Reich Federation of German Officials

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The Reichsbund der Deutschen Beamten (RDB) was the union for German state officials in the German Reich from 1933 to 1945 .

Badge of the RDB

Emergence

The Reich Federation of German Civil Servants was a professional association affiliated to the National Socialist German Workers 'Party (NSDAP ), which was founded in 1933 as a unified organization of civil servants and replaced the German Civil Servants Union (DBB) and the other civil servants' associations of the Weimar Republic , in particular the General German Civil Servants Association ( ADB), entered. The DBB was of the NSDAP into line , eliminating the previous parliamentary democratic principle of organization, banned the trade union representation.

The head of the main office for civil servants in the Reich leadership of the NSDAP, Jacob Sprenger, took the lead in the organizational structure of the DBB . He united all powers of leadership within the DBB in his hand. Instead of representing interests, the purpose of the association was to “work on the new building of the empire”. According to the guidelines for the reorganization, new elections and coordination of the associations affiliated to the DBB of April 27, 1933, the DBB was transformed as an association of associations into a unitary association based on individual membership; the former member associations became specialist groups without financial sovereignty. On October 15, 1933, Adolf Hitler ordered the organization to be named "Reichsbund der Deutschen Beamten (RDB)"; its establishment was announced by Reichsbeamtenführer Hermann Neef at the border rally of the National Socialist Civil Service Department on the same day in Cologne . On November 11, 1933, the statutes of the RDB were announced and the organization was recognized by Reich Interior Minister Frick as the authoritative unified organization. The RDB began its work on January 1, 1934 and merged the "members of the previous civil servants 'associations and the student councils of the civil servants' department of the Reich leadership of the NSDAP as well as the previously unorganized civil servants into a single civil servant organization serving the public good". At the head of the association was the chairman Hermann Neef in the main office for civil servants in the party leadership.

tasks

The RDB acted as the umbrella organization for the civil servants, but in reality it was only misused to “re-educate” them in the sense of the National Socialist system. Representation of the interests of the civil servants was neither provided for under National Socialism, nor was it considered necessary. The tasks of the RDB included the education and training of the civil servants in the sense of National Socialism , i.e. the penetration of the civil servants with National Socialist ideas and thus the support of the political measures of the National Socialist state as well as the exercise of welfare measures.

Head / main office

The unrestricted leader principle applied within the RDB; In addition to the Führer (Reichswalter), the RDB consisted of the Führer Council and the Advisory Council with a purely advisory function.

As a unified organization of civil servants, the RDB was assigned to the main office for civil servants (the official seat was in Munich) of the NSDAP. This in turn functioned as an independent main office within the Reich leadership of the NSDAP. His area of ​​responsibility included participation in civil service legislation, political appraisal of civil servants before they were hired, promotions and transfers to higher posts.

The head of the main office for civil servants, Hermann Neef (1904–1950), was also the Reichswalter of the RDB. This main office comprised all members of the NSDAP who were professionally active as public officials. The vacancy was also filled by the main office. In financial matters, the RDB was under the supervision of the Reich Treasurer of the NSDAP.

The statutes of the RDB were drawn up in agreement with the Reich Minister of the Interior, whose consent was required for changes and who was also in charge of supervision. The RDB was initially an "party loyal organization". Through the ordinance on the implementation of the law to ensure the unity of party and state of March 29, 1935, he was declared an association of the NSDAP and placed under the financial supervision of the Reich treasurer of the party. The absolute primacy of the party manifested itself above all in the subordination of the Reichsbund to the main office for officials of the Reich leadership and its influence on the occupation of the offices in the RDB. By virtue of office, the head of the main office for civil servants was also the "Führer" (later "Reichswalter") of the RDB. The subordinate leadership positions in the RDB were occupied by the main office for civil servants. In practice, this led to the personal union of party and organizational offices down to the lowest level: regionally, the RDB was subdivided into districts, districts and places, whose borders coincided with those of the NSDAP and the main office for civil servants. The Gauamtsleiter of the main office were at the same time Gauwalter of the RDB, the district or local office leaders of the party at the same time district or local group administrators of the RDB. In addition to the personnel, the office technology bracketing was added: the offices of the main office for civil servants were merged with the offices of the RDB, which had to bear the costs.

organization

The territorial competence of the federal government corresponded to the structure of the NSDAP, ie the division into Gau , district and local areas. The work area of ​​a district administration of the RDB coincided with a district within the NSDAP. In part, the RPV was no longer divided into circles. The headquarters of the RDB was Berlin with its four main departments:

