” of the royal houses. He wanted to prevent comparable soldier deaths from becoming an occasion for demonstrations of sympathy for German royal houses in the future.

Friedrich Josias Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha , who served as first lieutenant a. a. An orderly officer under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel on the French Channel Coast, thanks to a complaint, he was able to serve in the Wehrmacht until Germany's surrender in May 1945.

According to Stephan Malinowski, the process shows less of a discrepancy between the House of Hohenzollern and National Socialism , but rather "much more accurately" the "considerable size of the potential counter- charism " of the Hohenzollern, which they "never and at no point brought against National Socialism" .

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Thomas Stamm-Kuhlmann : The Hohenzollern . Siedler, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-88680-485-2 , p. 228 f.
  2. ^ Gerd Heinrich : History of Prussia. State u. Dynastie , Ullstein, Frankfurt / M., Berlin, Vienna 1984, ISBN 3-548-34216-7 , pp. 515f., There also the “international Versippung” (below), p. 516.
  3. ↑ Harald Sandner: The House of Saxony-Coburg and Gotha , p. 246.
  4. ^ Stephan Malinowski : The Hohenzollern and Hitler. Cicero online, June 30, 2005, accessed November 30, 2013 .