Main Division I - Organization and Propaganda

A. Organization Department
B. Propaganda Department
C. Department for Women Officials

Main Department II - Federal Treasury

A. Budget department of the structure, property management
B. Accounting and Cash Department
C. Audit Department
D. Statistics Department

Department III - Civil Service Policy and Civil Service Law

A. Civil Service Policy Department
B. Department of Civil Service Law
C. Pay Department
D. Department of Education and Instruction

Department IV - Economic and Social Policy

A. Economic Policy Department
B. Social Department

Student councils

The Reichsbund or the main office for civil servants summarized its members from a technical point of view according to the authority they belong to in 14 student councils:

  2. Reichsbahnverwaltung (including the Reich Ministry of Transport, Reichsautobahnen)
  4. Imperial Postal Administration (including Imperial Postal Ministry, Imperial Printing Office)
  6. Reich tax administration (including Reich building offices, Reich Ministry of Finance)
  8. Imperial Customs Administration (including Imperial Monopoly Administration)
  10. Wehrmacht administration
  12. Public banks (Reichsbank, State Banks, Landesbanken)
  14. Other Reich administrations (in particular Presidential Chancellery and Reich Chancellery, Foreign Office, Reich and Prussian Ministry of the Interior, Reich Health Office, Reich Archives, Reich Ministry of Labor, Reich Ministry of Transport without Reich Railway Administration, Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Reich Office for State Admissions, Reich Office for Spatial Planning, Reich Labor Department ).
  16. Public corporations of the Reich (Reichsversicherungsamt, Reichsknappschaft and Bezirksknappschaften, Reichsanstalt für Arbeitsvermittlungs und Arbeitslosenversicherung with state labor offices and employment offices, Reichsnährstand, Reichserbhofgericht, Deutsches Museum Munich, Deutsche Bücherei, Leipzig).
  18. Police officers - were recorded in the Kameradschaftsbund German police officers.
  20. Reich Justice Administration (including Reich Ministry of Justice)
  22. Forest management
  24. General country administration
  26. Municipal administration, German Municipal Association, municipal sanatoriums and nursing homes
  28. Other bodies, church officials, bar associations.

The student councils represented the further subdivision. The student councils were not independent civil servants' organizations, but institutions of the RDB and had the task of ensuring uniform processing of all civil servant matters in their area and of maintaining professional training.

membership

In principle, membership of the RDB was open to all active, inactive and retired officials of the Reich, the Reichsbahn, the Reichsbank, the states, the municipalities and the public corporations; Teachers could become members of the federal government if they had previously acquired membership in the Nazi teachers' association. The judicial officers with completed legal or political science training as well as the other judicial officers entrusted with judicial business (Rechtspfleger) and the district attorneys automatically acquired membership in the RDB by joining the Association of National Socialist German Jurists (later the Association of German Legal Guards). For the retired civil servants and civil servants surviving dependents, a special unitary organization was created on March 19, 1937, working closely on the RDB, the "Association of Retired Civil Servants and Survivors of Civil Servants eV" There was a principle that the RDB was open to all civil servants in the above categories however, a number of exceptions. Above all Jews were excluded within the meaning of the Reich Citizenship Law; Retired civil servants who, pursuant to the Law for the Restoration of the Civil Service of 7 April 1933, were retired due to non-Aryan descent or would have been retired if they had still been in service; Civil servants or retirement civil servants who, contrary to the Reich law of the same day, married a person of Jewish parents or grandparents after June 30, 1933, as well as civil servants who were dismissed for political unreliability. Another filter against the intrusion of unpopular people was created by the fact that the RDB decided on the admission of members of the Führer (Reichswalter). After all, a member could be expelled if he "grossly violates the principles of the National Socialist worldview or the purpose and tasks of the Federation". So every precaution was taken to keep the membership firmly under control and to keep racially or politically unpopular elements away from the federal government.

Membership was formally voluntary but did not prevent psychological pressure to join. For example, Hermann Neef announced in the "Völkischer Beobachter" that in view of the tasks and goals of the RDB, every German civil servant must see it as a mandate addressed to him to join the RDB. And in an appeal published in the National Socialist Official Gazette (NSBZ) in December 1933, it was said that acquiring membership in the RDB was "an honorary duty of every German civil servant"; those who do not belong to it place themselves outside of the people as a whole. In later years, the pressure to join the RDB was intensified. At the beginning of 1939, a decree by the Army High Command indicated that it was a matter of course for every Wehrmacht officer to belong to the comradeship of the Wehrmacht officials and thus to the RDB. "A Wehrmacht official who does not fulfill this duty places himself outside the community of his professional comrades. One can assume that he is far removed from the National Socialist idea of ​​community spirit. Such an attitude is in the Wehrmacht of the Third Reich, which is based on the closest community and comradeship intolerable. " Another incentive, if not indirect, pressure to join was the fact that, with the liquidation of the old civil servants' associations and the transfer of their social institutions and assets, the RDB also assumed a monopoly in this respect. If the officials wanted to use these services for themselves and their relatives, they had to join the RDB. The fact that many members of the old civil service organizations took this step becomes all the more understandable when one takes into account that they had largely created the assets and facilities of the RDB themselves through their earlier contributions to the disbanded old associations.

Membership numbers

By the end of 1937 the number rose to around 1.2 million. As a result of the annexation of Austria to the German Reich in 1938, a further 160,000 members were added, so that the Federation had around 1.4 million members. In May 1939 Neef put the number of members at 1.5 million. Of the members of the RDB recorded on January 1, 1939, 350,164 (28.2%) belonged to the NSDAP, of whom 102,619 (8.3%) were active in the political leadership of the party. These figures, which there is no reason to doubt, show that the RDB almost fully achieved its goal of covering all civil servants as far as possible. At the RDB leadership council meeting on January 21, 1936, Neef declared that 95% of the entire civil service had already joined the RDB.

Facilities

The RDB was significantly involved in the German Administrative Academies, which were supposed to promote professional training for civil servants.

The RDB press regularly published specialist journals for the individual professional groups, which were intended to provide both ideological and professional training for civil servants. B. "Der Deutsche Verwaltungsbeamte. National Socialist Official Gazette", "German Official Calendar" (pocket-sized yearbook).

Other institutions of the RDB were death benefit insurance, recovery care, legal protection office, debt relief office, TBC welfare and the general support office. The social activities of the RDB consisted accordingly in the granting of death grants, individual support in emergencies, tuberculosis aid, legal protection and training grants for the gifted. He maintained a large number of rest homes for adults and children and worked closely with the German Civil Service Insurance, the German Civil Service Health Insurance and the German Civil Service Fire Insurance. The RDB civil servants' home work, the former civil servants building society, financed private homes. Finally, the RDB carried out a major debt relief operation.

resolution

During the war, the Reichsleiter of the NSDAP, Martin Bormann , ordered the main office for civil servants and the civil servants' association to be closed.

After the defeat of the Third Reich in 1945, all National Socialist organizations were banned by law, including the National Socialist Association of Officials RDB.

In 1949, the German Association of Officials was re-established from various regional associations in the Federal Republic of Germany. Since the civil service for the GDR area was abolished, there was no successor association there.

literature

  • "Associations of civil servants under National Socialism. Synchronization for the purpose of elimination due to political or ideological opposition" by Volquardts, Elisabeth; Munich 2001
  • "Between dismantling and adaptation: DBB and National Socialism 1933", in: "100 years dbb 1918 - 2018" by Frisch, Stefan; Berlin 2018
  • "Between class awareness and trade union orientation. Civil servants and their interest groups in the Weimar Republic" von Schütz, Dieter; Baden-Baden 1992
  • "Mitteilungsblatt des Reichsbund der Deutschen Beamten", ed. from the Reichsbund der Deutschen Officials, Berlin 1935 - 1942.
  • "National Socialist Official Gazette" (with specialist editions), ed. from the main office for civil servants, Berlin 1932 ff.
  • "Almanac of German officials", ed. from the Reich Association of German Officials. Berlin 1934 1st edition, 1935 2nd edition
  • "Inventory of archival sources of the Nazi state", Munich 1991, Boberach, Heinz. (Ed.).
  • "The membership system in the Reichsbund der Deutschen Beamten (RDB.) EV", 3rd edition. 1941
  • "Organization book of the NSDAP", publisher: The head of the Reich organization of the NSDAP. 7th edition. 1943. Central publishing house of the NSDAP., Franz Eher Nachf., Munich
  • "Statute of the Reich Association of German Civil Servants"

swell

  • www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de
  • www.zerschlagung-gewerkschaften1933.de
  • www.dbb.de/der-dbb/organisation/chronik/gruendung-und-etablierung.html
  • www.jura.uni-mainz.de/Dateien/Laubinger_Beamteneinrichtungen_und_Gesetzgebung.pdf
  • www.100.dbb.de